13 Jul
2024
13 Jul
'24
3:57 p.m.
Hi,
John and Paul wrote:
Macros were used very extensively in VAX MACRO, both for user
programming and in the operating system. All of the low-level
system calls for user programs were implemented and documented as
macros. The OS assembly code made heavy use of macros as well.
Oh, no wonder the translator worked so well.
Well, doesn't it depend on whether VAX MACRO kept the macros as
high-level entities when translating them, or if it processed macros in
the familiar way into instructions that sat at the same level as
hand-written ‘assembler’. I don't think this thread has made that clear
so far.
--
Cheers, Ralph.
The VAX MACRO
compiler takes in VAX assembly source code, not
binary VAX instructions.
Does anyone know how extensively they used the macro facilities?
You can write much higher level stuff as macros than as single
instructions, which makes it a lot easier to do efficient
translation.