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The Question is: TECO native mode on Alpha? Any chance to convince andy (ACG) to recompile TECO32_TV into native alpha code so it does work with all alphas in the future and while being on it to enlarge the q-registers (still limited to 128 vax pages)? Asking for TECO/FTP might be too much and would ruin the future of some unix cracks... The Answer is : This is viewed as highly unlikely, unless the local OpenVMS management chain dozes off for an unusually long interval -- and doesn't notice the sudden activity in this area and the sudden inactivity in other (expected, currently scheduled) projects. The central problem with a properly-compiled native TECO is that the current version is written in absolutely awful spaghetti Macro32. Please recall that the lineage of the TECO source base is roughly: Original implementation on PDP-1 in 1963 by Dan Murphy Ported to PDP-6/PDP-10 Ported to PDP-8 Ported to PDP-11 Ported to VAX VESTed to Alpha Each one of those ports was done in a mechanical or semi-mechanical manner, so the current VAX Macro32 code is really, really bad. It would be far less effort to just rewrite Teco in C than fixing up the Macro32 so that the Alpha Macro32 compiler would accept it. Please understand that TECO32_TV really is native Alpha code -- though roughly one-quarter as efficient as you would receive from (say) the C compiler. VEST really is a compiler, albeit a rather strange one. Its source language is the VAX binary instruction stream; out of that it compiles the equivalent Alpha code. TECO is not running in emulation, nor do Alphas have any special hardware for VAX emulation, like the old PDP-11 compatibility mode on the VAX which went away with later models. TECO32_TV should work on all Alpha systems; if it breaks on any future model, please contact Compaq support. As for the 128 VAX page limit -- there shouldn't be anything in the current implementation that inherently imposes such a limitation. It's just left over from the PDP-11 implementation and (so far) little demand to extend it.
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