Peter asks:
> I've been working with creating processes and GETPROCINFO which work
> with 32 bit PIN's.  I understand a PIN to be a bit like a process ID
> (pid) on UNIX.
>
> But then I looked at PROCINFO.  That has a 16 bit PIN which is
> documented as not being compatible with GETPROCINFO PIN's.
>
> So are there two PIN numbers for a process?

The technical answer is yes, processes have both a legacy 16-bit PIN and a
32-bit PID, but you'll have a hard time finding that this is true.  The
Intrinsics all take the 16-bit PIN value, though some take it in a 16-bit
integer and some take it in a 32-bit integer.  But the value is still within
a 16-bit range, and the "number" is the same either way.

The 32-bit PID isn't commonly exposed by the Intrinsics, commands, or
utilities, so for the most part you can simply pretend that only the 16-bit
PIN exists.  Currently the limit of processes for MPE is still less than
64K, so there's no worry about PIN being too small any time soon.

The note in the Intrinsics manual under PROCINFO that: "This parameter is
not compatible with the pin parameter of the GETPROCINFO intrinsic." is, to
put it politely, nonsense.  As far as I can recall, there's nothing in the
Intrinsics manual that uses more than one kind of PIN, or which uses the
internal PID value at all (there might be a GET<mumble> Intrinsic that
returns it though).

G.

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