tyler@gen1.UUCP (Tyler IVANCO) (11/18/86)
I've recently been partially successful in porting gnu-emacs 17.64 to
a Nat Semi ICM 3216 system under BSD 4.2. However, I've encountered a
few problems (more like nuisances). The first involves the gnu-emacs
notion of an address. It seems that the gnu routines are referenced through
a 24 bit address. The address is combined with other information bits so
that the total union is a 32 bit object. This works fine for those whose
compilers generate routine calls via virtual addresses (e.g. jsr <address>) but
does not work at all with systems that call via a module table pointers
(i.e. cxp <module table entry>). The module table (something whose time
has come), requires a full 32 bits. Thus the gnu notion of a 32 bit integer
in union with a 24 bit address/other information is inconsistant with the
processor/compiler. Fortunately a jsr directive was available in the
compiler. Unfortunately, the UNIX signal system required module table
entry values rather than virtual address values. Thus a kludge was required
to coerce the virtual address to module entries for signals. Has anyone been
able to lengthen the gnu-emacs addressing union so that the use of the module
entry is possible?
The second question involves the virtual size of emacs. After
running for a short while, I find that the virtual space has grown in excess
of 3-4 Mbytes. Using gosling emacs, I have yet to use more that 800K of
virtual space. Have I screwed something up in my hacking or is this
characteristic of gnu-emacs?
My final question involves the shell manager. I find that my
commands are always re-echoed unlike gosling emacs. Again I suspect
one of my hacks. Comments?
Tyler Ivanco
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