Brussels / 30 & 31 January 2016

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Running PostgreSQL on a VAX

On the Value of Necrocomputing and the Dangers of Monoculture


Postgres documentation says "Code support exists for M32R and VAX, but these architectures are not known to have been tested recently."

Challenge Accepted! :)

Trying to get Postgres running on the VAX emulator simh started as a whimsical exercise in necrocomputing with no obvious benefit. No users were known and as far as we could determine no users had existed for at least 10 years. In the end it turned up two bits of inefficient code that was depending heavily on IEEE floating point where floating point math wasn't needed at all. It also turned up unexpected issues in the automatic configuration on machines with very limited memory and most suprisingly a NetBSD kernel bug.

Speakers

Greg Stark

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