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From: dyer@spdcc.UUCP (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Primix
Message-ID: <494@spdcc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Jan-87 00:53:35 EST
Article-I.D.: spdcc.494
Posted: Wed Jan 14 00:53:35 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Jan-87 06:01:19 EST
References: <2296@brl-adm.ARPA>
Reply-To: dyer@spdcc.UUCP (Steve Dyer)
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Lines: 18

Yes, I just spent 6 months of my life porting MAGIC, Berkeley's VLSI design
tool, from a VAX running 4.2BSD to a 9955 running PRIMIX.  It builds character!
Actually, it was a fascinating exercise in portability, and as for PRIMIX,
Prime's System V port running on top of PRIMOS, well, it's like Johnson's dog
walking on its hind legs: it's amazing that it works at all!  Still, all the
problems I came across in PRIMIX seemed fairly tractable; nothing that an
infusion of documentation and people and money couldn't cure (OK, a different
machine architecture would be nice, too... :-)).

PRIME's C compiler, a package developed separately from PRIMIX, doesn't
generate the fastest code right now, but it seems pretty bullet-proof;
we ran into remarkably few bugs in the compiler and libraries.  Their
PRIMOS debugger (which can be used for PRIMIX programs, with some restrictions)
is superb; it puts attempts like "dbx" to shame.
-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@harvard.HARVARD.EDU
{linus,wanginst,bbnccv,harvard,ima,ihnp4}!spdcc!dyer