Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: Re: Can anyone find a system on which this doesn't work? Message-ID: <4711@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Sat, 1-Dec-84 19:45:43 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.4711 Posted: Sat Dec 1 19:45:43 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 1-Dec-84 19:45:43 EST References: <324@wu1.UUCP> <4669@utzoo.UUCP>, <85@physiol.OZ> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 22 > > There exist machines on whichis unimplementable. > > I'd be very interested in some specific examples. Machines > already running UNIX, please, or likely to run it: not > antiques. The PERQ, on which the parameter list of a function must have a constant length, the same length for all calls. I studied compiling C for the PERQ as part of my M.Sc. thesis, and friends of mine actually carried this to a full implementation for a commercial UNIX port. It was a memorable bad experience for them, by the way, and the company would rather forget it ever did that port (which is why I'm not identifying either the people or the company). is also rather hard on machines like the Z8000, where the most common compilers pass parameters in registers. It's not utterly impossible on the Z8000, but the principle easily generalizes to almost arbitrary difficulty. (E.g., what if different datatypes go in different register sets?) -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry