27 Mar
2002
27 Mar
'02
12:36 p.m.
On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, Stan Sieler wrote:
Hi,
A friend was claiming that with the UCSD P-System, one could "compile once"
and then "run anywhere" (where "anywhere" means different kinds of
computers running the P-System, not different instances of the same computer).
Was this true?
NO
although there were a few machines for which it would be true.
Did users commonly compile on system A and then take
the P-Code to
system B and run it successfully?
I'd have thought that media incompatibility would have tended to
limit this capability.
You are correct; your friend AND the UCSD vendors weren't.
SEVERAL systems would work, but their concept of a "universal format" was
not thought through. Due to disk hardware incompatabilities, it was NOT
possible for Apple and IBM (just two as an example) to share a "universal
disk format", although they DID advertise (FALSELY) exactly that.
Was any commerical P-System software sold that was a
single
binary,
^^^^^^
The basic concept behind it was the distribution of software NOT as a
binary, but as a platform independent "P-code" that was run on a
"P-code" interpreter.
but the vendor expected the user to be able to
install/run it on
any brand/model of P-System? (Or, did vendors have to produce a version
for every platform?)
It combined all of the convenience of software development of a compiler
with the speed of execution of an interpreter.
Has anybody ever seen a WORKING/SHIPPED copy of "Xeno-File"? I've heard
that there might have been some procedural irregularities on the
processing of their trademark registration (Supposedly trademark
registration can not be granted until a product is actually being
shipped).
NOTE: I did have some users who used XenoCopy-PC to transfer P system
files from one system to MS-DOS, and then from there to other P system
formats. I am not aware of any other disk format conversion programs that
would do it, so the alternative was serial transfer.
--
Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com
XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
PO Box 1236 (510) 558-9366
Berkeley, CA 94701-1236