Subject: Re: self-hosting gc From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2002 17:32:16 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3224424745291931@naggum.net> * Nils Goesche | IIRC, they first write a /cross/ compiler for the new system that | runs on an old system. Then they use the cross compiler to compile | gcc itself and voila... done. Hey, sounds easy, doesn't it? :-)) It sounds like _vastly_ more work than building on the native system with a native assembler and linker to build the first executables until you could replace those, too. Back in the old days, I wrote 8080 and Z80 code on the PDP-10 and its cross-assembler for "microcomputers", because it was so fantastically more convenient to work on a real computer and deploy on a toy than work on the toy computer -- mostly all I did on the toy computer was to write an excellent terminal emulation program, in assembler. However, the only reason this was more convenient was that it was a royal pain in the butt to try to use the toy computer for any development. However, I had to copy the ROMs in that machine to the PDP-10 and basically regenerate its symbol table in order to make things work correctly. Luckily, it had an emulator, and curiously, the PDP-10 emulated the code about 100 times faster than my toy computer executed it. Were it not for the 100,000 times difference in the cost of acquisition and ownership of the two computers, I would certainly have replaced my Exidy Sorcerer with a PDP-10. Come to think of, my current home computer is strong enough to emulate a PDP-10 about 100 times faster than the real thing, too... /// -- In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.