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From: jnp@calmasd.CALMA.UUCP (John Pantone)
Newsgroups: net.micro.cpm
Subject: Re: req. C compiler
Message-ID: <1845@calmasd.CALMA.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 23-Apr-86 11:48:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: calmasd.1845
Posted: Wed Apr 23 11:48:12 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Apr-86 05:30:43 EDT
References: <85@brl-smoke.ARPA> <3362@mnetor.UUCP>
Organization: G.E. CALMA R&D, San Diego, CA
Lines: 66
Summary: further info on MIX-C

In article <3362@mnetor.UUCP>, clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis) writes:
> In article <85@brl-smoke.ARPA> Ghenis.pasa@xerox.ARPA writes:
> >Small-C is cute, but non-standard. For as little as $39.95 you can get
> >MIX-C, which claims to be full K&R standard compatible, and comes with a
> >400 page manual and tutorial (a very good value, in my opinion). The
> >tradeoff is it doesn't produce very efficient code. There are other C
> >compilers for CP/M for under $100, see magazines like Byte, Dr. Dobbs,
> >etc for ads. If you're interested in learning about compilers, Q/C comes
> >with full source for itself written in C ($99 for the whole package).
> 
> I think you're confusing "Small-C" with "Tiny-C".  Tiny-C isn't really C,
> its syntax is rather different.  If I recall correctly, Tiny-C was an
> interpretive language, and about the first thing even close to C on the
> market for micros.  I think that it came without machine-readable media,
> and you had to type in the interpreter code (but I may be completely out
> of wack).  I think that it was the first package Lifeboat ever distributed.
> 
> Small-C V1.0 was written by Ron Cain, complete sources including bare-bones
> 8080 run-time support were published in Dr. Dobbs about 4-5 years ago.  
	
Dr. Dobbs' now offers the "latest and greatest" Small-C source on disk
for around $30. And the documentation in book form for even less.

> It's syntax was *almost* completely compatible with C (only a minor bitch 
> than one "indirection"), and a few other minor glitches (eg: missing all
> of the assignment operators except "=" etc.).

New version has all assignment operators, and multiple indirection.

> It was a fairly impressive achievment even so - Ron Cain had obviously
> never seen a compiler before (eg: it had no true "scanner" - which would have
> speeded it up rather drastically), and, inspite of the drastic subsetting,
> could compile itself rather handily - on a single SSSD 8" CPM disk!
> 
> Small-C didn't optimize the output (assembler by the way) at all.  
 
Does so now - with a pee-hole optimizer compile-time option.

[ a bunch of stuff deleted ...]
 
> Regarding Q/C and MIX-C: unless my memory is completely faulty, *both*
> of these compilers *are* (or were) Small-C, but greatly extended.  I'm 
> absolutely certain Q/C is (which is why it's so cheap and why source 
> is released).  Both of them have been extended at least as far as 
> structs/unions, but not floating point (I think).  I would imagine that
> they don't optimize much either.

Q/C has an optional MATHPAK which extends the spec to include floating point.
It does handle structures, but not unions (I think), and definately not bit
fields.

MIX is a full blown - K&R C, structs, unions, floating point - the whole
shebang.  It is not a fast compiler, nor does it produce very tight code,
but it is far and away the cheapest full C compiler on the market.

[more editing...]

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