67 lines
3.4 KiB
Text
67 lines
3.4 KiB
Text
The ALGOL 68S System
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********************
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1. See a68s.1 in -man format for the goodies on offer.
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2. This system is presently exceeding slow (but correct). The reason is that
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it calls run-time routines to do absolutely everything. It is known that
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significant improvement can easily be made in this state of affairs, but not
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in this release.
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3. Other developments expected for the future are facilities for separate and
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mixed-language compilation (a student will tackle this next year), and a
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non-checking run time option which will run faster (but with less security)
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(but no student available for this yet).
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4. The system should run on any 44 or 24 system, but not on a 22 system as yet
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(that is another development in the waiting). It has actually been tested on
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sun3, moon3 and vax4.
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5. The system was originally delevoped for CDC machines, and then for PERQs
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running under PNX. Thus its method of compilation is not particularly suited
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to the ACK way of thinking (a compiler designed with ACK in mind from the
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start would have been very different). The CDC origin explains why all the
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sources are in upper case, and with numbered lines (however, I like numbered
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lines, so I have kept them, and a68s will even accept them still).
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6. Version control is by a program /util/tailor, which selectively exposes or
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hides commented out sections of the sources according to a recipe. See the
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start of aem/a68sdec.p for what all the tailoring parameters mean. Every
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source text is passed through tailor before being compiled.
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7. The system is written in a bastardized version of PASCAL called cpem (see
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README in the directory of that name). {This also provides an "improved" method
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of separate compilation which might be of benefit in pem.}
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8. The directories aem and liba68s have their own private versions of 'make'
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(therefore, '.' must precede '/bin' in your PATH). These prepare the tailoring
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recipes according to the system given in ack_sys (set environment variable
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MACH to override this). Unlike pem, separate versions of the compiler must
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exist to generate 44 and 24 (and eventually 22) code. To avoid keeping too
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many .o files around, the Makefile will do a clean before changing from a 44
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system to a 24 one, etc.
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9. Although a runtime library can be made using 'make' in liba68s, this is
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really intended for debugging libraries. A more usual system would be to use
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the 'compmodule' system in the liba68s directory of the appropriate mach.
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However, it is recommended that this be not included automatically in the
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'action' of each mach, because compiling an ALGOL 68S library takes over a
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hour on a microvax, and to do it for all of the 'mach's provided would use up
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a lot of time.
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10. To build the complete system requires
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make install in util
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make all in cpem
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make install in aem
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make install in EM/mach/???/liba68s
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11. The programs test/test.8 and test/tp8.8 are the main confidence-checkers.
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test.8 produces lots of numbers, with clear error messages interspersed if
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anything goes wrong. Its last few lines should contain 5 '.'s, followed by
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4'.'s and so on down to 0. There is one test needs commenting out if floating
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point is not available. tp8.8 is the transput test. It should print out a long
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string in vertical columns spread over two pages. After that, if it says "FYLA
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read back OK" it should be all right. tp9.8 is the same thing for systems
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without floating point. The other programs in the test directory are just
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interesting examples, which should work.
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