.po 5 .lm 1 .rm 75 .# .# .de ar .ne 10 .sp 3 .ce .bf @[1] .sp 1 .dv 1 @[1]\@[tcpn] .dv .en ar .# .# .he 'Software Tools Subsystem Newsletter''[date]' .fo //- # -// .# .# .nh .ar "Change in Personnel" As of July 1, 1981, the management of SWT changed. Allen Akin and Dan Forsyth finished the MS program here at Georgia Tech and are now working in the private sector. Perry Flinn is in the process of finishing up and will soon be leaving Georgia Tech. We wish them well in their new endeavors. The responsibilty for SWT remains with Georgia Tech, however, and we have new individuals responsible for managing and maintaining the Subsystem. .in +8 .nf General Information and Licensing: Jeanette T. Myers (404) 894-2746 Sharon B. McDonell (404) 894-3188 Philip H. Enslow (404) 894-3187 Technical Information and Maintenance Support: Jeanette T. Myers (404) 894-2746 Terry Countryman (404) 894-3164 Peter Wan (404) 894-3164 .fi .in -8 .ar "Conversion to PRIMOS Revision 18" Most of you are probably running PRIMOS 18.1 or 18.2 now. There are three main reasons why you have not yet received SWT[bl]8 for PRIMOS 18. The first is that we received PRIMOS 18 very late (in fact, we finally resorted to getting PRIMOS 18 from another customer in town). The second stems from the delays caused by the staff turnover. Allen, Dan, and Perry made quite a few changes and added numerous enhancements to SWT[bl]7. We have been busy finishing the implementation and testing of these changes and additions, and have also been busy ensuring that the documentation correctly reflects the changes that have occurred as well as documenting the new features. Finally, we are finishing up this release in a very slow, throrough, and methodical fashion because we know that all of you can (and most of you already are) run SWT[bl 1]7 on Primos 18. There are only a few problems; these are detailed in the next section. (Most of you have already called us and received this information.) We will be making the releases for SWT[bl 1]8 during the quarter break and you should receive them at the beginning of January. (Of course, it will take longer for those of you located outside of the United States, unless you specify that you want your's sent air mail). .ar "Temporary Fixes for SWT[bl]7 running on PRIMOS[bl]18.1" The only problems that you should be having with running SWT[bl]7 on PRIMOS 18 are with the commands 'who' and 'mon'. 'Who' doesn't work because GMETR$ is different in PRIMOS 18.1. For the key GM_USER, the return of the login name is now a packed character string, instead of a PL/I character varying string. To fix this simply change the format specification for the GM_USER field from "*6v" to packed format "*,6h". 'Mon' doesn't work because the databases have been changed. We are rewriting 'mon' now and you will have it in SWT[bl]8. Remember that you can have only 99 processes on one system with SWT[bl]7. In SWT[bl]8, the process id's have been increased to 3 digits. .ar "Overview of SWT Version 8" Version 8 of Software Tools differs from Version 7.1 in a number of ways, most of which will not impact the average user. Most changes are extensions or internal performance improvements. (Many were made on your suggestions.) Of course, SWT[bl]8 includes the usual crop of bug fixes. A brief description of some of the features you will see in Version 8 follow. .sp Various programs and library routines now support the tailoring of output for specific terminals. This required changes in the library, the macro definitions file, the Subsystem common blocks, and the programs 'swt', 'se', 'term', and 'term_type'. You will be affected by these changes if you have added terminal types to 'se' or if you have used the preliminary version of the Virtual Terminal Handler Library on the V7.1 release (we have completely rewritten these --- they handle input in a terminal independent fashion and are considerably faster). Since a prompt for terminal type may now occur on Subsystem entry, you may have to add terminal types to the =ttypes= file or educate your users about terminal types. .sp You will see some improved performance in speed. I/O routines are much faster and a reordering of the SWT common block has reduced the size of the working set. .sp PR1ME has now used all available private memory segments. At Version 8 of the Subsystem, it has become necessary to increase the NUSEG parameter in the PRIMOS configuration file to at least 42(octal) (up from the default of 40(octal), to provide private segments for the Subsystem that do not conflict with standard PR1ME programs. This implies that programs using secret knowledge of the Subsystem's common blocks must be relinked. It also implies that you cannot bring up SWT[bl]8 without rebooting your system; unless you already have NUSEG set high enough. .sp To accomodate the increase in the number of available processes in REV[bl]18, process ids will be 3 digits instead of 2. .sp There is now some support for invoking the symbolic debugger (DBG) from the Subsystem. .sp .nh Several internal speed-up improvements and customer-requested enhancements have been made to 'rp'. .hy .sp 'X' now calls the PRIMOS command interpreter directly, via the PRIMOS routine CP$. (This reduces execution time and the amount of garbage displayed on the user's terminal). Furthermore, 'x' can execute PRIMOS commands interactively, returning control back to the shell when it encounters an end-of-file or when the PRIMOS "ren" command is executed. (Compare this to the new command 'primos', which pushes on a new level of the PRIMOS command interpreter, allows the user to continue work under the auspices of PRIMOS, and then allows the user to return to the Subsystem environment by executing the "ren" command). .sp The new version of the shell now allows the user to intercept exceptional conditions, such as pointer faults, arithmetic value errors, interrupts etc. Quits (via control-p or "break") abort the current program and return to command level in the shell, rather than leaving the user stranded in PRIMOS, as was the case in previous versions of the shell. If the user has a shell variable named '_quit_action', then the shell will prompt the user as to whether to abort the current program, continue, or call PRIMOS. If PRIMOS is called, the current program may be continued by typing "start", or SWT may be re-entered by typing "ren". .ar "A C-Compiler for the PR1MEs" The C programming language will soon be available on the PR1MEs. C is constructed to run under the SWT subsystem; however, we will be selling C as a separate package. (New customers will be required to purchase the SWT subsystem along with the C-compiler.) The language is as described in Kernighan and Ritchie's [ul The C Programming Language] and includes the C portable library. The C compiler was written by Dan Forsyth, and the portable library was done by Paul Manno. The compiler makes use of a code generator written by Allen Akin for PR1ME P400 and higher computers. The code generator translates high-level, tree-structured intermediate code into PR1ME 64V-mode assembler. The code generator, along with a user's guide, is also part of our C package. We will be sending all of you more information on this very soon. .ar "Mailing Releases by Airmail" Our policy is to mail release tapes and associated documentation by regular (third class) mail. If you wish to receive any of this material by air mail please make prior arrangements with us for your payment of the airmail postage, e.g. send us your Federal Express Number, an account number to which we can charge, indicate that you would like it sent C.O.D. (not applicable to customers located in other countries), prepay us, or indicate that you would like us to bill you (there will be a $5.00 billing charge). For those of you wishing to prepay us, the release tape, conversion guide, subsystem manager's guide and the cover letter weigh approximatly 3 pounds (1.3 Kgrams). .bp .ar "Customer Information for our Files" In order to update our records and insure that we correspond to the proper person, please fill out the form and return it to the address below: .nf Sharon McDonnel Georgia Institute of Technoloy School of Information and Computer Science Atlanta, GA 30332 Primary SWT Contact at your Installation: ____________________________ Finance Office Contact: ________________________________ Prime Models (e.g. 400, 450 .... 850) ___________________________ Do you have Primenet? _________________ Primos version currently being used: ______________ Primos version to be used with SWT 8: ________________ Is Software Tools actively being used? ______________ Is renewal of the license agreement for another year expected? ______ .fi .bp .he '''' .fo '''' .rs .sp .ce .bf Software Tools Subsystem Newsletter .sp 2 .tl /Volume 2, Number 1//October, 1981/ .sp 5 Published irregularly by: .sp .in +5 .nf Software Tools Project School of Information and Computer Science Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 30332 404-894-2746 .sp .in -10 .fi .sp 5 In This Issue: .sp .nf .tc \ .rm -10 .ta [rm] .rm +10 .rc . .in +5 .so 1