"Numerical Recipes in C" is nonport

[Stan Switzer]

In article <1988Sep17.212624.8858 at utzoo.uucp> henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <3981 at bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi at bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
> >>But the fact is, many C
> >>implementors are not in a position to improve the linker that
> >>will of necessity be used with the object code their compiler
> >>generates.
> >
> >I think Doug Gwyn exaggerates in saying "many" and "of necessity".
> 
> No.  The world does not consist primarily of Unix systems with sources, or
> of hobbyist-owned micros that can abandon standard software whenever it's
> convenient to do so.

Two is a couple.  A few is at least three (in my book).  I guess
*many* will have to be at least four.  Let's put this question to the
test.

"How many C implemenations are constrained by 6 character monocase
linkers and how badly are they constrained?"

In order to avoid netting too many red herring, we'll exclude machine
and operating system combinations for which no C compilers exist (if
there is a viable implementation in the works, we'll let it slide).
Also, different designations of the same basic architecture or OS count
only once.

I can think of one, so I'll start:

  1) GECOS / GCOS / GCOS 8
     for the GE 600 / Honeywell 6000 / DPS 8 series

Being essentially quantitative, the first part of this controversy is
easier to resolve than the second, but as of my last experience w/
GCOS (1982), I don't feel I'd have lost very much in abandoning the
standard linker in favor of a "C" linker.

Stan Switzer  sjs at ctt.bellcore.com