porting to a Prime seen as a probable negative experience

[John Gilmore]

Hmm, it sounds like porting to a 286 is also seen as a probable
negative experience.  And the same problem precurs on the "large
model" 8086/8088/etc.

A very talented compiler writer of my acquaintance says "You'll never
know just how brain damaged and broken the 8086 is until you have to
write a large-model compiler for it."  [My paraphrase.]  Sorry DRI,
but you knew the job was dangerous when you took it...