Re: SNNS Kernel functions on Windows NT?
(Që… ð@ÄØð@ÄÔ)
Thu, 6 Feb 97 11:05:34 -0600
We have been working for some time on porting a variety of large,
proprietary UNIX applications to NT. We have been considering porting SNNS,
but probably won't do isolated applications until we have settled more
details on our overall porting strategy. Of course, when porting from UNIX
to NT, there are many small issues, such as compiler library compatibility
issues, as you might incur if porting from one UNIX environment to another,
but the major areas of concern are the interaction with the underlying
operating system, interaction with the window manager, and the GUI.
UNIX and NT do not support the same set of system calls. For example there
is no fork or exec function under NT. Commercial approaches to this problem
have included building a library which maps UNIX system calls directly onto
calls to the NT operating system, thereby providing programs with an API
which looks like the UNIX system API. We have been using the commercial
product Nutcracker (DataFocus, Inc., Fairfax, VA, 703-631-6770, $5000/seat),
which follows this approach. The Nutcracker product includes a number of
utilities which help with the code modifications. The Nutcracker product has
been very useful and we continue to use it, although porting our (complex)
applications has not been straightforward. DataFocus also supplied us with a
port of XVIEW (the SUN x-windows library implementing the SUN OpenLook
"look-and-feel") which had been made by one of their customers in France. We
have made a few further changes and are able to support OpenLook interfaces
under NT.
An alternative commercial approach has been taken by Softway Systems's
OpenNT product (San Francisco, CA, 415-896-0708). They have modified the NT
OS, adding another layer over the NT lernal. The new subsystem implements
(portions) of the UNIX OS functionality. (We have no experience with this
product).
The two products I mention, and further related issues, are discussed in
the article "Two Tools to Port UNIX Code to NT" in the January 1997 issue of
Unix Review.
Regards, Jim
# Jim Mayland
# SBC Warburg, Chicago, IL
# phone: 312-554-5443
# email: Jim_Mayland@il.us.swissbank.com
On Thu, 30 Jan 1997, R. de Klerk wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Has anyone ever tried to make the SNNS kernel functions
> run on Windows NT? Or does anyone know of limitations
> why this should not be possible? (e.g. compiler dependant
> integer/float representation, etc).
>
> The idea is to compile the kernel functions under NT with
> a 32 bit compiler without all graphics functions, and
> perhaps use the NESSUS editor to create the networks, which
> can then be trained with batchscripts.
>
> Any comments/ideas/experiences are greatly appreciated.
> Greetings, Richard.
>
> #######################################################
> # Richard de Klerk #
> # Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Germany #
> # phone +49-7247-824238 fax 822289 #
> # email deklerk@hdirisc9.fzk.de #
> #######################################################
>