C and BCD

[Henry Spencer]

> If C was intended as a systems programming language, then it only seems
> fair that it should be able to access all functions of the system,
> including BCD on those machines which support it....

C does provide a mechanism for accessing all facilities of a system:  it's
called "call a function written in assembler".  If you have ever looked at
the instruction set of a "real" machine, you'll see why this is the only
realistic way to tackle it.  There are far too many bizarre and utterly
machine-dependent oddities in *any* real system to expect C to incorporate
them all.  No systems programming language has *ever* attempted to do this,
except by mechanisms that at least *looked* like function calls.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry