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From: sjl@amdahl.UUCP (Steve Langdon)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Megamax C under Unix
Message-ID: <1688@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Jun-85 03:03:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: amdahl.1688
Posted: Tue Jun 18 03:03:06 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Jun-85 07:47:12 EDT
References: <676@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <2050@watcgl.UUCP>
Organization: Amdahl Corp, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 44

> >A Megamax c -Unix cross compiler is now available.  I quote from the
> >newsletter:
...
> Sumacc is available free of charge and works quite well.
> You do need a Vax running 4.1bsd, 4.2bsd or Eunice to use it
> in its distributed form.  If you don't know anybody that you can
> get a copy from, there is a company in Sunnyvale CA who will send you
> a tape for $65.  I'm willing to mail out ordering information if anyone out
> there wants it.
> 
> If anyone knows a good reason why someone with a copy of Sumacc would want
> to buy the Megamax C Unix cross-compiler, I'd be fascinated in hearing it.
> 
> Doug Moen, U of Waterloo Computer Graphics Lab

We have a copy of Sumacc that runs quite nicely on UTS (Amdahl's port of
System V Rel 2) thanks to John Chmielewski of AT&T who did a nice port to
System V and cleaned up a lot of Vax specific code.  Things compile a lot
faster on an Amdahl mainframe than they do on my Mac (or a Vax for that matter).
However, I find Mac C from Consulair a more useful development system for many
programs.  One of the advantages is support of the C Standard IO library calls.
If you are trying to port a useful C program from another system you do not
always want to convert all of the IO to Mac traps.  For example, I have ported
the excellent compress program that has been distributed on the net a couple of
times.  It would be much more difficult to do this using SuMacC.

Another major reason to use Mac C is that it supports the Mac segment loader.
Big applications compiled on SumMacC will not run on a 128K Mac.  I believe
that Megamax also supports the segment loader.

I could continue, but I hope that the point is made.  None of what I have said
should be taken as criticism of Bill Croft who has done the Mac programming
community a great service by his work on SumMacC.  Rather, I was attempting to
show that other compilers have their own advantages to offer.  Melinda Shore's
comment that mentions Megamax's non-standard toolbox names shows that there
are some screwups to watch out for too.



-- 
Stephen J. Langdon                  ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun,nsc}!amdahl!sjl

[ The article above is not an official statement from any organization
  in the known universe. ]