Subject: Re: VAX 6400 booting saga: SUCCESS!
To: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
From: Johnny Billquist <bqt@update.uu.se>
List: port-vax
Date: 03/18/2002 07:57:19
On Sun, 17 Mar 2002, der Mouse wrote:

> >>>> [JVM for VAX]
> >>> Start writing your own ieee floating point package then.
> >> Hmm, I don't really care for retaining the exact floating point
> >> semantics of Java, [...]
> > Well, since the ieee and VAX fp binary formats don't agree you cannot
> > escape writing some ieee-handling stuff.  Java is a virtual machine,
> > where the fp format is defined down to the bit.  You'll atleast have
> > to convert to and from ieee for every fp op you do.
> 
> Or - and this, I suspect, is what the "I don't really care..." meant -
> implement an almost-but-not-quite-Java virtual machine, one that's
> basically Java except that it uses VAX floating point instead of IEEE
> floating point.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. When you get a Java program,
it's in bits and bytes, including all the fp numbers already in ieee
format.

Or are you saying that you will port the Java compiler and JVM, and only
be able to run those Java programs that you yourself will write and
compile on your compiler?

Why on earth in that case? C++ should work just as well for you.

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt@update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol