Porting to RISC: Not Just a Recompile

Ed Perratore

The list of developers porting desktop applications from Intel and Mac systems to RISC-based platforms is growing at a rapid clip. Microsoft's Windows NT is the main driving force, owing to the clear field left by its competitors. Desktop flavors of Unix have yet to earn widespread confidence. IBM's Workplace OS remains in development. And while a number of ISVs (independent software vendors) intend to formally announce ported Mac applications the day Apple announces its PowerPC Mac, a native development environment has been slow in coming.

NT also has in its favor the single Win32 API, which leaves the door open for vendors who develop first for Chicago. But despite Microsoft's success at promoting NT as the platform of choice across systems such as Mips Technologies' Mips R4400, DEC's Alpha AXP and, soon, the IBM/Apple/Motorola PowerPC, for some ISVs the road to RISC is not without its potholes.

When Mips helped Cadkey (Windsor, CT) port Cadkey to NT on Mips in only 10 days on the heels of Spring Comdex 1993, it was a revelation for the vendor, which previously sweated to release Unix versions of its 3-D CAD software 30 to 60 days after the DOS version shipped. After exhibiting at the Microsoft OEM booth, relates senior vice president George Krucik, "We said to ourselves, 'Why are we doing Unix ports? Why are we spending two to four months suffering the pains of not being able to release our product on multiple platforms over a reasonable period of time? This is nuts!'" The end result: "In the future, we're just not going to do it."

Krucik, however, called Microsoft to task on the absence of a front end matching that of Microsoft's Intel offering. "The Microsoft [Win32] Software Development Kit has a Mips compiler, but it's not the same as the Visual C++ version," he says. "Unless your compilers are in sync, you never quite know whether any bugs generated are compiler-based or whether they're yours." This uncertainty, he added, has precluded Cadkey from moving ahead more quickly with production-based software for the Mips platform. Microsoft plans to introduce Visual C++ for Mips in the first half of this year. Alpha and PowerPC versions are slated for the fourth quarter. Once those versions become available, developers will have a consistent user interface and code base across platforms.

For Bentley Systems (Exton, PA), the development brains behind Intergraph's MicroStation software, early success at porting the CAD package to NT on an Intel 80x86 did not deter the company from waiting out the first versions of DEC's Alpha AXP compiler. "They evidently went through quite a bit of shakeout in their tools, and we let somebody else be the leading edge on that," said executive vice president Barry Bentley. Aside from the task of facing two set s of compilers, Bentley complained of some "pretty significant bugs" they found when they did begin the Alpha port. The compiler would crash, and early on, a program that did compile wouldn't run.

Once DEC worked out the problems, MicroStation became an easy port--actually a recompile--from NT on Intel to NT on Alpha. The 1.5 million lines of C in the program (plus components written in assembly language and in MicroStation Development Language, a pseudo-interpreted C language) required two weeks to produce a version that not only ran but could be shown to customers.

A third developer, Fractal Design (Aptos, CA), ran into difficulty merely in porting Painter 2.0 to the PowerPC to run under the ported Apple System 7. The biggest problems with early versions of the Macintosh on the RISC SDK, says chairman of the board Tom Hedges, showed up in both the compiler and the linker. "The first release of the compiler was very slow; it barely worked," he said. "And the first release of the linker didn't w ork. It was not capable of linking any application." Hedges noted that Fractal Design's experience would have been far more difficult had the company not already ported its product to Windows using Altura Software's Mac2Win technology, which implements the Macintosh API on Windows.

While Apple has since gotten both the compiler and linker working to some degree, Fractal Design found another problem in the linker that, although Apple claims it should be corrected by the time you read this, would otherwise affect any product ported to run natively under System 7 on the PowerPC. Namely, that the generic PowerPC 601 optimizations in the compiler introduced as many as two dozen bugs that rendered the program unusable.

"What compounds this problem," says Hedges, "is that whenever you turn the optimizer on, it disables all symbols and all debugging information. So where you might say, 'Gee, there's a bug in the compiler. I'll just get into the debugger and figure out what it is.' But no, you can't do t hat. You can only use very difficult, low-level assembly debuggers, and an assembly debugger with no symbols, which makes it almost impossible to use if you turn on any compiler optimization."

The fix was expected sometime in February, but until then, Fractal Design has resorted to turning off all compiler optimization whatsoever for the sake of a program that runs. "That means we're giving up a fair percentage--I'm not exactly sure how much--of the potential performance," he says of what they hope to make available when Apple releases a Mac PowerPC. "I'm not happy about that."

Of course, in every game there are a number of players who sit it out at least until the market requires their presence. "We don't see a real desktop opportunity," said Peter Cohen, a spokesman for Lotus Development's desktop applications group. In general, desktop productivity will naturally carry DOS and lower-end Windows applications first to Chicago and then, if the market demands it, to NT. Vendors in this group incl ude Intuit and Central Point Software, although the latter intends to provide a native Mac PowerPC version of Central Point Anti-Virus.

"We will not build it and wait for users to come," said Traveling Software chairman and CEO Mark Eppley of his company's plans to eventually bring its flagship LapLink to NT on the PowerPC and hold off on Mips, Alpha, or Workplace OS on any processor.

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Developers Committed to RISC

Mips R4400 (Windows NT)


Adobe Systems: PostScript, Photoshop
Arbor Software: eSSbase, eSSbase Application Server
Attachmate: Extra
Autodesk: AutoCAD
Cadkey: Cadkey
Calera Recognition Systems: WordScan-OCR
Computer Associates: CA-Realizer
Corel Systems: CorelDraw
DEC: PrintServer for Windows NT
FutureSoft Engineering: DynaComm/Elite
Image-In: Image-In-Color Professional
Intergraph: MicroStation
Interleaf: Interleaf
Lenel Systems International: Media Viewer, MultiMedia Works
MathSoft: Mathcad
Micrografx: Windows Draw, Designer
Microsoft: FoxPr
o, Office (and core applications), SQL Server, SNA Server, Visual C++, C/C++ for Win32, Hermes, Project, Macro Assembler, Object Basic, Visual Basic, Works
Novell: NetWare Client
Oracle: Oracle7 Server
Quark: QuarkXPress
Software Publishing: Harvard Graphics
Wall Data: Rumba
Wolfram Research: Mathematica
WordPerfect: WordPerfect


Alpha AXP (Windows NT)


Arbor Software: eSSbase
AutoDesk: AutoCAD
DEC: Print Server for Windows NT, Pathworks for Windows NT (client/server versions), C/C++, DCE (client/server versions)
Design CAD: Design CAD 2D, 3D
FutureSoft Engineering: DynaComm/Elite
Intergraph: MicroStation
MathSoft: Mathcad
MetaWare: C/C++ multiplatform tool
Microsoft: Office (and core applications), SNA Server, SQL Server, Visual C/C++
Micrografx: Picture Publisher
Novell: NetWare Client
Quark: QuarkXPress
Wall Data: Rumba
Wolfram Research: Mathematica


PowerPC (Workplace OS)


Quantum Development: Quantum Leap for Workplace OS
Microformatic: Fax PM
ChipChat-Cawtho
n Software: ChipChat Communications Objects
Hilgraeve: HyperAccess
Media Cybernetics: Halo Imaging Library, Halo Advanced Imaging Library
The Software Lifeline: Software Lifeline (product line)
SAS Institute: SAS System
Ask Group: Ask Windows 4GL


PowerPC (System 7)


Aci US: 4th Dimension, 4D Server
Adobe Systems: Photoshop
Aladdin Systems: StuffIt Deluxe, StuffIt SpaceSaver, StuffIt Lite, StuffIt InstallerMaker 2.0
Aldus: PageMaker, Persuasion, FreeHand, Digital Darkroom, Fetch
Canto Software: Cumulus Image Database
Claris: ClarisWorks
Deneba: Canvas
Fractal Design: Fractal Design Painter, Fractal Design PainterX2
Frame Technology: FrameMaker for Macintosh
Graphisoft Software Development: ArchiCAD
Great Plains: Dynamics 2.0, Dynamics C/S+
HSC Software: Kai's Power Tools
Insignia Solutions: SoftWindows for the Mac with PowerPC
Itedo Software: IsoDraw 2.0
Metrowerks: CodeWarrior
Ray Dream: Ray Dream Designer
Specular International: Infini-D, BackBurner
Wolfram Research: Mathem
atica
WordPerfect: WordPerfect, WordPerfect Works

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Ed Perratore is a BYTE news editor. You can contact him on the Internet or BIX at eperratore@bix.com .