The Power C Compiler
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The Power C Compiler
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Re: The Power C Compiler
#2This is like opening a time capsule and examining all the little details. Almost more interesting than the barebones, locked-in-time product page for a paid C compiler, is the locked-in-time cgi-bin-powered shopping cart page at http://www.safepay.net/cgi-bin/shop/cart.cgi?db=products.dat... (note it's an http link).
There's a whole host of old-school relics here--it is truly a blast from the past: paying separately for a debugger, paying for specific libraries, videos available on DVD.
It's really hard to express how deeply internet access has changed the landscape of ... well, everything, but in this particular case, the programming ecosystem. gcc probably existed back when I bought this compiler, and probably so did Borland's excellent pre-internet-era IDE, but I didn't know that. And so I bought this one.
Re: The Power C Compiler
#3I remember learning C from this when I was a teen. The advice at the time was buy the package, throw away the compiler and use Turbo C, and then learn from the Power C book which was the best resource available.
Re: The Power C Compiler
#4This is like opening a time capsule and examining all the little details. Almost more interesting than the barebones, locked-in-time product page for a paid C compiler, is the locked-in-time cgi-bin-powered shopping cart page at http://www.safepay.net/cgi-bin/shop/cart.cgi?db=products.dat... (note it's an http link). There's a whole host of old-school relics here--it is truly a blast from the past: paying separately…
Discovering DJGPP (DJ's GNU Programming Platform) on a CD from a computer magazine literally changed my life.
I can't remember the year, but I had a Pentium 100MHz at home (with CD, which back then was optional).
You are absolutely right. There were tools, but knowing about them was a different story!
Re: The Power C Compiler
#5I think I used Microsoft, Borland and Wacom compilers under DOS/Windows 3.x.
Re: The Power C Compiler
#6This is like opening a time capsule and examining all the little details. Almost more interesting than the barebones, locked-in-time product page for a paid C compiler, is the locked-in-time cgi-bin-powered shopping cart page at http://www.safepay.net/cgi-bin/shop/cart.cgi?db=products.dat... (note it's an http link). There's a whole host of old-school relics here--it is truly a blast from the past: paying separately…
Having to pay for a compiler sounds a little funny through the lens of 2022; I wonder if the majority of people buying these software/packages at the time found the idea strange, too.
Re: The Power C Compiler
#7> binary coded decimal floating point routines and financial functions for calculating the time value of money, depreciation, etc
Wow what was the utility of BCD for these applications? My only experience with BCD is with RTCs. I always assumed that the RTCs had been designed for driving a simple display like 7-segment lcd. But doing floating point in BCD? I guess the 8087 wasn't common yet but maybe soft float using twos complement wasn't common either?
Re: The Power C Compiler
#8This is like opening a time capsule and examining all the little details. Almost more interesting than the barebones, locked-in-time product page for a paid C compiler, is the locked-in-time cgi-bin-powered shopping cart page at http://www.safepay.net/cgi-bin/shop/cart.cgi?db=products.dat... (note it's an http link). There's a whole host of old-school relics here--it is truly a blast from the past: paying separately…
Having to pay for a compiler sounds a little funny through the lens of 2022; I wonder if the majority of people buying these software/packages at the time found the idea strange, too.
I was around in that era and having to pay for assemblers, compilers, etc... didn't sound strange at all. What was also a reality was the difficulty of actually getting them if you were far away from the US (Spain in my case). The world was way bigger back then in so many ways.
Re: The Power C Compiler
#9This is like opening a time capsule and examining all the little details. Almost more interesting than the barebones, locked-in-time product page for a paid C compiler, is the locked-in-time cgi-bin-powered shopping cart page at http://www.safepay.net/cgi-bin/shop/cart.cgi?db=products.dat... (note it's an http link). There's a whole host of old-school relics here--it is truly a blast from the past: paying separately…
Having to pay for a compiler sounds a little funny through the lens of 2022; I wonder if the majority of people buying these software/packages at the time found the idea strange, too.
It was just the way things were back then. Compilers were expensive too. In the late 80s I saved up my allowance money for months to buy a Modula-2 compiler for my Atari ST. I still remember reading the manual on my way home from the city, floppies in hand.
In the 80s there was a vibrant shareware & public domain scene, but 'open source' wasn't nearly what it is today, and shareware & PD things were mostly utilities, etc. That really took off in the early 90s with the advent of Linux, the Internet, FTP sites. Some of the GNU stuff existed in the late 80s but was mainly only of use to academics until Linux came on the scene.
The upside of the way things were is that lots of people seemed to make somewhat reasonable livings as individual businesses selling software they'd made. People who would be sinking their time into open source projects now were often sinking their time into software that they sold by mail order or through user groups, etc.
Re: The Power C Compiler
#10This is like opening a time capsule and examining all the little details. Almost more interesting than the barebones, locked-in-time product page for a paid C compiler, is the locked-in-time cgi-bin-powered shopping cart page at http://www.safepay.net/cgi-bin/shop/cart.cgi?db=products.dat... (note it's an http link). There's a whole host of old-school relics here--it is truly a blast from the past: paying separately…
Having to pay for a compiler sounds a little funny through the lens of 2022; I wonder if the majority of people buying these software/packages at the time found the idea strange, too.
Turbo Pascal was a bargain at $49 when it was introduced, and remained a bargain as the delay loops were removed from the compiler (according to rumor), and features were added. Delphi at $200 was still a good deal... then the price shot through the roof.
Oh, and it had a REALLY good manual and online help.