new gcc compiler for pdp10 architecture

[Martin Chaney]

Hi,

I've been working on a version of the gcc compiler for the PDP10
architecture for some while now and since it's approaching the stage of
being generally usable, my managers and I have agreed that it's time to
make its existence known.  It may be a good while before things are at a
state where my changes can be folded back into the general development
tree, but I'd like to start laying the groundwork for that eventuality
and discussing with the relevant folks how best to capture the PDP10
dependencies so that my customizations can be limited to the expected
places.  The PDP10 is an unusual architecture in many respects and to
get the compiler to function has required customization through much of
the code that would normally be considered machine independent.

My port is currently based on the GCC4.1.1 distribution.  There are a
handful of testsuite tests that fail that I hope to debug before rolling
forward to the 4.2.1 release.  My experience so far has been that
advancing the base version can cause significant problems and of course
one goal of folding my changes back into the base is to alleviate this
problem.

Comments, advice, suggestions about who I should be corresponding with
are all welcome.  You're welcome to respond to me either directly or on
the relevant gcc list.  I'm now subscribed to gcc, gcc-help and
gcc-announce.

Martin Chaney
chaney@xkl.com