palevich.atari@rand-relay@sri-unix.UUCP (07/23/83)
From: John Palevich <palevich.atari@rand-relay> I (Jack Palevich) have hacked a version of Small-C for the Atari Home Computers. It's sold (with source) through the Atari Program Exchange. Optimised Systems Software, of Cupertino, CA, also has a version for both the Atari and the Apple II. I think they might be planning a version for the Commodore 64, but you should talk to them about that. In general, C doesn't work very well on a 6502 -- because the 6502 lacks a 16-bit stack pointer, 16 bit registers, etc.. I've pretty much given up on C, and am currently looking at a language called "Action", which OSS is going to release next week. Action is, in essence, a non-recursive C, which means that it runs extremely fast on the 6502. While the preliminary version of this language runs only on an 800, it should appear on the other '02 machines. Just for comparison, here are rough figures (from memory) of the times for the Byte Sieve of Eratosthenes Benchmark: Atari Basic 3000 seconds Deep Blue C 600 seconds O.S.S. C 440 seconds Val-Forth 190 seconds Action 21 seconds Assembly Code 12 seconds (All figures with-out turning off the screen DMA.) So anyway, assembly language still looks like the best bet for programming the 6502. Jack Palevich