Nikolay Nikolov wrote:
So in practical terms, a strict 8086 port is probably untestable. But
why would anybody want to when even embedded processors are based on a
newer architecture?
Actually, I have a vintage IBM PC 5150, with a 4.77 MHz 8088 processor,
so this isn't true, it's very testable actually :) However, the i8086
code generator still generates some 186/286+ instructions, so it doesn't
work there yet, but I'm planning to fix this shortly. Here's a video of
a few very simple Free Pascal compiled programs on a true 80186:
OK, answering my own question then. A pure-8086 port could be valuable
if it generated reliable code for something like vtprolog.pas, since
this implements its own garbage collection relying on detailed knowledge
of how Turbo Pascal manages its heap.
--
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk
[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]
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