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From: braner@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (braner)
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari16
Subject: Re: Megamax C mini-review
Message-ID: <388@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Date: Thu, 5-Jun-86 17:13:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: batcompu.388
Posted: Thu Jun  5 17:13:45 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Jun-86 03:45:41 EDT
References: <860602034528.001@Juliet.Caltech.Edu>
Reply-To: braner@batcomputer.UUCP (braner)
Organization: Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Lines: 22

Got Megamax C a few days ago, and it was worth the wait.
   VERY GOOD MANUAL!!
I'm using it with Micro C-Shell, 1040ST and RAM DISK.
Compile and link time: about 15 sec (2-page program)!!
Problem: Megamax have their own I/O redirection feature built in,
as does C-Shell, but both do not work (on programs compiled
with Megamax) from the C-Shell environment...

The 32K segments are for quicker execution, using word-size offsets.
You can use arrays of any size if you malloc() the space.
Catch: the OS Malloc (GEMDOS call) is full of bugs (although it DOES
accept a long argument, which standard C malloc() doesn't),
while the Megamax malloc() only gets 8K at a time from GEMDOS
according to the manual. (And does not return any to GEMDOS to avoid
the bugs...) (It may be 8K or more, I havn't tested it yet.
But the argument is unsigned (16 bits), so 64K max...)

A more serious bug (for me): floating point comparisions (e.g.
"if (a<b) ..." where a, b are float) don't work right for negative numbers.
Given the promise of "full FP support" that's SERIOUS! (I'm sure they'll
fix it, though...). On the good side, you can choose (at link time)
whether the FP operations will be done in single or double precision.