x86_64 port

[Donald Bruce Stewart]

kip.macy:
> > number of platforms). The registerised port is being held up as none of
> > the developers have regular access to such a machine.
> 
> I'm new to Haskell but not to assembler - is the work required
> something that someone in my position could contribute to?

Certainly. Not much Haskell is required at all, and only some assembler.
The porting guide contains a list of what needs to be done:

    http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/building/sec-porting-ghc.html 

Much of this is done already. Simon Marlow's done the register mapping
(ghc/includes/MachRegs.h) and done other registerisation work. There
was a bug in gcc-3.3x that halted things for a while, but this has been
fixed in 6.4

Most stuff can be figured out by looking at the code for other archs
already in the relevant files. The FFI for example just requires a few
dozen lines of assembly.

If you felt up to it, it would be a good way to learn about ghc
internals. Feel free to ask questions on the mailing list, we'll help as
much as possible.

Cheers, 
   Don