Re: is Vax addressing sane today

On 29/09/2024 21:30, Thomas Koenig wrote:

Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> schrieb:

Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
>

Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> schrieb:

[...]

I am currently in the position of needing to take some code
written for Linux/Unix and get it running in MS Windows.
>
My attempts to use MSVC have been frustrating, because of some
limitations of that environment.  The two most prominent are
these:  long double is only 64 bits, and there are no integer
types of 128 bits that I could find.

>
Depending on what you need to to, you can give MinGW-w64 a try.
It works either as a cross-compiler from Linux or on Windows using
msys2 or Cygwin.

>
Thank you for these suggestions.  I have started to explore
mingw but not yet the others.  Is there a difference between
mingw and mingw-w64, do you know?

 One is a fork of the other, I believe.
 

mingw-w64 was started as a fork of mingw, initially created to support generating 64-bit binaries and because of disagreements with the pace of development in mingw.

Also do you know if mingw
is compatible with MSVC, as long as long double is not used?

 I believe that Mingw-w64 uses the Windows ABI, but that is a
belief, not something I know first-hand; I haven't looked
at the assembly.

There is a reasonably defined ABI for 64-bit Windows, so I think there will be compatibility for most things in C.  C++ is more complicated and much more likely to have incompatibilities.
There are approximately a hundred and one different C ABI's and calling conventions for 32-bit Windows, since MS never actually defined one, so things are a bit of a mess there.  (DLL calling conventions are clearer.)
I believe the two most popular ways of running "Linux-like" software and gcc on Windows are using WSL (which is more of a virtualisation layer), and mingw-64 for the compiler target (with either gcc or clang) and msys2 as an environment and source of *nix utilities and libraries. mingw/msys is considered old and limited (32-bit only), while Cygwin is considered slow and clunky by many.
At least, that is my understanding.