Re: VAX backend

[Chris Hanson <cmhanson%eschatologist.net@localhost>]

On Aug 26, 2019, at 4:55 PM, Paul Koning <paulkoning%comcast.net@localhost> wrote:
> 
> On Aug 26, 2019, at 5:51 PM, Chris Hanson <cmhanson%eschatologist.net@localhost> wrote:
>> 
>> If you’re talking compiler back-ends anyway, what about adding VAX support to LLVM/clang? :)
> 
> I'm not sure how much LLVM is oriented towards "modern architectures".  GCC has its issues with old architectures but it does support them, and the big benefit of GCC is that it does have a VAX back end.  While we know it needs some repairs, those are unlikely to amount to more than 10% of the work needed to build a whole new back end for a different compiler system.

LLVM focused on a couple of RISC architectures *very* early in its life and I think that’s left a lot of people with the (incorrect) impression that it’s RISC-focused or somehow doesn’t support non-RISC architectures well.

Considering that the most used LLVM backends are ARM (32- and 64-bit) and x86 (32- and 64-bit) it’s entirely reasonable to implement support for architectures like VAX and Motorola 68000 in it as well. IBM for example maintains System/390 etc. back-ends.

  -- Chris