UCSD P-System & "compile once, run anywhere" - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

2 Apr 2002

I don't think the following post ever made it to the list, during
the time my office's domain cesed to exist for a short time...

...
  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? 
I've never seen it contradicted.  [...until I saw some replies here...]

...
  Did users commonly compile on system A and then take
the P-Code to
 system B and run it successfully? 
It wasn't likely common.    [..aforementioned media problems interfered?..]

...
  I'd have thought that media incompatibility would
have tended to
 limit this capability. 
Serial ports and modems would more or less get around this problem.
[..but it would appear that serial ports baffle quite a few many people..]

...
  Was any commerical P-System software sold that was a
single binary,
 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?) 
The Smalltalk-80 System also used an interpreter, called the bytecode
interpreter, and it was in fact common to take an application compiled
on, say, a Xerox Dorado and run it on a Xerox Magnolia, or even a
Tektronix box. I've seen references recently to an Alto version of
Smalltalk-80 2.2, so the apps crafted at XSIS (Xerox Special Information
Systems) like The Analyst(tm), might have been worked out on Altos
then run at the The Company on Magnolias.

-dq

I know of at least 1 person who has a copy of The Analyst, which I almost 
bought in 1987 (I was just going to buy ASP, the Analyst Spreadsheet)... 
wish we could get him onboard in the preservationist movement

-Douglas Hurst Quebbeman (DougQ at ixsnayamspayIgLou.com)     [Call me "Doug"]
  Surgically excise the pig-latin from my e-mail address in order to reply
  "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away."  -Tom Waits