[Coco] C compiler source

[James Dessart]

Earlier in the past 24 hours, John H. said:

> I guess my point was, why use a one-off emulator for  OS-9 + Level 1
> when you can run NitrOS-9 under MESS? MESS has the wider audience, so
> presumably it will get more dev attention, have less bugs, etc.
> 
> I think if you can expose a shell prompt through a virtual serial port,
> that would get you access to the OS-9 shell.

The point is that MESS emulates the whole system, and is not sufficiently
fast to be a comfortable development environment. OS-nine emulates OS-9
system calls, and the 6809 processor, ONLY. And the system calls are
written in host-native code, which speeds things up tremendously over the
MESS situation.

The whole point is to have a development environment which is comfortable
for people who currently know how to program, and one that poses little
barrier to entry for a novice. Getting OS-9 running can be hairy, and
getting a compiler running, on a CoCo, in addition to that I'm sure would
also be somewhat more complicated than we want to make things.

The speed is definitely a consideration, and the convenience. although my
monitor at the office is much bigger than that at home, I think my
1024x768 monitor at home is ample space to write code in. However, I do
not think that 80x24 of text is. I also want fast compile times, and MESS
can't speed that up by the orders of magnitude I'd like simply because it
emulates the actual hardware, running OS-9 completely in emulation.

James