gcc for Pyramid

[Green Eric Lee]

In article <BOB.89Apr12152036 at allosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu> bob at allosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) writes:
>I understand that it was done inside Pyramid, mostly as an exercise in
>curiosity, and it worked fine.  Last I heard, Pyramid was uninterested
>in releasing it because it would reveal too much proprietary
>information about their system.

This "proprietary information" argument puzzles me. Anybody can look
at the assembly-language output of "cc" on a Pyramid and figure out
exactly how their "proprietary" assembly language works. I did it all
the time when learning "C", to make sure that what I thought I was
doing was what "cc" thought I was doing. 

I suspect what they're more interested in is preventing the making of
Pyramid-clones (as if anybody would want to!). The main thing needed
to port Unix to a new computer is a "C" compiler... having a
Pyramid-compatible "C" compiler would thus make it that much easier.
Still, any decent compiler expert could re-target gcc to the Pyramid
in maybe a month or so of full-time work... so I'm still puzzled.

>Sounds like someone else outside Pyramid will have to go ahead and do
>the work again.

Yep. A pain. Reminds me of what someone once said about the Middle
Ages: "Digitalis was invented at least four times that I know of. Each
time, the secret died with its maker. That's the way things happened
back then, you didn't share information." Are we headed towards a new
Dark Ages? Well, if you measure that possibility by how many times we
have to re-invent the wheel....

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