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From: iarocci@eneevax.UUCP (Bill Dorsey)
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari16
Subject: Re: 1040ST questions (C compilers)
Message-ID: <232@eneevax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 26-Oct-86 13:26:36 EST
Article-I.D.: eneevax.232
Posted: Sun Oct 26 13:26:36 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 27-Oct-86 05:17:26 EST
References: <1978@ihuxl.UUCP> <2875@islenet.UUCP> <1277@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Reply-To: iarocci@eneevax.UUCP (Bill Dorsey)
Distribution: net
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Lines: 63

In article <1277@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> braner@batcomputer.UUCP (braner) writes:
>[]
>
>From what I've heard, Mark Williams C is great.  The remaining
>problems are supposed to be solved in the next release.
>
>BUT:  (THE CATCH!!!)  You HAVE to have a hard disk to make any
>serious use of it!!!  It is FAR too slow on floppies (to my taste).
>(And you HAVE to have TWO DOUBLE-SIDED floppies if you want to go
>that way...)  It is too slow on a hard disk, too!
>
Depends on what you mean by slow.  Mark Williams C is about two and a half
time faster than Alcyon C.  While not nearly as fast as Megamax C, at least
it doesn't resrict you to 32k code segments!

You DO NOT have to have two double-sided floppies.  Mark Williams has
released a version that runs on two single-sided floppies.  And if you have
a 1040ST or a 520ST w/ 1 meg, you only need one drive (either single-sided
or double sided) to use the compiler.  To do this, you put the compiler disk
in the floppy and put your source code on a ramdisk along with whatever
other programs you want that will fit.

>So in my opinion Megamax is still the only viable option for
>"personal" (low-budget) use, and is superior to MWC in speed
>of compilation which is important to all users.
>
Speaking of low-budget use, Mark Williams C lists for $20 less than Megamax
C.  And Mark Williams Company gives dealers a larger margin on their product
than Megamax;  I bought Mark Williams C for $130 (list=$180) whereas I have
yet to see Megamax for less than $190 (list=$199).

>Consider:  Megamax is so compact I put the compiler, linker, libraries,
>microEMACS, utilities (from micro-C-Shell) in a (576K) RAM disk,
>and still have some 250K free RAM disk space left!  In the rest of my
>1040's RAM I have micro-C-Shell resident, and enough space to run
>all those things one at a time.  Compiling and linking (all the way to a
>.prg file) a small (2-page) program takes about 15 seconds, all done in RAM.
>(MWC on a hard disk is an order of magnitude slower.)  I can
>put the source for microEMACS (180K) on the RAM disk, and compile
>it completely in RAM!
>
>Now if only somebody would figure out how to make Megamax and I/O redirection
>from within Micro-C-Shell work together...
>
>- Moshe Braner

Nice, but with Mark Williams C you get a powerful Make utility, a small but
useful shell program, and an assortment of unix-like utilities to round off
the package into a powerful full-featured development system.

I'm not disputing that the Megamax C compiler is a good compiler, but I do
disagree with Moshe's conclusion that Mark Williams C is only good for
developers.  If compiling speed isn't the only consideration you buy a C
compiler for, then I would highly recommend Mark Williams C compiler.

-- 
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| Bill Dorsey                                                                 |
|                      'Imagination is more important than knowledge.'        |
|                                            - Albert Einstein                |
| ARPA : iarocci@eneevax.umd.edu                                              |
| UUCP : [seismo,allegra,rlgvax]!umcp-cs!eneevax!iarocci                      |
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