terrell@OHIO-STATE.CSNET (Eric Terrell) (12/06/85)
Although the hippo-c compiler from haba is one of the few compilers out for the 520ST, I would strongly urge anyone interested in getting a compiler to wait for others to hit the marketplace. hippo-c is copy protected (which is insane for a compiler)! The manual says that one can copy the files to another disk and use it, as long as the original is in disk a. While this is true, for a single drive system, one is obliged to use the original disk for storing program files, etc. Although the manual gives one the impression that hippo-c is a full K & R C comiler (except for floating point) I had great difficulties getting some of my C programs compiled with it. A was able to compile a trivial one. When I tried to compile a somewhat longer program (about 400 lines) I got the fatal error "out of registers." Nowhere in the manual is there any mention of why it ran out of registers. I felt like screaming "then use !@#$!@#$ main memory!" The icon - based user interface of GEM really appeals to me. The hippo-c compiler does not use this interface and instead has a pseudo UNIX interface. I would much have preferred to use icons and the mouse, even though I use UNIX all the time. So to sum up, unless you are VERY desperate for a c compiler and are willing to settle for a copy-protected compiler with nontrivial bugs and an unsatisfactory user interface, don't get it. (I'll be happy to sell mine ). Eric Terrell