On September 13, Alan Osborne posted a query about the binary translator
FreePort Express. I saw it last week, replied to Alan, and he suggested that
I post that reply here. I'll be glad to handle any other queries by mail...
==========
Hi Alan. It's nice to see some interest in the binary translator.
I just found out about the osf managers list, and I thought I'd take the
time to follow up on your summary posting. I'm the consulting engineer on
FreePort Express.
As of the time you posted your note, the Beta version was set to expire on
November 1, 1995. Since then, we have posted an update to the Beta version.
The version currently on
http://fenris.novalink.com/freeport-express is set
to expire on February 1, 1996.
We may update the Beta version yet again, depending on how solid we feel this
new version is (or isn't). (So PLEASE report bugs to us, and let us work with
you to smash them!!!) The final released version (V1.0) will be posted
on the web when it is ready. It WILL continue to be FREE!
The reason for the expiration is simple. We are constantly fixing bugs in the
translator and in the run-time libraries that support it. We do not want to
deal with bug reports some time in the future that have already been fixed.
Since a bug in the translator will usually show up as a failure in the
translated program, we want to force Beta testers to retranslate their code
with the latest version of FreePort Express. This gives us better feedback on
the translator, and gives users an "automatic" notice that the translated
program they are running - or the translator they are running - has been
superseded.
The restrictions were written by the engineers, and in our compulsive attempt
to tell the whole truth, a large number of restrictions came out. In point of
fact, we expect that most user-mode programs will translate just fine, and we
hope that our Beta testers will work with us so we can fix any translation
problems that arise, or identify why the program is having problems.
Most of the restrictions can be summarized as: We don't translate the kernel,
SunView, or system management applications, and we don't try to make the system
environment (/dev/kmem, file formats, ...) look like SunOS. Our goal is to
translate most other stuff.
We had to add these restrictions because of some differences between SunOS and
Digital UNIX. For instance, the exact format of the output from the utility
/bin/calendar differs between the systems, and we have found at least one
program that fork/exec's /bin/calendar and parses the stdout from it. This
program fails for obvious reasons, and there is little that the binary
translator can do about it. However, there are enough debugging features in
FreePort Express that a user can detect this case and give up on translating
this program.
I hope this give you a little more feedback on the questions and concerns you
raised in your posting of September 13. Feel free to post this mail if you
want to.
--
Anton Chernoff (chernoff_at_amt.tay1.dec.com)
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity,
and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
Received on Mon Oct 09 1995 - 16:08:04 NZDT