C Compiler Assembler and Runtime for C64 • Hacker News Board

Re: C Compiler Assembler and Runtime for C64

#31

Post by e12e » Mon, Jan 08, 2024, 10:21 PM UTC

Decabytes wrote: post #18

So I recently took at broad look at some of the old C compilers and wrote an article about it. One interesting thing of note is a lot of compilers in the mid 70s compilers like the Small-C compiler actually only compiled a subset of the C programming language. This was because the 8-bit systems were much more resource constrained the then PDP-11s that C was developed on, and C was difficult to compile. It's hard to b…

> So I recently took at broad look at some of the old C compilers and wrote an article about it.

Do you have a link or reference? Doesn't appear to be on your blog?

https://www.deusinmachina.net/t/programming

Re: C Compiler Assembler and Runtime for C64

#32

Post by e12e » Mon, Jan 08, 2024, 10:27 PM UTC

emptybits wrote: post #29

glonq wrote: post #24

Neat. When I owned 8-bit machines back in the 1980's, I never bothered to learn assembly; just BASIC. I'd love to tinker with retro computers again including things like the Commander X16, but to be honest I'm too old and impatient to code in assembly even though I'm comfy with it now. If I could use a C compiler that inflicted a non-heinous size/performance penalty, I'd be happy. Especially if I could link in asm li…

Idea ... If you want to stick to a (late) 1980s platform AND you want to code in C without penalty, consider the Sega Genesis. 68000 CPU. There's a mature and helpful homebrew scene. Documentation is good. The SGDK devkit/framework is nice and gives you a no fuss pipeline from C through GCC to a ROM file output that you can run on any emulator, or actual Genesis console (flash cart), or an FPGA like the MiSTer projec…

Then again - moving up to 68000 there's the Commodore Amiga, Machintosh, Atari ST... At least the Amiga had C compilers (I assume all of them did).

Re: C Compiler Assembler and Runtime for C64

#33

Post by Decabytes » Tue, Jan 09, 2024, 3:51 AM UTC

e12e wrote: post #31

Decabytes wrote: post #18

So I recently took at broad look at some of the old C compilers and wrote an article about it. One interesting thing of note is a lot of compilers in the mid 70s compilers like the Small-C compiler actually only compiled a subset of the C programming language. This was because the 8-bit systems were much more resource constrained the then PDP-11s that C was developed on, and C was difficult to compile. It's hard to b…

> So I recently took at broad look at some of the old C compilers and wrote an article about it. Do you have a link or reference? Doesn't appear to be on your blog? https://www.deusinmachina.net/t/programming

It’s here https://www.deusinmachina.net/p/compiling-history-a-brief-to...

Re: C Compiler Assembler and Runtime for C64

#34

Post by guenthert » Tue, Jan 09, 2024, 12:30 PM UTC

Decabytes wrote: post #18

So I recently took at broad look at some of the old C compilers and wrote an article about it. One interesting thing of note is a lot of compilers in the mid 70s compilers like the Small-C compiler actually only compiled a subset of the C programming language. This was because the 8-bit systems were much more resource constrained the then PDP-11s that C was developed on, and C was difficult to compile. It's hard to b…

I don't think the Small-C compiler was all that popular with professionals (or even hobbyists). It was incomplete, slow and produced (on the Z80) poor code.

C was indeed not ideal for 8 bitter (hence the astonishment around this topic). CP/M istself was written in PL/0 (I suppose with a sprinkle of assembler). Macro assemblers were popular then for shrink-wrap software. Custom software was often done in BASIC.

Professionals used cross compilers (or cross assemblers) when they had a chance. Microsoft BASIC e.g. was developed on a PDP-10.