Comment by bogantech | Hacker News Reader

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Comment by bogantech | Hacker News Reader

> (and of course eventually dropping support for Motorola 68010 on which the Tektronix 4404 is built)

I don't think it ever did? Looking here[1] it still seems to be supported.

I know m68k support was going to be removed at one point but it was saved in the end[2]

Nice work though! I wouldn't even know where to start with something like this! you're a wizard

[1]https://github.com/gcc-mirror/gcc/blob/master/gcc/config/m68...

[2]https://www.phoronix.com/news/GCC-11-m68k-Is-Safe

Probably he wanted to relive in the 90s where software are simple and less convoluted. Another reason at this point the modern GCC would abandon the old quirky .r format and instead use ELF everywhere so it might be a deliberate choice...Unless he is also trying to bootstrap GCC for Tektronix4404 which is sort of:

> Bootstrapping any compiler typically requires using the existing host compiler to build some native arithmetic functions (long multiply, divide etc) on which everything else will be built. You then use your native compiler to build a (non-optimal) compile of the new compiler.

Just for the record, Tek4404 never had gcc on it. The .r file format is proprietary to TSC (makers of Uniflex). I tracked down the grad student (at the time) Clem Cole that did the porting of K&R C for Tek4404 and there was a lot of time pressure to get it done.

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