C on IBM machines (was: Proposed Enhancement to select/case)

[Alex Martelli]

meissner at osf.org (Michael Meissner) writes:
>Reality check time -- as far as I know, there is no C compiler for the
>AS/400.  It would be an interesting experience, in a sick sort of way
>from what little I've heard about the internals of this beast.  Also,

I don't know either, but I do know that IBM is *COMMITTED* to release
a C for AS/400, as well as a Fortran - both of these languages are a
crucial part of the Common Programming Interface (CPI) of Standard
Application Architecture (SAA), and AS/400 is "the heart of SAA"
(with OS/2 being the feet and VM and MVS together the head, I guess).

>up until last year or so, C had real little penetration in the 370
>market placem, except on Amdahl's version of unix.

Little but sometimes crucial, as in SPSS (Statistical Package for the
Social Sciences - IBM wouldn't sell many new 370-like beasts to
Universities without the humanity depts. plugging for them because
of it...), the REXX-Compiler for VM by IBM itself, the prototype
dictation-driven 'voice typewriter' by Jelinek et al in Yorktown,
etc.  That's not really the point though - the point is, rather,
that if you have a beautiful portable C application, and relish the
thought of getting the beeg moola application SW on mainframes goes
for, you'd BETTER think about problems related to portability to
non-ASCII machines.  What equivalent economic incentive is there to
push you to worry about portability to one's complement machines?

-- 
Alex Martelli - CAD.LAB s.p.a., v. Stalingrado 45, Bologna, Italia
Email: (work:) staff at cadlab.sublink.org, (home:) alex at am.sublink.org
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