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Building GCC 1.27 (first GCC with x86 support) (2019)

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Re: Building GCC 1.27 (first GCC with x86 support) (2019)

#21

Post by pjmlp »

tobinfricke wrote: post #3

> In late 1983, in an effort to bootstrap the GNU operating system, Richard Stallman asked Andrew S. Tanenbaum, the author of the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (also known as the Free University Compiler Kit) I see what you did there edit: Oh but actually Richard Stallman is careful to clarify: > Shortly before beginning the GNU project, I heard about the Free University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for…

Also a point to note to the WASM advocacy folks, this compiler toolkit is one of the first to have a bytecode format for C, called EM, shared across its languages, namely C, Modula-2, Pascal and BASIC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EM_intermediate_language

Re: Building GCC 1.27 (first GCC with x86 support) (2019)

#22

Post by gpvos »

stoltzmann wrote: post #12
tobinfricke wrote: post #3

> In late 1983, in an effort to bootstrap the GNU operating system, Richard Stallman asked Andrew S. Tanenbaum, the author of the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (also known as the Free University Compiler Kit) I see what you did there edit: Oh but actually Richard Stallman is careful to clarify: > Shortly before beginning the GNU project, I heard about the Free University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for…

The "free" in VUCK doesn't stand for free as in freedom, or even free as in beer. Free University is a weird translation of the name of a specific institution - the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Tanenbaum was a professor there, giving classes on operating systems. So I'd say it should rather be called the VU Compiler Kit.

Free University is a perfectly fine translation, just not much used because of the high chance of misunderstanding. The "free" does stand for free as in freedom, just a different kind of freedom than you'd think of. The Vrije Universiteit was founded as a Reformed protestant christian university, to be free from state control. By the time Tanenbaum worked there, the religious character was much watered down, and barely noticeable in the computer science department.

Re: Building GCC 1.27 (first GCC with x86 support) (2019)

#23

Post by [deleted] »

stoltzmann wrote: post #12
tobinfricke wrote: post #3

> In late 1983, in an effort to bootstrap the GNU operating system, Richard Stallman asked Andrew S. Tanenbaum, the author of the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (also known as the Free University Compiler Kit) I see what you did there edit: Oh but actually Richard Stallman is careful to clarify: > Shortly before beginning the GNU project, I heard about the Free University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for…

The "free" in VUCK doesn't stand for free as in freedom, or even free as in beer. Free University is a weird translation of the name of a specific institution - the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Tanenbaum was a professor there, giving classes on operating systems. So I'd say it should rather be called the VU Compiler Kit.

[deleted]

Re: Building GCC 1.27 (first GCC with x86 support) (2019)

#24

Post by skissane »

gpvos wrote: post #22
stoltzmann wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "free" in VUCK doesn't stand for free as in freedom, or even free as in beer. Free University is a weird translation of the name of a specific institution - the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Tanenbaum was a professor there, giving classes on operating systems. So I'd say it should rather be called the VU Compiler Kit.

Free University is a perfectly fine translation, just not much used because of the high chance of misunderstanding. The "free" does stand for free as in freedom, just a different kind of freedom than you'd think of. The Vrije Universiteit was founded as a Reformed protestant christian university, to be free from state control. By the time Tanenbaum worked there, the religious character was much watered down, and bare…

> The Vrije Universiteit was founded as a Reformed protestant christian university, to be free from state control

Abraham Kuyper was a dissenter from the state church (Dutch Reformed), whom he believed had gone astray – after founding VU, he left the state church and founded his own conservative breakaway denomination (the Doleantie) – so although he did want VU to have a Reformed Protestant ethos, he also wanted it to not be controlled by any particular Protestant denomination. As such, the Vrije was meant to denote independence, not just from state control, but also independence from the church control

Somewhat ironically for someone who desired independence from state control, Kuyper later went on to control the state (as Prime Minister)

Re: Building GCC 1.27 (first GCC with x86 support) (2019)

#25

Post by gpvos »

skissane wrote: post #24
gpvos wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free University is a perfectly fine translation, just not much used because of the high chance of misunderstanding. The "free" does stand for free as in freedom, just a different kind of freedom than you'd think of. The Vrije Universiteit was founded as a Reformed protestant christian university, to be free from state control. By the time Tanenbaum worked there, the religious character was much watered down, and bare…

> The Vrije Universiteit was founded as a Reformed protestant christian university, to be free from state control Abraham Kuyper was a dissenter from the state church (Dutch Reformed), whom he believed had gone astray – after founding VU, he left the state church and founded his own conservative breakaway denomination (the Doleantie ) – so although he did want VU to have a Reformed Protestant ethos, he also wanted it…

Thanks for the added nuance which I missed. As far as I knew, there has always been a strong association, even though not formal, between Kuyper's denomination (the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland (GKN)) and the university.

Also ironical that within the GKN, one aspect of his theology was imposed by the synod, leading to a schism - again people fleeing from church control. (And one schism further led to the church I grew up in.)

Re: Building GCC 1.27 (first GCC with x86 support) (2019)

#26

Post by gumby »

fl7305 wrote: post #18
gumby wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because Eric Ostrom had somehow gotten us a vax 750 for some inexplicable reason (years later he told me he was astonished that nobody appreciated it) as if anybody wanted a vax. So RMS started using it for his gnu project since nobody else cared. It was just using up power in a small machine room on the 3rd (or 7th — I can’t remember) floor of tech square. Complete happenstance.

A 750 wasn't very fast back in 1987 if I remember it correctly? But a 784 was still decent?

No, but it had been lying around unused in a machine room, powered up, for a few years. RMS published the GNU manifesto in 83 or 84.

Re: Building GCC 1.27 (first GCC with x86 support) (2019)

#27

Post by happycube »

skissane wrote: post #19
ajross wrote: post #7

Nitpick: calling this an "x86" compiler is a modernism. There were, indeed, multiple successor chips to the 8086 in the market. But gcc supported only one of them. This is a 386 compiler, not an x86 compiler.

Mainstream GCC has never supported 16-bit code on x86, only 32-bit However, there is (at least one) fork which adds 16-bit code support, see https://github.com/tkchia/gcc-ia16 I don't think the GCC maintainers have ever or will ever want to support 16-bit x86, because it is so limited, and adds a lot of messy corner cases, and nowadays is really only of hobbyist/retrocomputing interest. Maybe there is some 16-bit x86…

Heck, 32-bit support is gradually eroding away...

Re: Building GCC 1.27 (first GCC with x86 support) (2019)

#29

Post by actionfromafar »

skissane wrote: post #19
ajross wrote: post #7

Nitpick: calling this an "x86" compiler is a modernism. There were, indeed, multiple successor chips to the 8086 in the market. But gcc supported only one of them. This is a 386 compiler, not an x86 compiler.

Mainstream GCC has never supported 16-bit code on x86, only 32-bit However, there is (at least one) fork which adds 16-bit code support, see https://github.com/tkchia/gcc-ia16 I don't think the GCC maintainers have ever or will ever want to support 16-bit x86, because it is so limited, and adds a lot of messy corner cases, and nowadays is really only of hobbyist/retrocomputing interest. Maybe there is some 16-bit x86…

It is kind of cool to be able to program an 8088 with C++14. :-D

I have no idea what to use it for, but hey.

Re: Building GCC 1.27 (first GCC with x86 support) (2019)

#30

Post by frutiger »

gumby wrote: post #15
skissane wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "free" in VUCK doesn't stand for free as in freedom, or even free as in beer. Free University is a weird translation of the name of a specific institution - the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. It isn’t a “weird translation” - “Free University” is a perfectly valid translation of Dutch “Vrije Universiteit”. You just have to understand the historical background, that the university was so named because it was fr…

My high school was a “free school” in the same sense of the term. Founded 1640 by royal charter.

According to this seemingly exhaustive list (https://privycouncil.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2...), no royal charters were granted in 1640.
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