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From: farren@hoptoad.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: C compiler for Intel 8051
Message-ID: <1955@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Fri, 3-Apr-87 16:14:44 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.1955
Posted: Fri Apr  3 16:14:44 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Apr-87 07:14:09 EST
References: <569@moogvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: farren@hoptoad.UUCP (Mike Farren)
Distribution: na
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 25
Keywords: Intel 8051

In article <569@moogvax.UUCP> hank@moogvax.UUCP (Hank Kowal) writes:
>
>Does anyone have any experience and/or info on C compilers for the Intel 8051
>microcontroller. Preferably it should be MS-DOS based and be compatible with 
>Intel's ICE.

Haven't seen one, and I don't believe that such a beastie exists, or should.
First, C compilers for 8-bit machines tend to be highly inefficient (very
difficult to do pointers if you're limited to 8 bit registers!).  Second,
the extremely limited stack space in an 8051 would make a C implementation
wierd, to say the least.  Third, you'd lose a lot of what makes the 8051 so
attractive; there's no clean way to implement things like the seperate data and
code space, bit-addressable memory, register banks, multipurpose i/o, and
interrupts.

  Why not become a human C compiler?  Work in C (or pseudo-C) and then trans-
late into assembler.  Better still, bite the bullet and work in assembler to
start with.


-- 
----------------
                 "... if the church put in half the time on covetousness
Mike Farren      that it does on lust, this would be a better world ..."
hoptoad!farren       Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"