Article: 806 of comp.sys.cdc From: "Dennis Ritchie" Newsgroups: comp.sys.cdc,alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Desktop Cyber Emulator 1.1 boots NOS 1.3 Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 04:47:47 -0000 Lines: 33 Message-ID: References: <3E31C184.4010603@jetnet.ab.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: h-135-104-50-8.research.bell-labs.com (135.104.50.8) X-Trace: fu-berlin.de 1043469015 29599943 135.104.50.8 (16 [156882]) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6600 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Path: news.meer.net!sea-read.news.verio.net!dfw-artgen!iad-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!h-135-104-50-8.research.bell-labs.COM!not-for-mail Xref: archive.mv.meer.net comp.sys.cdc:806 alt.folklore.computers:36967 wrote in message news:3E31C184.4010603@jetnet.ab.ca... > George R. Gonzalez wrote: > > >>How about a C compiler? > > Now that would be something! > > Probably not too practical, as C is heavily 8/16/32-bit, ASCII character > > set oriented; the Cybers are none of the above. > > I would rather say 99.9% of all C programs written assume > that they are running 8/16/32 bit machines. The same goes > I think for the people coming up with the latest C standards. Actually, the C standard, in some ways, increasingly caters for representations that quite seldom happen (e.g. "trap representations"). It is probably true that the assumption of 8/16/32 (more recently, add /64) is becoming more fixed. > Character sets can be translated, providing you have upper > and lower case. Early C was very portable, but people seem > to forget about bootstrap code when running modern systems. I recently revived some papers from the AT&T Technical Journal about relatively early ports of Unix to interesting hardware: http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/portpapers.html One was the Univac 1100 series (as it was known then): 36-bit, 1's complement. Cyber should have been doable too. Dennis