Date   : Sat, 27 May 1989 14:18:01 GMT
From   : pacbell!cpro!asgard@ames.arc.nasa.gov (J.R. Stoner)
Subject: Wanted: PL/M-80 compiler

From article <2985@rti.UUCP>, by bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright):
; In article <2593@lethe.UUCP>, gerry@lethe.UUCP (Gerry) writes:
;> As memeory serves Digital Research used PL/M to develop CP/Ms and they
;> offered their version on a number of platforms.  Later they even came out
;> with PL/1 (subset G) on CP/M machines and PCs.  With this background they're
;> certainly worth querying.

And also still uses PL/M for significant portions of CDOS-XM and CDOS-386
code.

; DRI is still in business, but they are now into things like GEM and
; Concurrent DOS.  They haven't been in the language business for some
; time - I'm not even sure that they will sell you anything;  it will
; certainly not have been worked on in several years ...

Language products and other "discontinued" items are available for sale from
Alexander and Lord.  You also go to A&L for ACCESS Manager (B-trees to the
washed).  A&L, coincidentally, is also in Monterey.

; PL/M is related to PL/I only in some of the low-level syntax.  The
; high-level syntax and the semantics are quite different.  I'm not
; sure that DRI ever marketed a PL/M compiler, though Gary Kildall did
; write the first Intel PL/M compiler and used the language quite a bit
; in CP/M.

; The PL/I compiler that DRI had for the 8080 and 8086 was a far cry from
; a Subset G PL/I compiler- it was more like Fortran with semicolens and
; structures (RECORDs for you Pascal types).  It was also full of
; horrible bugs and only supported the small model.  I have had the
; misfortune to have to convert a significant amount of code from real
; Subset G compilers to the DRI PL/I compiler and take my word for it,
; you don't want it if you can possibly avoid it.

My misfortun, too.  One of my projects when I was with CompuPro was to
completely rewrite the CP/M-86 STAT program from PL/M to C.  Just 'orrible.
I also had to fix the bug of what happens when you run STAT on other than
CP/M-86 or MP/M-86.  That is when I learned All The Directory FCB Formats
From Hell.
-- 
                               | J.R. (May the Source be With You) Stoner
"Dying is easy -          | {amdahl,hplabs,decwrl}!pacbell!cpro!asgard
       Comedy is hard."   | asgard@cpro.uucp      asgard@well.uucp
                               | asgard@wotan.uucp     asgard@fafner.uucp


End of INFO-CPM Digest V89 Issue #125
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