[virtmach] Your VM

[virtmach@iecc.com]

David Rush writes:
>> I have 2 crazy schemes to achieve this:
>>
>> 1) Re-code MTOS in Delphi (we have the source), beg/borrow/steal/rewrite a
>> Pascal compiler to generate an intermediate code, and execute this in the
>> Delphi/MTOS VM.
>>
>> 2) Translate the Tektronix Pascal source into Delphi/Kylix source (not
trivial)
>> and write an interface to convert the MTOS system calls to work under Linux.
>
>Both should work, but...
>
>> So... which makes more sense. Or is there a better way?
>
>Have you looked at just using either p2c
><ftp://csvax.cs.caltech.edu/pub/p2c-1.29.tar.Z> (and thence gcc)  or
>the GNU Pascal (gpc <http://agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de/gnu-pascal>)
>and just compiling your Pascal source directly to Linux (or whatever)?
>

Yes, I have thought about p2c. But it's not 'just' a matter of using p2c: the OS
interface would still need changing. Plus the staff need retraining.

GNU Pascal under Linux is another alternative, although I think I would prefer
Kylix under Linux (since the GUI part of our system is Delphi on NT, with TCP/IP
to the Pascal/MTOS/68k part). The OS interface would still need to be changed,
but on the plus side we would get a full blown optimising compiler, IDE,
debugger etc.

I kept my first post short, so I didn't explain that we also need to keep some
form of compatibility with existing source code so that we can maintain the
100's of (68k) systems in the field. I really want to maintain just one code
base, so if we did use C for the new systems we would need a 100% automatic
conversion from one to t'other (either way).

Oh, and I like Pascal. Am I the only one?

Steve