demogr@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Bruce Saunders) (09/05/88)
I plan to buy a Modula-2 compiler for my Z-80 based micro in the near future.
After reading articles in MicroCornucopia, I prefer the FTL compiler to
the Turbo M2 compiler because it is more standard and provides a more
convenient programming environment. Also, from past bitter experience with
Turbo Pascal I've learned that Borland does not debug their products very
carefully and provides little if any support for their software.
Unfortunately a note in the Simtel archives suggests that the FTL package may
be even buggier, and I've heard rumors that Workman & Associates does not
provide much support, either.
I'd like to receive or compose a list of known bugs and patches/fixes for both
compilers and their respective libraries. Is there anywhere I can obtain
at least a partial list for either Modula-2 package? If not, I would like to
known of any SPECIFIC "serious" problems you have stumbled upon, particularly
with array manipulation, dynamic variable management, and mathematical routines.
I'd also appreciate any recommendations regarding useful programming tools
which are either missing from one of the packages or are flawed or awkward
to use.
Thank you for your help. I will summarize responses and post what I learn.
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Bruce Saunders demogr@ecsvax.uncecs.eduwieland@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Jeffrey J Wieland) (09/09/88)
In article <5701@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> demogr@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Bruce Saunders) writes: > >I plan to buy a Modula-2 compiler for my Z-80 based micro in the near future. >After reading articles in MicroCornucopia, I prefer the FTL compiler to >the Turbo M2 compiler because it is more standard and provides a more >convenient programming environment. Also, from past bitter experience with >Turbo Pascal I've learned that Borland does not debug their products very >carefully and provides little if any support for their software. Right now, only the users themselves are supporting TM2. When Echelon went out of business, its agreement with Borland for distribution of TM2 expired. Alpha Systems (who took over the Z-System line) has not been able to conclude a new agreement with Borland for Z-80 TM2. So right now there seems to be no way to buy TM2 anyway, unless you do it like I did. I bought the copy used by the author of the article in Micro-C. TM2 is decidedly non-standard, but since the application that I needed it for is also, I really don't care. I'm working on a program to generate star maps on a Micro-Sphere Color Graphics Board (TMS-9918A based). The version of TM2 I have is 1.0. There IS a 1.1, but Borland has not released it. It's supposed to to fix some problems that TM2 has, like running out of memory when converting .REL files to .MCD files. >Unfortunately a note in the Simtel archives suggests that the FTL package may >be even buggier, and I've heard rumors that Workman & Associates does not >provide much support, either. I've heard that this is true, also. Since FTL was written by someone in Australia, this is not surprising. They seem more concerned with the IBM-PC clone version. >I'd like to receive or compose a list of known bugs and patches/fixes for both >compilers and their respective libraries. I'd like to receive this list too. Jeff Wieland wieland@ecn.purdue.edu