On 8 Jul 2002, at 23:55, John Sadler wrote:
> > Are we in danger of restricting SMSQE to be assembled with Qmac > restricting ourselves to 68000 code, casting aside all those QLers who > have invested in a Super Gold Card, QXL, Q40 or Q60? Let's try to be reasonable here. Up until now, development of the sources - ALL OF THEM - was done with the system as described in the style guide. In my mind, it is essential that, at least for the time being, we keep that system: if we change tools and sources at the same time, the complexity will just go up. > You are not going > to be able to do some serious number crunching if you are not >going to use the floating point extensions. > You are not going to stop the QL > crashing without using the memory management unit of the 68030+ chips > and instruction set. Oh, come on, that's just not true, and you (should) know it. To take a (bad) example, Windows uses the mem prot, and still manages to crash irretrievably, and i can be trashed by an application. I do agree that using memory protection would be a good idea. Howevern before you do even think about implementing it, have a good look at the source code, and see all of the problems that go with it. Draw a road map of all of the changes that will have to be made etc... > Gwass is the only assembler which can cope with > 68020+ and floating point instructions. Correct. However, please remember one thing: SMSQ/E also runs on machines that don't have a 68020+ (Gold card, Ataris, QPC come to mind). I have sufficiently stated here that I want coherent versions... which doesn(t mean that, e.g. the Q60, shouldn't be able to use native facilities. > Furthermore Gwass is > maintained and can be extended and corrected as required, whereas Qmac > is not and you are going to have to put up with its errors and > restrictions. George has offered to convert the macros. What better > offer could you have? Change GWASS ? > If you are not going to use these features there does not seem much > point in upgrading SMSQE. Just treat the QL like a crystal radio. > Something to nostalgically recall the pioneering days of computing, or > leave to the local museum to be looked at by our grandchildren. Facetiousness put aside, I'm pretty sure that we'll be able to find a modus vivendi that will allow us to move forward. If things really needing a 68020+ instruction set really come out, there is always a possibility of making it into modules. Even if I wanted to be really strict about the QMAC compatibility, ways could be found (off the top of my head, use DC.W instructions, for example). Wolfgang
