KJBSF@SLACVM.BITNET (09/05/86)
Date: 4 September 86 21:32-PST From: KJBSF@SLACVM To: INFO-ATARI16@SCORE Subject: A couple of questions Date: 4 September 1986, 21:30:51 PST From: Kevin J. Burnett x3330 <KJBSF@SLACVM> To: <INFO-ATARI16@SCORE.STANFORD> Subject: A couple of questions I have a couple of questions to ask: What are good inexpensive (emphasis on inexpensive) C and/or Pascal/Modula2 compilers for the ST? Also, anybody know why INKEY$ is a 'reserved word' in ST BASIC, when it uses INPUT$ instead?
fouts@AMES-NAS.ARPA (09/05/86)
C: GST C is suppose to be good/cheap, although it doesn't have floating
point and some other features; I haven't used it.
Mark Williams appears to be good, and it's cheap around San Jose (:-)
but I'm waiting until I can afford a hard disk before I buy it (:-(
Beyond that there's Lattice, MegaMax, and the developers kit in
aproximate increasing order of cost, though not necessarily quality.
HIPPO C, (even if you can still find it) is not worth the money.
Modula-2: The only choice appears to be TDI Modula-2. I have a friend who
has it, and says it is a reasonable implementation but the
manual is limited.
Pascal: OSS Personal Pascal is the best choice here. I have it, and
have written GEM applications and a desk accessory with it,
and am in the middle of both MIDI software and a CHESS program.
If you already know Pascal, or don't know any of the above
languages, I would recommend Personal Pascal highly. Especially if you
don't have a lot of experience with GEM on the ST yet. It's a fairly
full implementation of the ISO standard with a few useful extentions,
it has seperate compilation (mediocre) and a good library interface to
GEM along with reasonable documentation in the manual.
So far I've only found one nasty bug, and its fairly easy to work
around.
I would not recommend Pascal if you are already a C hacker and
don't know Pascal though. In this case, you'll find the language very
restrictive.
----------braner@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (braner) (09/07/86)
[] Kevin J. Burnett wrote: >What are good inexpensive ... compilers for the ST? >Also, ... in ST BASIC... Well, it took me very little time to abandon ST BASIC - it's got 3 windows too many (it is faster to retype one line than use the "screen" editor, and so on) and in the 250 page manual I couldn't find any hint on using the RS232 port (I'm sure it's possible, though) and it's SLOOOOOW, etc... Those of you interested in BASIC, the langauge and/or the interactive environment, will be happy to know that an incrementally compiled, BASIC-like language is about to come out for the ST. Incrementally compiled means that each line is compiled immediately upon entry (which is so fast that you don't notice it) (and decompiled if you LIST, again fast - THAT is what the magic power of the 68000 is for) - and when you want to RUN the program the compiled code is ready to run, and run FAST! (The infamous SIEVE - n=8192, 10 iterations - takes about 25 seconds, or about 30 times faster than ST-BASIC, and faster than all the BASIC compilers too.) The language, called HBASIC, is not quite standard BASIC, though. (It is not a GEM program nor a GEM-compatible system, either!) Data types include integers and reals (distinct!), strings, and arrays. Floating point is double-precision but FAST. I don't know what graphics capabilities will be included in the early package, if any. Disk access bypasses TOS and is VERY FAST. A RAM-based assembler will be bundled with it, and there's access to assembled routines from HBASIC. This is NOT vaporware, it is running now and the first public release is scheduled in about two months. It is a descendent of HALGOL, the language that runs on the 68000 add-on boards called "Dtack Grounded", that attach to Apple ]['s and IBM PC's. All of these HW/SW products are made by Digital Acoustics, inc., with which I am not at all associated. The price will be about $50, but I'm not sure if that will include the assembler. This info is out of the newsletter they sent to some of their old-time customers. - Moshe Braner