12 Mar
2024
12 Mar
'24
4:28 a.m.
I used the DEC VMS C compiler extensively while I was at NSWIT. I ported a lot of Berkley
(I think) C code to VMS. Some of their VLSI design suite, KIC etc. There weren’t a lot of
changes to make, the compiler and library was pretty K&R from what I remember. The
usual small header issues applied. VMS IO is a bit different from UNIX IO but they had a
mode (stream I think) that meant minimal changes to UNIX code.
http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/vax/lang/c/AI-L370C-TE…
It did help that the code I was working with was pretty damn good. I learn C porting KIC
to VMS.
On 12 Mar 2024, at 7:44 AM, Marc Rochkind
<mrochkind(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Since it came up in this thread, here's my review of Coherent in BYTE Magazine
(1985):
https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/Byte-Pick-Coherent-Theos.pdf
Marc
On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 11:13 AM Paul Ruizendaal <pnr(a)planet.nl> wrote:
On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon <pugs78 at gmail.com> wrote:
Peter Yardley
peter.martin.yardley(a)gmail.com
For no good reason, I've been wondering
about the early history of C
compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell.
Especially for x86. Anyone have tales?
Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX?
An unusual one would be the “revenue bomb” compiler that Charles Simonyi and Richard
Brodie did at Microsoft in 1981.
This compiler was intended to provided a uniform environment for the menagerie of 8 and
16-bit computers of the era. It compiled to a byte code which executed through a small
interpreter. This by itself was hardly new of course, but it had some unique features. It
generated code in overlays, so that it could run a code base larger than 64KB (but it
defined only one data segment). It also defined a small set of “system” commands, that
allowed for uniform I/O. I still have the implementation spec for that interpreter
somewhere.
This compiler was used for the first versions of Multiplan and Word, and my understanding
is that the byte code engine was later re-used in Visual Basic. I think the compiler also
had a Xenix port, maybe it even was Xenix native (and at this time, Xenix would still
essentially have been V7).
I am not sure to what extent this compiler was independent of the Bell compilers. It
could well be that it was based on PCC, Microsoft was a Unix licensee after all and at the
time busy doing ports. On the other hand, Charles Simonyi would certainly have been
capable of creating his own from scratch. I do know that this compiler preceded Lattice C,
the latter of which was distributed by Microsoft as Microsoft C 1.0.
Maybe others know more about this Simonyi/Brodie compiler?
Paul
Notes:
http://www.memecentral.com/mylife.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20080905231519/http://www.computerworld.com/sof…
http://seefigure1.com/images/xenix/xenix-timeline.jpg
--
My new email address is mrochkind(a)gmail.com 