Fwd: is there any word processing software for the pdp11?

[Todd Killingsworth]

Hmm.. I think the actual line its complaining about is :

    setbuf(stdout,malloc(BUFSIZ));

Did the signature for setbuf() change between 2.11bsd and OpenSolaris?

Keep in mind - free advise, and you get what you pay for..
Todd Killingsworth

On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 12:16 PM, Jacob Ritorto <jacob.ritorto at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Given the gloomy weather and speaking of porting, I just got bored and
> tried to compile /usr/src/games/rain.c from 2.11bsd on opensolaris using
> gcc3.44.  It errored out with rain.c:61: error: parse error before '->'
> token.  What's that all about?  There's not even a pointer on that line:
> 61     float cols, lines;
>
> rain.c source here: http://www.retro11.de/ouxr/211bsd/usr/src/games/rain.c
>
> On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 12:08 PM, Jon Elson <elson at pico-systems.com> wrote:
>
> > On 12/02/2014 07:20 AM, Mark Wickens wrote:
> >
> >> Is there any general agreement on what the 'best' programming language
> is
> >> for PDP-11 for this kind of application, if I'm getting what you're
> after
> >> it's something like wordstar or WPS-PLUS? A text editor with some word
> >> processing features. Good system integration and the ability to easily
> >> control a terminal?
> >>
> >> I know VAX Pascal is highly respected and can do most things - certainly
> >> Theo De Klerk's book is very comprehensive.
> >>
> >> I don't know *anything* about programming PDP-11's. Would be interested
> if
> >> there is one language or it's a case of pick and choose like VAXen.
> >>
> >>
> >>  Our shop at the time (1975-1981 or so, for the PDP-11) used FORTRAN.  I
> > had a passion
> > for Pascal, also got a Modula 2 compiler but never really moved to it.
> We
> > then got a
> > VAX 11/780, and I used them until the migration to the Alpha systems, and
> > used
> > those until the end of DEC.  We continued to run one Alpha here until it
> > became so
> > obsolete that nobody would use it anymore.  We were STILL mostly a
> FORTRAN
> > shop.  I created a few personal apps in Pascal.
> >
> > Now that I use Linux pretty exclusively, I have grudgingly accepted C.
> > Recently,
> > the Free Pascal Compiler (fpc) became available on Linux, and it is quite
> > amazing.  I ported over a Turbo Pascal for Windows app that ran on
> Windows
> > 95/Win 2K to run on Linux in a couple days.  It required some serious
> > hacking
> > to remove external hardware-specific parts that were no longer
> applicable,
> > but the main thrust of FPC was to handle DEC and Borland Pascal
> extensions
> > to the language well.  They really did a good job!  So, after a long time
> > away
> > from Pascal, it is again a viable language.  I doubt I'd ever write a
> major
> > app in Pascal again, but I could if I wanted.
> >
> > Well, none of the above really applies to the PDP-11!  I will say that a
> > major
> > advantage with Pascal is that when I got a program to pass the compiler's
> > syntax checking, it very often ran correctly the first time!  It forces
> you
> > to think logically, structure well, and doesn't have all the insane
> hidden
> > syntactic screwups that C does.  I still get called in at work to advise
> > when C programs don't work right.  I'm still discovering new ways that
> > C code that looks perfectly correct can screw up horribly.  Last one was
> > yesterday.
> >
> > Boiling it down, we had :
> >
> > long long int A;
> > int B;
> > A = B << 32;
> >
> > This means that some field of B gets shifted to the right by 32 bits, and
> > fit into the upper 32-bits of A.
> >
> > Now, any decent compiler should either extend B to the length of A, or
> > as the C rules specify, NOT extend B, and therefor ought to warn you
> > that it is losing significant bits.  No warning, no extending the
> variable
> > before shifting the bits off the end of the word.  So, A always gets
> > a zero!  UGH!  Stupid!  I could almost write a book of these sorts
> > of gotchas.
> >
> > Jon
> >
>