Re: Understanding the many versions of IRIX/MIPSpro compilers...

From: David Anderson (davea_at_quasar.engr.sgi.com)
Date: 03/15/05

  • Next message: Walter Roberson: "Re: Understanding the many versions of IRIX/MIPSpro compilers..." 
    Date: 15 Mar 2005 04:45:50 GMT

    No doubt I will get some detail wrong here. Sorry.

    In article <d15kiv$sr0$1@news.netins.net>,
    Steven J. Hill <sjhill@realitydiluted.com> wrote:
    >Greetings.
    >
    >Please also copy my email on your reply and not only the newsgroup.
    >I am trying to understand how the compilers are named and how the
    >versioning works. Here is a sampling of SGI media that I recently
    >came into possession of:
    >
    > Trusted IRIX Developers Option 4.0.5EPL
            For IRIX4 I think. Very old machines.
            Slow, power hungry.

    > IRIS Development Option 6.0.2
            IDO was for befor IRIX 6.2.
            This was likely for IRIX 6.0, a release only on some
            machines in the 94-95? timeframe.

    > MIPSPro Power Fortran90 6.1
            Probably useless. For IRIX 6.1
            

    > MIPSPro Power Fortran77 6.0
            Probably useless. For IRIX 6.0

    > Ada95 Compiler 1.1
            My oh my a bit old.

    > MIPSpro Power C 6.0.1
            Probably useless. For IRIX 6.0

    > MIPSpro C++ 6.0.2
            Probably useless. For IRIX 6.0

    > IRIS PowerC 6.2
    > MIPSPro C 7.2
            The front end for the 7.2 release.
            See later comment about IDO

    > MIPSPro Power Fortran77 6.2 (GCS Edition)
            GCS stood for Global Customer Support.
            In any case you don't want this.

    > IRIS Development Option 7.0.1
            Ah. So IDO still existed in 7.0 (memory failing...).
            

    > IRIS Development Option 6.2
            IDO as of the initial IRIX 6.2 release.

    > Ada95 Compiler 1.3
        ACT Ada.

    > MIPSPro All-Compiler CD 1999
            Front ends here. Requiring licences for legal use.

    > Compiler Execution Environment 7.3

    An Execution Environment runtime stuff. For example compiler_eoe
    when installed. compiler_eoe is runtime support for executing
    applications, such as libexc.so, libm.so, libmp.so,
    and certain tools.
            versions long |grep compiler_eoe
    will show you what is in it on an IRIX machine.
    It is on every machine by default (well, since IRIX5.0).
    Not optional. The 7.3 versions was the initial MIPSpro7.3
    compilers runtime support.

    The binary compatibility guarantee (which I will not explain
    here, google it) meant things compiled with 7.2 would
    continue to run when a new eoe installed.

    However, Compiler Execution Environment 7.3 is the *initial*
    7.3 compiler_eoe and most systems would have upgraded
    to later 7.3.x compiler_eoe.

    >So now for a few questions:
    >
    > 1) What exactly does a 'Development Option' include? All compilers?

    No. It included back ends and tools and the C front end (both
    ANSI and K&R C). No other front ends.

    IDO was never free.

    As has been described in these newsgroups before (many times)
    IDO was split into IDF and IDL and front-ends at the time
    of MIPSpro7.2. This split made IDO vanish and made it possible
    for folks to get free IDF/IDL and gcc so apps could be built
    on IRIX without forcing purchase of the C front end.
    About 1995/1996.

    > 2) Above I have IRIS Development Option 6.2 and IRIS PowerC 6.2. Does
    > the Development Option not have PowerC? What is the difference?

    PowerC was the name for the compiler doing
    automatic-parallelization
    using a 3rd party source-source transformer .

    PowerC cost us extra to ship. So it was not shipped
    unless it was paid for.
    PowerC was of no use unless you had multiple processors.
    (Single System Image on IRIX. Not for clusters).

    When we introduced MIPSpro7.x compilers PowerC became obsolete.
    The new back end did it all, making the 3rd party stuff
    irrelevant.

    > 3) Are the Ada compilers stand-alone and do not need the C compilers
    > in order to work properly? I would assume the Ada runtime libraries
    > are all that is needed.

    Can't recall for sure about Ada 1.3 but pretty sure this is GNAT based.
    (ie, Ada Core Technologies).

    Ada compilers *do* require either IDO or IDF/IDL as GNU linker
    and tools were never useful on IRIX.
    (I'm overstating. objdump/readobj are clearly useful on IRIX,
    but not the GNU linker).

    > 4) What is the difference between MIPSpro C and PowerC?

    See above, but:
    Google will point you to techpubs.sgi.com
            keywords
                    powerc sgi

    > 5) Apparently MIPSpro 7.0 started with IRIX 6.2 and 7.1 was for both
    > IRIX 6.2 and 6.3?

    And IRIX 6.4
    So was MIPSpro7.2 for all those releases.

    IRIX 6.2 was installable on all systems of the period.
    IRIX 6.3 was only O2.
    IRIX 6.4 was only a few 'large' machines.

    Not till IRIX 6.5 was IRIX all-system again.
    (as it still is with IRIX 6.5.25, though various obsolete
    machines have fallen off the list, 6.5.22 is the last
    that supports O2 R5K for example).

    > 6) So did IRIS Development Option 6.2 contain MIPSpro 7.0 or 7.1
    > compilers?

    IDO6.2 was before MIPSpro 7.0.

    > 7) What exactly is the compiler execution environment all about?

    >Forgive the ignorant questions, but I'm just trying to piece together
    >how the whole compiler toolchain history works. Thanks a bunch.

    techpubs.sgi.com has all the manuals for all this.
    (but not for IRIX4, IRIX4 books were never in the right form
    for the web. We had the technology for the books and the web, but
    nobody could really get at the books (the web
    did not really exist then for most folks) so we did
    not make them web-available then and it's not sensible now.)

    Hope there are not too many mistakes above.

    Google is your friend.

    Regards,
    David B. Anderson davea at sgi dot com http://reality.sgiweb.org/davea

  • Next message: Walter Roberson: "Re: Understanding the many versions of IRIX/MIPSpro compilers..."

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