4 ms·

For the end-users the transition from VAX to Alpha rhymed with VEST, which was a command-line utility to produce an Alpha native binary from its VAX original bi

For the end-users the transition from VAX to Alpha rhymed with VEST, which was a command-line utility to produce an Alpha native binary from its VAX original binary. When successful, such image was considererd VESTed. In some (lucky) mismanaged cases this would be the only way forward in absence of the original source code. Similar process was in use during transition to IA and probably to x86-64 now. Pure magic, indeed!

loph 5y ago
I think an awful lot of the user-space utilities were VESTed, I'm thinking about EDT and TPU and who knows what else? This might be the ancient ancestor of the technology that Apple uses to run x86 binaries on their M1 ARM-based chips.
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  > This might be the ancient ancestor of the technology that Apple uses to run x86 binaries on their M1 ARM-based chips Surely such an ancestor would be based on Apple's 68k->PPC transition in the mid-90s or its PPC->x64 transition in the 00s.
  - loph 5y ago
    Please don't call me Shirley! Do you not think Apple looked at the prior art before writing that translator? Of course they did. "Great artists steal" -- indeed they do.
  - chasil 5y ago
    Apple used Rosetta. I remember a version of Rosetta that was advertised to run SPARC/Solaris binaries on x86 under some sort of iBCS. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Binary_Compatibility_Standard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Binary_Compatibility_S... I really wish they had done PA-RISC. I still have some orphaned software on that platform. It looks like Rosetta emerged from Quick Transit, and was eventually borged into IBM. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTransit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTransit
spullara 5y ago
I thought it was called mx. Turns out that there was one called 'mx' and it was based on the VEST codebase and was for Ultrix binaries. "ULTRIX MIPS Translation The translator that converts ULTRIX MIPS programs to DEC OSF/1 AXP programs is called mx. The mx project started after VEST was functional, and we took advantage of the VEST common code base for much of the analysis and Alpha AXP code assembly phases of the translator. In fact, about half of the code in mx is compiled from the same source files as those used for VEST, with some architectural specifics supplied by different include files. The C+ + language has proven quite valuable in this regard. "

loph 5y ago

I think an awful lot of the user-space utilities were VESTed, I'm thinking about EDT and TPU and who knows what else? This might be the ancient ancestor of the technology that Apple uses to run x86 binaries on their M1 ARM-based chips.

bigbillheck 5y ago
> This might be the ancient ancestor of the technology that Apple uses to run x86 binaries on their M1 ARM-based chips Surely such an ancestor would be based on Apple's 68k->PPC transition in the mid-90s or its PPC->x64 transition in the 00s.
- loph 5y ago
  Please don't call me Shirley! Do you not think Apple looked at the prior art before writing that translator? Of course they did. "Great artists steal" -- indeed they do.
- chasil 5y ago
  Apple used Rosetta. I remember a version of Rosetta that was advertised to run SPARC/Solaris binaries on x86 under some sort of iBCS. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Binary_Compatibility_Standard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Binary_Compatibility_S... I really wish they had done PA-RISC. I still have some orphaned software on that platform. It looks like Rosetta emerged from Quick Transit, and was eventually borged into IBM. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTransit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTransit

spullara 5y ago

I thought it was called mx. Turns out that there was one called 'mx' and it was based on the VEST codebase and was for Ultrix binaries. "ULTRIX MIPS Translation The translator that converts ULTRIX MIPS programs to DEC OSF/1 AXP programs is called mx. The mx project started after VEST was functional, and we took advantage of the VEST common code base for much of the analysis and Alpha AXP code assembly phases of the translator. In fact, about half of the code in mx is compiled from the same source files as those used for VEST, with some architectural specifics supplied by different include files. The C+ + language has proven quite valuable in this regard. "