[Coco] Which version of C?

[K. Pruitt]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gene Heskett" <gheskett at wdtv.com>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 1:16 AM
Subject: Re: [Coco] Which version of C?


> On Sunday, January 11, 2015 11:32:37 PM K. Pruitt did opine
> And Gene did reply:
>> There seems to be a couple of different versions of C floating around
>> out there.  On a coco 3 with a 6809 running NitrOS9 level 2, which
>> version of C should I be running?
>>
>> I remember not really caring for the first C that Tandy had for OS9.
>> And that was my first exposure to C so it kind of soured me on C for
>> a long time. I used Turbo C from Borland for a bit. That was pretty
>> fun. And I meddled with GCC a bit and it wasn't too disastrous. So I
>> am thinking maybe I'll give C on the Coco another shot.
>>
>> Thanks.
>
> That Tandy C compiler, written my Microware, has a generally good code
> generator, but some of the support functions were broken. We now have a
> much better c.prep I had a hand in, and Willard Goosey has since improved
> even more, and that c.prep v19b should be considered as a total
> replacement for the tandy supplied version.  Several others have supplied
> additional translators and code optimizers.  If you want to feed it
> normal ansi C, with void's and such, then you will run the output of
> c.prep thru ansifront.13, which translates the voids to something the
> compiler in c.comp or the chained c.pass1 and c.pass2 can understand.
> Then we've an improved c.opt2, and your choice of driving scripts, there
> are several for sequencing the whole maryann.
>
> But the best optimizer is the human brain. By interrupting the compiler
> and inspecting the assembly code as it would be sent to c.asm (or rma
> today) and spend some time looking for bit shift loops that shift by 8
> one way or the other, nuke that code and sub a tfr, clear statement pair
> in its place. That is one of the tricks that took rzsz from just barely
> keeping up with a 2400 baud modem, aka 240 bytes a second to nearly 720
> bytes a second running on a 6309. That, and changing to a table lookup
> crc which is much faster than calculating it.
>
> Cheers, Gene Heskett
> -- 
> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
> soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
> Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
> US V Castleman, SCOTUS, Mar 2014 is grounds for Impeaching SCOTUS
>
> -- 

Wow, Gene, I almost understood about 80% of that.  I normally only 
understand about half of what you're saying.  But I always flag your 
messages as important because even understanding only half of what you're 
talking about is like walking through a gold mine with nuggets strewn about 
just waiting to be picked up.  Eventually I'll understand even more of the 
gems you share here.  Thanks for doing so.  I wrote an Xmodem CRC utility 
for OS-9 years ago and the math was so extensive and honestly way above my 
head (polynomials?) and that actually helped me understand your code 
optimization comments. I'm still very fond of using tables instead of 
cycle-eating math when I can.

By the way, my thanks also goes out to Robert Gault and a quite a few others 
here for all the great help you guys share here.





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