zemon@felix.UUCP (04/09/84)
I have Manx's Aztec C II compiler and am very happy with it. It's full K&R C with only two exceptions: no enumerations and no bit fields. Unfortunately, it is a bit pricey at $200. I have had very good luck with developing programs on the Z80 for the VAX and vice versa. Art Zemon FileNet Corp.
Bicer.ES@Xerox.ARPA (04/09/84)
There are several C's available for CP/M80. 1 - BDS C: Great to learn C with. Very fast compiler, respectable execution speed, source code of the libraries and a well supported user's group. But it is not a full implementation of C (lacks longs, floats, statics, and initializers). $150. 2 - MANX AZTEC CII: Very good compiler (I use it for production work), full implementation, you get the source of the libraries, assembler output of the compiler can be further hand optimized, an 8086 and 6502 and PDP-11 versions are available. Fast execution speed, but compilation speed can be improoved usin a hard disk or a ram disk. $199. 3 - Whitesmith's C: Don't touch it if you don't have to. Incredibly slow compilation times, and their libraries do not resemble the other ones that I know. $600??? 4 - Echo C: For Z-80 only. Heard good things, but never seen it. 5 - Supersoft C:I'd rather have Aztec C. Slower compilation times, not a full implementation (the version I have), and pain in the neck to develop software with (terrible linking problems -too much code gets included-). In my opinion, most the other C compilers either serve a very specific purpose, or are toy compilers (Tiny C, etc.). Jack Bicer
leisner.henr@Xerox.ARPA (04/09/84)
Alan, I've used Whitesmith, Aztec and BDS. Impressions: Whitesmith runs too slow to be a useful too. In addition, the standard IO libraries are not Unix compatible, which makes it difficult to write portable code. Whitesmith is also expensive. BDS see screams through your source code and spits out a com file in record time. It is only a subset of C, if you can live with it, it is an excellent tool. Aztec C is the most Unix compatible C compiler I've seen on Cpm. Its performance to compile code is somewhere between BDS and Whitesmiths. However, they advertise it is truly Unix compatible and it seems to be. You might want to look at the August , 1983 issue of By te for more information. Marty Leisner Xerox Corp.