From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 14 May 2001 13:30:47 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 14 May 2001 13:30:37 -0400 Received: from tomcat.admin.navo.hpc.mil ([204.222.179.33]:11793 "EHLO tomcat.admin.navo.hpc.mil") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Mon, 14 May 2001 13:30:19 -0400 Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 12:29:56 -0500 (CDT) From: Jesse Pollard Message-Id: <200105141729.MAA28295@tomcat.admin.navo.hpc.mil> To: alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk, meissner@spectacle-pond.org (Michael Meissner) Subject: Re: Not a typewriter In-Reply-To: Cc: vonbrand@sleipnir.valparaiso.cl (Horst von Brand), mharris@opensourceadvocate.org (Mike A. Harris), Wayne.Brown@altec.com, hacksaw@hacksaw.org (Hacksaw), linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org (Linux Kernel mailing list) X-Mailer: [XMailTool v3.1.2b] Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org --------- Received message begins Here --------- > > > IIRC, the 6 character linker requirement came from when the Bell Labs folk > > ported the C compiler the IBM mainframe world, not from the early UNIX (tm) > > world. During the original ANSI C meetings, I got the sense from the IBM rep, > > 6 character linker name limits are very old. Honeywell L66 GCOS3/TSS which I > had the dubious pleasure of experiencing and which is a direct derivative of > GECOS and thus relevant to the era like many 36bit boxes uses 6 char link names > > Why - well because 6 BCD characters fit in a 36bit word and its a single compare > to check symbol matches well... actually it was 6 bit "ascii" computed from: (char - ' '). Depends entirely on architecture, and implementation. EBCD/6Bit/7Bit and EBCDIC were supported on the Honeywell systems. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jesse I Pollard, II Email: pollard@navo.hpc.mil Any opinions expressed are solely my own.