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From: osmith@acorn.co.uk (Owen Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: is it possible to port GNU-GCC-Compiler to Archimedes running RISC-OS ?
Message-ID: <5257@acorn.co.uk>
Date: 19 Feb 91 17:57:46 GMT
References: <1809@tharr.UUCP>
Sender: osmith@acorn.co.uk
Distribution: comp
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England
Lines: 23

In article <1991Feb18.112436.26820@rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de>
zrzm0111@helpdesk.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (MUFTI) writes:

>Is it possible to port the GNU-C-Compiler to Archimedes running RISC-OS ?

Interesting tit-bit of info I picked up at my previous company while
working on 88000 workstations. Norcroft C for the 88000 produces code about
10 to 15 percent slower than GNU C for the 88000. Some of this was due
to GNU C being better at moving instructions around to take advantage of
the parallelism in the 88K, and on the ARM it will lose this edge. But this
only accounted for about half of the difference, the other half was GNU C
being just plain better at performing various optimisations. Note that
the 88K version of Norcroft C has diverged somewhat from the Acorn version.
I don't know which of the Acorn version or the 88K Norcroft version produces
faster code, but I'd place reasonable odds on the 88K version. Thus a GNU
C for the Archimedes stands a fair chance of producing a worthwhile speed
increase in compiled C programs. Of course, if GNU C cannot be made to make
use of conditional instructions, then the potential speed increase is
reduced but is probably still worthwhile.

Owen.
 
The views expressed are my own and are not necessarily those of Acorn.