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Date:Mon Nov 13 23:39:54 1992 
Subject:Re: Poplog for the SPARCclassic(TM) running Solaris 2.x 
From:Aaron Sloman 
Volume-ID:921114.01 

lpb@cs.bham.ac.uk (Luc Beaudoin) writes:

> Organization: School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK
> Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 11:37:02 GMT
>
> Does anyone know if we should expect Poplog to run under Sun's new
> SPARCclassic(TM) running Solaris 2.x. (I can send you a description of
> it if you haven't heard of it. It's a 59 MIP low cost machine to compete
> with 486 PC platforms) I've asked Sun about general binary compatibility
> between SPARCclassic(TM) running Solaris 2.x and, e.g., an SS10 SunOs
> 4.1 and they said:

Solaris is a new operating system. There's no reason to expect that
SunOS poplog will run under it. However, I believe Sussex University
(in collaboration with Integral Solutions Ltd, the main distrbutor)
are porting Poplog to Solaris.

> Does Poplog make use of architecture dependent features (e.g., machine
> registers)? Do you think it would be difficult to put the source on the
> machine and compile it? Could I as a user do this if I were to buy one
> of these machines?

Poplog Pop-11 (unlike some other implementations of Pop-11) has a
full incremental compiler. User procedures are compiled all the way
to machine code, for speed of execution. So yes it makes use of
architecture dependent features. However, that's not likely to be
a problem -- the new SPARC systems almost certainly are compatible
with the old at that level. The main problem is likely to be OS
changes e.g. system calls and perhaps directory structures.

> Perhaps it would be a good marketing move to port Poplog to this machine
you mean operating system....
> (when it appears!). Anyone else out there beside myself might be tempted
> by a full Poplog machine at home for the price of a PC!?

plus the price of Poplog. It isn't free! (Fee income is used to pay
for the development work.)
Aaron
-- 
Aaron Sloman, School of Computer Science,
The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, England
EMAIL   A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk  OR A.Sloman@bham.ac.uk
Phone: +44-(0)21-414-3711       Fax:   +44-(0)21-414-4281