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.he 'Software Tools Subsystem Newsletter''[date]'
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.ar "Change in Personnel"
As of July 1, 1981, the management of SWT changed.  Allen Akin and
Dan Forsyth finished
the MS program here at Georgia Tech and are now working in the private
sector.  Perry Flinn is in the process of finishing up and will soon
be leaving Georgia Tech.
We wish them well in their new endeavors.  The responsibilty for SWT
remains with Georgia Tech, however, and we have new individuals responsible
for managing and maintaining the Subsystem.

.in +8
.nf
General Information and Licensing:

   Jeanette T. Myers      (404) 894-2746
   Sharon B. McDonell     (404) 894-3188
   Philip H. Enslow       (404) 894-3187


Technical Information and Maintenance Support:

   Jeanette T. Myers      (404) 894-2746
   Terry Countryman       (404) 894-3164
   Peter Wan              (404) 894-3164
.fi
.in -8
.ar "Conversion to PRIMOS Revision 18"
Most of you are probably running PRIMOS 18.1 or 18.2 now.  There
are three main reasons why
you have not yet received SWT[bl]8 for PRIMOS 18.
The first is that we received PRIMOS 18 very late (in fact, we
finally resorted to getting PRIMOS 18 from another customer in town).
The second stems from the delays caused by the staff turnover.
Allen, Dan, and Perry made quite a few changes and added
numerous enhancements to SWT[bl]7.
We have been busy finishing the implementation and testing of these 
changes and additions,
and have also been busy ensuring that the documentation correctly
reflects the changes that have occurred as well as documenting the
new features.  Finally, we are finishing up this
release in a very slow, throrough, and methodical fashion because
we know that all of you can (and most of you already are) run SWT[bl 1]7
on Primos 18.
There are only a few problems; these are detailed in the next section.
(Most of you have already called us and received this information.)

We will be making the releases for SWT[bl 1]8 during the
quarter break and 
you should receive them at the beginning of
January.  (Of course, it will take longer for those of you
located outside of the United States, unless you specify that you want 
your's sent air mail).
.ar "Temporary Fixes for SWT[bl]7 running on PRIMOS[bl]18.1"
The only problems that you should be having with running SWT[bl]7 on
PRIMOS 18 are with the commands 'who' and 'mon'.
'Who' doesn't work because GMETR$ is different in PRIMOS 18.1.
For the key GM_USER, the return of the login name is now a packed
character string, instead of a PL/I character varying string.
To fix this simply change the format specification for the GM_USER
field
from "*6v" to packed format "*,6h".
'Mon' doesn't work because the databases have been changed.  We are
rewriting 'mon' now and you will have it in SWT[bl]8.
Remember that you can have only 99 processes on one system with
SWT[bl]7.  In SWT[bl]8, the process id's have been increased to 3 digits.
.ar "Overview of SWT Version 8"
Version 8 of Software Tools differs from Version 7.1 in a
number of ways, most of which will not impact the average
user.  Most changes are
extensions or internal performance improvements. (Many were made on
your suggestions.)  Of course, SWT[bl]8 includes the usual
crop of bug fixes.  A brief description of some of the
features you will see in Version 8 follow.
.sp
Various programs and library routines now support the
tailoring of output for
specific terminals.  This required changes in the library,
the macro definitions file,
the Subsystem common blocks, and the programs 'swt', 'se',
'term', and 'term_type'.
You will be affected by these changes if you have added
terminal types to 'se' or if you have used the preliminary
version of the Virtual Terminal Handler Library on the
V7.1 release (we have completely
rewritten these --- they handle input in a terminal independent fashion
and are considerably faster).
Since a prompt for terminal type may now occur on
Subsystem entry, you may have to add terminal types to the =ttypes=
file or educate your users about terminal types.
.sp
You will see some improved performance in speed.  I/O routines are much
faster and a reordering of the SWT common block has
reduced the size of the working set.
.sp
PR1ME has now used all available private memory segments.  At
Version 8 of the
Subsystem, it has become necessary to increase the NUSEG parameter in
the PRIMOS configuration file to at least 42(octal) (up from the default
of 40(octal), to provide private segments for
the Subsystem that do not conflict with standard PR1ME programs.
This implies that programs using secret knowledge of
the Subsystem's common
blocks must be relinked.  It also implies that you cannot
bring up SWT[bl]8 without rebooting your system; unless you already
have NUSEG set high enough.
.sp
To accomodate the increase in the number of available processes
in REV[bl]18, process ids will be 3 digits instead of 2.
.sp
There is now some support for invoking the symbolic debugger (DBG) from
the Subsystem.
.sp
.nh
Several internal speed-up improvements and customer-requested
enhancements have been made to 'rp'.
.hy
.sp
'X' now calls the PRIMOS command interpreter directly, via the PRIMOS
routine CP$.  (This reduces execution time and the amount of
garbage displayed on the user's terminal).
Furthermore, 'x' can execute PRIMOS commands interactively,
returning control back to the shell when it encounters an end-of-file
or when the PRIMOS "ren" command is executed. (Compare this to the
new command 'primos', which pushes on a new level of the PRIMOS
command interpreter, allows the user to continue work under
the auspices of PRIMOS, and then allows the user to return to the
Subsystem environment by executing the "ren" command).
.sp
The new version of the shell now allows the user to intercept
exceptional conditions, such as pointer faults, arithmetic
value errors, interrupts etc.
Quits (via control-p or "break") abort the
current program and return to command level in the shell,
rather than leaving the user stranded in PRIMOS, as was the
case in previous versions of the shell.
If the user has a shell
variable named '_quit_action', then the shell will prompt
the user as to whether to abort the current program, continue, or call
PRIMOS.  If PRIMOS is called, the current program may be continued
by typing "start", or SWT may be re-entered by typing "ren".
.ar "A C-Compiler for the PR1MEs"
The C programming language will soon be available on the PR1MEs.
C is constructed to run under the SWT subsystem; however, we will be
selling C as a separate package. (New customers will be required to
purchase the SWT subsystem along with the C-compiler.)
The language is as described in Kernighan
and Ritchie's [ul The C Programming Language] and includes
the C portable library.
The C compiler was written by Dan Forsyth, and the portable library was
done by Paul Manno.  The compiler makes use of a code generator written
by Allen Akin for PR1ME P400 and higher computers.  The code generator
translates high-level, tree-structured intermediate code into PR1ME
64V-mode assembler.  The code generator, along with a
user's guide, is also part of our C package.
We will be sending all of you more information on this very soon.
.ar "Mailing Releases by Airmail"
Our policy is to mail release tapes and associated documentation
by regular (third class) mail.  If  you wish to receive
any of this material by air mail please make prior arrangements
with us for your payment of the airmail postage, e.g. send us
your Federal Express Number, an account number to which we can
charge, indicate that you would like it sent C.O.D. (not
applicable to customers located in other countries),
prepay us, or indicate that you would like us to bill you (there
will be a $5.00 billing charge).

For those of you wishing to prepay us, the release tape, conversion
guide, subsystem manager's guide and the cover letter weigh
approximatly 3 pounds (1.3 Kgrams).
.bp
.ar "Customer Information for our Files"
In order to update our records and insure that we correspond to
the proper person, please fill out the form and return it to the
address below:


.nf
Sharon McDonnel
Georgia Institute of Technoloy
School of Information and Computer Science
Atlanta, GA   30332


Primary SWT Contact at your Installation: ____________________________

Finance Office Contact: ________________________________

Prime Models (e.g. 400, 450 .... 850) ___________________________

       Do you have Primenet? _________________

Primos version currently being used: ______________

Primos version to be used with SWT 8: ________________

Is Software Tools actively being used? ______________

Is renewal of the license agreement for another year expected? ______
.fi
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Software Tools Subsystem Newsletter
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.tl /Volume 2, Number 1//October, 1981/
.sp 5
Published irregularly by:
.sp
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Software Tools Project
School of Information and Computer Science
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA   30332
404-894-2746
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In This Issue:
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