bet@ecsvax.UUCP (03/19/84)
As discussed previously, we found exactly 2 C compilers, Whitesmiths and AT&T. Whitesmiths costs $5000, no educational discount (as far as we know). It lacks stdio -- I/O isn't portable to non-Whitesmiths compilers. We have no need for this kind of nonsense. The AT&T costs $4000 for the first CPU and $2000 for each additional, and is STANDARD -- the language manual is K&R. There is a fantastic educational discount -- $400 per CPU, period. We are an educational institution, so this is a wonderful price. The AT&T compiler produces assembler output, and you then run it through the IBM assembler (can be automated in a catalogued procedure). We talked to a site that was using the AT&T assembler, and they had uniformly good experiences with it after approximately 6 months of heavy programming. No problems with bugs, compiles fast, produces good code, portable and standard, and can be made to link with standard IBM subroutines (i.e. subroutine libraries for FORTRAN, COBOL, PL/I, etc.). The only limitation they reported is in the assembler side -- most IBM assemblers have a limit of a few hundred external symbols, specifically 399 for the OS/VS assembler. All this *seems* to mean is that really large programs will have to be broken up into smaller, separately compiled files. The H level assembler doesn't have these limits, but is less widely used. We plan to get the AT&T, and I will report any further findings. Otherwise, this seems to be the end of the C saga. Thanks for all the helpful responses. Bennett Todd ...{decvax,ihnp4,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bet