_print/_doprnt; curses on sys III

[dhb at rayssd.UUCP]

If you think that trying to bring up curses (or similar program which
use _doprnt) is a problem on sys III, you should try bringing it up
on VMS using the VAX11C compiler from DEC.  Not only did they change
the internals of the 'stdio' package, but they don't tell you what
they are.  Since we don't have source for VMS (does anybody?), I was
forced to rewrite the printw routines in order to get them to work.

I think that anyone who is writing code that will end up in the public
domain should be careful to avoid any system dependencies.  Given the
fact that VMS now has a reasonably good implementation of the C compiler,
more and more packages are going to start popping up on VMS machines.
Most commercial outfits are already aware of this and take care to make
sure their code is not system dependent (if possible).
--
	Dave Brierley
	Raytheon Co.; Portsmouth RI; (401)-847-8000 x4073
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