[fpc-devel] Episode 4. Addressing and it's limits Part Two

[steve smithers]

> Mark Morgan Lloyd <markMLl.fpc-devel at telemetry.co.uk> wrote on Thu,
> 
> steve smithers wrote:
> 
> > Regardless of what you may believe, FreePascal is not the first compiler to be
> > implemented on 370 architecture. Should I tell tell their developers that 370
> > architecture is too much like a dinosaur to write a 32 bit compiler. IBM had 32
> > bit compilers available in the 1960's. Should I tell them that the architecture
> > is "broken". It's been around for 50 years and there are hundreds of compilers
> > available for it. From FORTRAN to GCC, from COBOL to ADA or from PASCAL/VS to
> > APL. All of these were (for the ones that were available from the late
> > 60's) 32 bit compilers.
> 
> I feel I have to respond to this after a couple of things I've read over 
> the last day or so. I for one have never attempted to belittle "big 
> iron"

I never intended to imply you did.  If I failed in this, I apolgise.  However
these comments were made by someone.  If you look back at the posts from
january you can see them for yourself.  It was these posts and their tone
that made me write this mammoth rebuttal.  If I'd known how much time that
it would consume, I probably wouldn't have started!

> ...  since it has always seemed clear to me that that type of kit has 
> its uses: if nothing else then to do things like running the name and 
> certificate servers that keep distributed systems going.

You might not intend to belittle big-iron, but it is statements such as this
that do just that.  There are millions lines of mainframe code out there
written in Cobol or Fortran or, yes, even Assembler that continue to form
the backbone of production systems of most of the big banks and financial
institions, cashpoint networks, supermarket admin systems, travel companies,
sales and administration systems and a host of others.  Not to mention the
government!

> In the current case I was relying on the precedent set by the GCC 
> porters and the Linux maintainers to say "OK, we need to have some 
> policy to determine what vintage of hardware is supported".

True.  But as I pointed out these systems are produced by IBM.   They may
be produced for "the open source community", but the bottom line is that 
they are there to sell tin.  IBM have never really got the idea that there
is more to being a computer company than selling boxes.  It is not in their 
interest to support old processors.

>                                                              However 
> noting the availability of old IBM operating systems and the interest 
> people have in running them, and in particular noting the amount of work 
> being put into the OS/380 project, I'm fairly rapidly coming to the 
> conclusion that the S/370 is worth supporting, even if we brush the 
> S/360 under the carpet.

> However I'm disturbed by comments like this from the mainflame brigade:
 
I don't care which end it comes from, it is nobodies business what IBM
produce but IBM and their customers.  Similarly, I don't give a tinkers
about whether you run MAC OS or Windows or Linux or even Solaris.  It's
nobodies business but yours.  The same applies to me.

--
Regards
Steve