[TUHS] pdp-11 assembly as a hll?

Paul Ruizendaal pnr at planet.nl
Wed Feb 14 18:41:25 AEST 2018


>> I was wondering what it would take to convert the v6/v7 basic program 
>> into something that can be run today.
> 
> Hmmm...  If it were C-generated then it would be (somewhat) easy, but it's 
> hand-written and hand-optimised...  You'd have to do some functional 
> analysis on it e.g. what does this routine do, etc.
> 
>> Its 2128 lines. It doesn't have that fun instruction in it :)
> 
> I know!  Say ~2,000 lines, say ~100 people on this list, distributed 
> computing to the rescue!  That's only 20 lines each, so it ought to be a 
> piece of cake :-)

I'm up for that! However, only if the resulting C program can be compiled/run
on a V6/PDP11 again.

Let's assume that reverse engineering a subroutine of 20 lines takes
an hour. That then makes for 100 hours. If 10 people participate and
contribute one hour/routine per week, it will be done by May.

However, the initial analysis of the code architecture is a (time) hurdle.

Paul

PS: the Fortran66 of V6 is also assembler only...




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