Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!decwrl!polyslo!vlsi3b15!batman!nicholaA
From: nicholaA@batman.moravian.EDU (Andy Nicholas)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: 16 bit C compilers generating 8 bit code
Summary: APW Linker
Keywords: Aztec, Orca, APW, C
Message-ID: <733@batman.moravian.EDU>
Date: 14 Dec 89 22:15:03 GMT
References: <4098@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <4185@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <4029@puff.cs.wisc.edu>
Organization: Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA
Lines: 31

In article <4029@puff.cs.wisc.edu>, blochowi@rt5.cs.wisc.edu (Jason Blochowiak) writes:

> Btw, I was just peripherally aware that the APW linker was required to
> be written in Small C by the folks at Apple, but he mentioned it to me when we
> were talking about linkers - anyone know how that hairbrained requirement came
> to be?

if you talk to mike westerfield again, you'll find out that apple wanted the
linker to be portable.  My guess is that they wanted it to be portable so that
MPW IIgs could eventually be built, and mike's linker eventually evolved into
LinkIIGS.

Meanwhile, APW 2.0 is supposed to be much faster than APW 1.0 and Orca 1.1 -- 
most of the people on the net would get a kick out of what mike said at
the KC Developer meeting: One of the first things the APW and Orca assemblers
do is switch in to 6502 emulation mode as soon as they are started, and run
their old 8-bit code for assembling stuff.  And, since the linker is
built with Small/C, I'd guess you could expect some improvement in both
products.

LinkIIGS is faster for linking, but you have to have a rather large amount of
memory and be doing a decently large project to get any benefit from
its use.  gs shrinkit is big enough for LinkIIGS to help.

andy


-- 
Andy Nicholas             GEnie, AM-Online: shrinkit
Box 435, Moravian College       CompuServe: 70771,2615
Bethlehem, PA  18018              InterNET: shrinkit@moravian.edu