
This directory contains an MCPL Native System for 386/486/Pentium
based machines (a version for the DEC Alpha will be added later).
It will be similar to the native mode system for BCPL. Installing
MCPL will automatically install bothe the Mintcode interpretive
version of MCPL and the native code version.

This directory (MCPL/natmcpl) contains a prototype version of a MCPL
system compiled into native assembly language, currently for Intel
386/486/Pentium based machines running under Linux. It uses a very
simple codegenerator (cvmial386) that translates the MCPL internal
assembly language (MIAL) into Gnu assembler for the 386. It should be
possible to modify BCPL/cintcode/com/mial-386.b for other
architectures in 2-4 man-days.

The file MCPL/natmcpl/sysasm/LINUX/syslib.s will also need to be
rewritten, but it is only about 150 lines long. It can probably done
with only one day's work.

You should fully install the BCPL Cintcode system before installing
MCPL, since the MCPL compiler is currently written in BCPL.

Once MCPL is correctly installed, you should be able to compile the
system and run various demonstration programs in MCPL/mcplprogs/ by
executing make.

Note that this version of MCPL is still under (slow) development.


Martin Richards                      http://www.cl.cam.ac.ul/users/mr/
16 Oct 2007                          mr@cl.cam.ac.uk
 