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C Compilers for the Atari ST - Summary of replies

Well, this sure was easy. I got 4 replies, the voting as follows

Mark Williams C - 4 votes
Megamax C - 1/2 a vote
The rest (Alcyon, Lattice mentioned specfically) 0 votes.

Sorry to anyone who sent mail which got returned. We have problems involving
a couple of problems with mail addressing from the NZ news feeder. Currently
we are working on it, and eventually my address may be what is in my From:
field (so sayeth the Guru across the desk from me :-) (-: Unix Guru, not
mail Guru :-)

Much thanks to those who replied and to those who tried. The replies that got
here were from
btb@ncoast.uucp (Brad Banko)
abi@dutinfd.uucp (Ton Biegstraaten)
preston@felix.uucp (Preston Bannister)
Mike Berkley <mberkley%watnext@watmath.uucp>

I'm glad I sent this out - so far, I have heard nothing in ANY mag about
MWC (Mark Williams C), except adverts of course, so would have been loath
to buy  otherwise. However, I have been sold ...

Answers to the questions -
> How good is the documentation ?

All replies said that the documentation was excellent, to the point that
Mike Berkley said "Some people recommend buying MWC instead of abacus books
or the developer's doc."

> How good is the Debugger ?

The debugger appears to be an adb clone. No sdb (Symbolic Debugger), but there
is mention of one in vapourware(:-)). Hopefully there will be one soon ?

> How fast is it ?

No real comparisons returned, except to Megamax, which lets you put the 
compiler on Ramdisk, so it runs faster. (Does this imply MWC will not run off
Ramdisk Mike? It does come with a Ramdisk utility.)

> What is the editor / environment ?

It comes with microemacs, make and "unix-like shell with pipes and redirection
(but no multitasking)".

> How good is the GEM interface ?

Complete library support for GEM

> How robust is it ?

Very robust. No noted complaints with MWC itself.

> How close to the K&R standard is it ?

It seems to cause very few problems in porting from a Unix environment, and
"complies completely with K&R, and has many of the ANSI extensions"

> What other products (C++, microemacs, etc) will run on it ?
> What other hardware does it support (68020, 68881, Stereotech Glasses, etc) ?

OK, I admit it - this is the optimistic section - I WANT an 68020 and
a 68881 in my box. And a Multitasking Windowing tool that I can access
from my software for my applications, but multitasking comes after the
MMU providing memory protection - I believe one of the custom chips
supports some MMU functions, but no-one seems to have multitasking of
the ground that I have seen. The Tower 1632 with a 68000 runs Unix
System V.2 - why doesn't my ST. Actually, I can guess.  The 1632 is a
business box with an MMU without any graphics overhead. Still, it is
old technology. Enough spiel -


Compiled and working with MWC are the Gulam shell (?) and MicroEmacs 3.9.

What the Users want section.
Brad Banko (btb@ncoast.uucp) wants a "simple graphics library" so he can "write
simple graphics applications without having to endure the overhead of using 
GEM".
Ton Biegstraaten mentioned the lack of RCS -> Revision Control System
(me thinks that's what the acronym is for).
Preston Bannister mentioned the lack of sdb.
Given I can't have The One True OS, all of the above make sense to me !

Thanks again for your replies

greg                      ...!uunet!vuwcomp!dsiramd!pnamd!cstowe!greg
                          or    greg@csoft.co.nz (hopefully! :-)
Commercial Software N.Z. Ltd., PO Box 4030 Palmerston North, New Zealand
Phone (063)-65 955

Disclaimer - I think, therefore this has nothing to do with my employers.

The white zone is for loading and unloading. Come to the white zone. You'll
love it - it's a way of life !   ZAPPA.