CompuServe Messages

What???? Granted, you right for small benchmarks, anyone can use the little assembler tricks to speed up and decrease code size. Have you done it (gone thru the C-to-assembler) conversion of say, a 128K-512K size of program?? If I had the time and ambition, yes I could get a C program smaller, using real tight coding techniques and so forth. But realistically, if I'm writing an ass'y language program, I myself don't even bother with that type of 'optimizing' *UNLESS* (like in the example you pointed out) it's really needed. I have not written a quarter-meg size assembly program and the same incantation in "C", so I can't say exactly what percentage you'd get in code reduction. I've written an *AWFUL LOT* of assembly code (for many processors) and an *AWFUL LOT* of 'C' code, also for manyu processors and I can tell you the C compilers I've seen aren't too bad. If you take into account all the code the run-time libraries 'generate' when linked in (it can a huge amount with a dumb linker,) yes, C 'generates' a lot of code — but it's not C's fault! Except for maybe a compiler for the 8085 (which was never remotely designed for anything above assembler instruction set wise) the newer C compilers do awfully good keeping up with assembly coded programs! Sometimes I read the code generated with the new C compilers and say to myself "Gee, that's a neat trick, I wish I'd have used that my last assembly program." !!! Nick.