🚀 go-pugleaf

On a sunny day (Mon, 12 Mar 2012 13:38:52 -0700) it
 happened Joel Koltner
<zapwire-usenet@yahoo.com> wrote in
<w9t7r.176723$rV3.110521@en-nntp-11.dc1.easynews.com>:

>There must be some smaller C/C++ compilers left in the world besides 
>just gcc, right?  I mean, there were C (not C++) compilers back in the 
>days of 8-bit PCs with 64kB of memory, and while, yeah, they weren't as 
>fancy as the ones we have today, they did work and produced 
>reasonably-sized executables that ran a lot faster than BASIC.
>
>I've got to believe that a decent C compiler that requires no more 1MB 
>while compiling reasonably-sized programs would be entirely viable.

I used Software Toolworks C80 C compiler on a z80 CP/M system.
Not only did it fit on a 250 kB floppy,
it it took little space to compile complicated code in less than 48 kB (kilo byte) RAM.

I still have some of those old sources, but the 5 1/4 inch floppy with that compiler
no longer wanted to load (read error).

I have often wondered why all the gcc crap gets so big.
And that C80 compiler had a floating point lib too.
Mind you, integer was 16 bits...
I leaned to write code in a minimal C set, since those
days my programs are very portable...
And it has in line asm too....

Much of the extension to the C language is perhaps to cater for those who
cannot program or have amnesia, or even worse altzheimer,

In those day you still had to worry about not using too many spaces and linefeeds
else the RAM would fill up too fast.
Unfortunately the modern script kiddies seem to think spaces are still expensive,
and write C without those whenever possible.
#include<stdlib.h>                                                                                                                                                                                          
#include<stdio.h>                                                                                                                                                                                           
main(int argc,char**argv){int i,many=10,half_a_bit=2;for(i=0;i<many;i+=half_a_bit){fprintf(stderr,"spaces%ccost%cmoney%c",32,32,10);}exit(1);