rupp@noscvax.UUCP (William L. Rupp) (06/04/86)
Can anyone offer wisdom regarding the relative merits of Abacus and Proline C compilers for the C-128? I myself have the C-Power (Proline) for my C-64 and am happy with it (although I have not used it nearly as much as I would like to, and therefore probably am not as familiar with it as some of you). I have heard mostly comments favoring C-Power. Any opinions (informed ones of course) would be appreciated. Bill Computer Sciences Corp.
daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (06/04/86)
> Keywords: C, abacus, proline > > Can anyone offer wisdom regarding the relative merits of Abacus and > Proline C compilers for the C-128? I myself have the C-Power (Proline) > for my C-64 and am happy with it (although I have not used it nearly > as much as I would like to, and therefore probably am not as familiar > with it as some of you). I have heard mostly comments favoring C-Power. > > Any opinions (informed ones of course) would be appreciated. > > Bill > Computer Sciences Corp. I've used the C64 C-Power compiler, and I've heard most of the details of the Abacus version. I think the C-Power compiler is FAR superior to the Abacus compiler. The C-Power object code runs faster than any other compiler I've used on the 64; a Seive benchmark I ran executed in 40 seconds for the Proline compiler, 90 seconds in PROMAL, about 9 minutes in PASCAL, and 1 1/2 hours or so in C128 BASIC. I didn't realize that Proline had released their compiler for the C128, but if they have, I'll certainly buy it. -- /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Dave Haynie {caip,inhp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh "I read dozens of books, 'bout heros and crooks, and I learned much, of both of their style.." -Jimmy Buffet These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be yours too. \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
bub@rlgvax.UUCP ( Mongo Mauler) (06/04/86)
In article <507@noscvax.UUCP>, rupp@noscvax.UUCP (William L. Rupp) writes: > Can anyone offer wisdom regarding the relative merits of Abacus and > Proline C compilers for the C-128? I myself have the C-Power (Proline) > for my C-64 and am happy with it (although I have not used it nearly > as much as I would like to, and therefore probably am not as familiar > with it as some of you). I have heard mostly comments favoring C-Power. > > Any opinions (informed ones of course) would be appreciated. > > Bill > Computer Sciences Corp. I've got the Abacus compiler. Works fine and does all it's supposed to, but Jeez! You're talkin' 10 minutes to get a simple one or two line routine to a state that's executable. God forbid that you made a syntax error or something, 'cause you have to start the whole process all over again. I guess I'm just too spoiled by working on a 'real' computer with cc and lint, but I think that the 70 smackers I dished out for that Abacus thing could have been spent for something else MUCH better.
mab@druak.UUCP (Alan Bland) (06/06/86)
> > Can anyone offer wisdom regarding the relative merits of Abacus and > > Proline C compilers for the C-128? I myself have the C-Power (Proline) > > for my C-64 and am happy with it (although I have not used it nearly > > as much as I would like to, and therefore probably am not as familiar > > with it as some of you). I have heard mostly comments favoring C-Power. If you like C Power 64, you'll love C Power 128! The C128 version includes support for 80-column fast mode, 64K ram disk, up to 4 disk drives supported in the shell. You can copy the compiler and translator into the ram disk if you wish, which speeds up compiling quite a bit. The shell has a few enhancements, mostly dealing with disk support. There's a "cp" command to copy files from one disk to another. You can enable and disable the ram disk, depending on how you want to use the extra 64K. You can choose your own colors for the shell and editor. The shell uses the same character set as the editor (curly brackets look like curly brackets now!). In 80-column mode, this almost seems like UNIX. Large programs link much easier - the linker has more memory to play with, so there's no need to load libraries several times. The documentation is improved, but it still could use a lot of work. The manual even comes in a binder! :-) The page numbers in the index are wrong, and there are some places that still refer to the C64. There's now a tutorial on how to use the software, but it's at the end of the manual. Programs from the C64 seem to port fine to the C128, unless you use peeks, pokes, and sys. C64 programs must be recompiled to run on the C128. Overall, I'm very pleased with C Power 64 and 128, and Pro-Line's support of their products. If you want a C compiler for your C64 or C128, you can't go wrong with these products. -- Alan Bland AT&T Information Systems, Denver CO {ihnp4|allegra}!druak!mab
jamesv@hplsla.UUCP (jamesv) (06/06/86)
> The C-Power object code runs faster than any other compiler > I've used on the 64; a Seive benchmark I ran executed in 40 seconds for the > Proline compiler, 90 seconds in PROMAL, about 9 minutes in PASCAL, and 1 1/2 > hours or so in C128 BASIC. Who's Pascal compiler are you using Dave? I'm not disputing your results but the large difference between your results for C and Pascal surprise me. James Vasil (hplabs!hplsla!jamesv)
jmg@cernvax.UUCP (jmg) (06/07/86)
In article <507@noscvax.UUCP> rupp@noscvax.UUCP writes: >Can anyone offer wisdom regarding the relative merits of Abacus and >Proline C compilers for the C-128? I myself have the C-Power (Proline) >for my C-64 and am happy with it (although I have not used it nearly >as much as I would like to, and therefore probably am not as familiar >with it as some of you). I have heard mostly comments favoring C-Power. I have C-Power, which I like a lot. It produces very efficient code. Is a real compiler from that point of view. However, I like it slightly less than a week ago, since I discovered a bug in the compiler (which I haven't yet reduced to canonical form). Also the code improver (Trim program) has a bug, which I have identified, but haven't seen fixed (not in version 2.9 anyway).
jerem@tekgvs.UUCP (Jere Marrs) (06/09/86)
I gather that the C128 ProLine C is not an 'upgrade' to the C64 version. Is that right? -Jere Marrs Tektronix, Inc. tektronix!tekgvs!jerem
mab@druak.UUCP (Alan Bland) (06/10/86)
In article <1551@tekgvs.UUCP>, jerem@tekgvs.UUCP writes: > > I gather that the C128 ProLine C is not an 'upgrade' to the C64 > version. Is that right? > Unfortunately, C Power 128 is not an upgrade to C Power 64. I asked Pro-Line before making the investment. Fortunately, C Power 128 does not come with another copy of the C_Primer_Plus (a nice introductory textbook on C, but not necessary if you already own K&R). You can order C Power 128 direct from Pro-Line for $89.95 plus $2 shipping - it takes about 2 weeks to arrive. [I am not affiliated with Pro-Line in any way] -- Alan Bland AT&T Information Systems, Denver CO {ihnp4|allegra}!druak!mab
daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (06/12/86)
> Nf-ID: #R:noscvax:-50700:hplsla:6300002:000:453 > Nf-From: hplsla!jamesv Jun 6 09:57:00 1986 > > >> The C-Power object code runs faster than any other compiler >> I've used on the 64; a Seive benchmark I ran executed in 40 seconds for the >> Proline compiler, 90 seconds in PROMAL, about 9 minutes in PASCAL, and 1 1/2 >> hours or so in C128 BASIC. > > Who's Pascal compiler are you using Dave? I'm not disputing your results > but the large difference between your results for C and Pascal surprise me. > > James Vasil > (hplabs!hplsla!jamesv) I'm not sure which PASCAL it was, I borrowed it from the guy next door just because he kept raving about how good his PASCAL package was. I'll look it up if you're interested. It think that the major difference between the C and the PASCAL is that the PASCAL quite likely compiles to some kind of P-Code, then runs in a P-Code interpreter; while the C code is pure 6502 machine language. The PROMAL compiler generates some kind of intermediate code as well, but the PROMAL language was designed to run very fast on a 6502 machine from the start, and it is limited in many ways as compared to C and PASCAL. Finally, as I recall from the documentation, I believe that the Pro-Line C compiler will first try to allocate variables in zero page of the 6502; that alone will speed things up. I think you could certainly create a faster PASCAL compiler than the one I used, though you might never get as fast as C, just due to the various operators C has that are designed to create faster and shorter code. Also, PASCAL compilers generate bounds checks on all array references at run-time, while C compilers don't. That just occurred to me. The Seive benchmark is array intensive; this more than anything else may be the most important factor -- it'll likely take longer to check the bounds of the array than to actually access an element of the array, depending on how this is done. There's no real efficient way to do this on a 6502 machine. PROMAL doesn't check array bounds either, as I recall. -- /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Dave Haynie {caip,ihnp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh "As a dreamer of dreams and a travellin' man, I had chalked up many a mile." "I read dozens of books about heros and crooks, and I learned much from both of their styles.." -Jimmy Buffett These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be yours too. \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (06/12/86)
> Nf-ID: #R:noscvax:-50700:hplsla:6300002:000:453 > Nf-From: hplsla!jamesv Jun 6 09:57:00 1986 > > >> The C-Power object code runs faster than any other compiler >> I've used on the 64; a Seive benchmark I ran executed in 40 seconds for the >> Proline compiler, 90 seconds in PROMAL, about 9 minutes in PASCAL, and 1 1/2 >> hours or so in C128 BASIC. > > Who's Pascal compiler are you using Dave? I'm not disputing your results > but the large difference between your results for C and Pascal surprise me. > > James Vasil > (hplabs!hplsla!jamesv) Greg just came back. He says that it was Oxford PASCAL that I did the benchmark in. We don't have the book here, so I can't get any details on the compiler itself. I do recall the one nice thing about Oxford was that is has a memory-resident compiler mode, in which the source, editor, compiler, and object code can all be in memory at the same time. What this gives you is a BASIC-like enviromnent where you just type in the program and then say RUN. This is limited to small programs of course; they also support disk based compiles for larger programs. -- /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Dave Haynie {caip,ihnp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh "As a dreamer of dreams and a travellin' man, I had chalked up many a mile." "I read dozens of books about heros and crooks, and I learned much from both of their styles.." -Jimmy Buffett These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be yours too. \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/