[Cuis-dev] Updates to VectorGraphics and precompiled MacVM

[stes@PANDORA.BE]

----- Op 7 jun 2021 om 18:32 schreef cuis-dev cuis-dev at lists.cuis.st:

> On 6/2/2021 7:16 PM, David T. Lewis via Cuis-dev wrote:

>> Testing with interpreter VM and Cuis V3 image, I see substantial
>> performance improvement. The image now seems fast enough for
>> general use with VectorGraphics even with the interpreter VM.

The V3 image in Cuis is 32bit.

Although that the Cog Spur VM and image work fine for me (Spur images 68021 and 6521)

$ ckformat Cuis5.0-4619.image 
68021
$ ckformat Cuis5.0-4619-32.image 
6521
$ ckformat Cuis5.0-4619-v3.image 
6505

for sake of completeness and also as an "interpreter" 64bit possibility,
I still think one of the little-used image formats

68000: a 64-bit V3 image with no closure support and no native platform float word order requirement
68002: a 64-bit V3 image with closure support and no native platform float word order requirement
68003: a 64-bit V3 image with closure support and float words stored in native platform order
68004: a 64-bit V3 image with closure support and no native platform float word order requirement

could be supported.

I'm fine with the fact that the Spur 64bit format is better,
but support for V3 64bit images, if it's not a big effort, would be nice.

I've done an attempt to convert the 6505 image to a 68002 image,
using the SystemTracer package of Ted Kaehler and others, but I don't know enough of it.

Also Cuis as a modern Smalltalk may be too different compared to the old-school

The Interactive Programming Environment
Adele Goldberg

In that book from 1983 I think they described the steps to migrate from 16bit to 32bit

23 Systent Backup, Crash Recovery, and Cleanup 
23.1 Saving Your System State 
23.2 The System Change Set 
23.3 The System Audit Trail 
23.4 Creating a "Clean" System 

it is the stuff described there to create a clone.im image

SystemTracer writeClone

QUOTE
a new system image is created by a process we call ((doing a VMem-
write," that is, writing a new file that contains an image of the virtual
system. The idea of a VMem-write is to trace every accessible object,
and write a copy of each object onto a disk image. This determines
which objects are actually being used and which are occupying space
unnecessarily. The end result is to release any possible free space.
Moreover, the resulting clone can pe started up and run, just like a
snapshot.
ENDQUOTE book 1983


I'd be great to have Cuis support for

SystemTracer writeClone

or

SystemTracer writeClone64


Of course this may be a difficult project, I don't know enough of it.

But I think the VM support in the interpreter to run V3 64bit images is there on Linux and Solaris and possibly other platforms.

David Stes