Auwvax.346 net.general utzoo!decvax!harpo!uwvax!solomon Sun May 2 10:01:39 1982 Re: Modula 2 compiler We made the mistake of buying a Modula 2 compiler from Zurich. They give you a choice of six or so versions (classified by source machine, destination machine, and implementation language). You must pay 300 Swiss francs for EACH version (about $175, last time I checked), so we only chose the version most likely to be useful. This was a version written in Pascal and generating code for a PDP-11. (I'm not completely sure about the last--it's been a while and my memory is a little fuzzy.) What we got was a huge program written in EXTREMELY machine-dependant CDC 7600 Pascal. For example, it had the "fact" that an integer is 60 bits long wired into it all over the place, and used unchecked variant records to exploit that "fact". Worse still, they neglected to include the language-specific linkage editor (absolutely essential to running Modula 2). They said something about not having gotten around to writing is yet. They suggested some sort of kludge using a linker included on a different distribution tape (which you could get for another $175!) Caveat emptor! Marvin Solomon (...!harpo!uwvax!solomon or solomon@uwisc) ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.