[LispM-Hackers] Target platforms for porting

[James A. Crippen]

On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, John Morrison wrote:

> Hi;
> 
> (1) I am interested to know what fellow lispm-hackers are using.  These,
> by definition, should be Supported Platforms.

Agree.  I happen to have most of the systems I listed handy, which is why
I listed them.  I'm willing to try compiling on anything I've got laying
around, as long as it doesn't take me a week to compile. :)

I have the following systems

* Linux/x86
* Linux/Sparc
* Linux/UltraSparc
* Linux/Alpha
* IRIX/Mips

and possibly

* DUX/Alpha
* Tru64/Alpha

> (2) In a world with finite resources (consisting our "spare" time,
> basically), we should prioritize.  In the absence of the answer to
> question (1) above, I would submit a very short list:
> 
> - x86 Linux
> - Windoze (in its various flavors, even though I hate M$ to the point of
> irrationality)
> - bare iron
> - vanilla X/UNIX

This sounds decent, IMO.

> I prefer to do most of my work on my convenient-at-home x86 linux.  In
> the absence of any other volunteer, I feel strongly enough about getting
> this to run under Windoze that I would personally do the "port"
> (basically a periodic recompile to find out whether I broke anything --
> I have a Windoze box right next to my Linux box at home).  I have also
> been trying to be a Good Boy and rebuild and test upon kappa proper to
> see if I broke any big/little endian stuff -- however, that's going to
> be problematic once we get a GUI going (it's going to be too painful to
> do that remotely), so I'd be really happy if somebody else pitched in
> there.

I'll be getting Linux installed on my home Sun Ultra 10 so I'll have
somewhere to build and test on.  It will run XFree86 4.0.3, so should be
damned near identical to my x86 Linux boxen.

  However, I *really* am looking forward to getting e3 to run on
> bare iron (I have an old P5 166MHz 32MB box that I was using to develop
> JOS, which would disklessly etherboot the JOS kernel/JVM on bare iron).

Sounds good, except how are you going to etherboot?  DHCP?  BOOTP?  You'll
need some sort of simple loader program that understands the ethernet
device.  And that's not as easy on an x86 as it is on a Sun, say.

> > Can anyone think of other platforms and which category to file them
> > under?  Any other comments?
> 
> (3) I think e3 would mesh wonderfully with resource-challenged hardware
> (e.g., the Compaq iPaq (or however they're capitalizing it these days),
> the Palm Pilot, etc.).  However, It

It what? :)

'james

-- 
James A. Crippen <james@unlambda.com> ,-./-.  Anchorage, Alaska,
Lambda Unlimited: Recursion 'R' Us   |  |/  | USA, 61.2069 N, 149.766 W,
Y = \f.(\x.f(xx)) (\x.f(xx))         |  |\  | Earth, Sol System,
Y(F) = F(Y(F))                        \_,-_/  Milky Way.