#DICE 2.05
Ron,
DICE 2.05 that is in Lib 1 (and Lib 9) is Matt Dillon's freely
distributable version of his shareware compiler. It appears to be very
well done, and as he states in the doc, it may become a commercial product
in the future. It would be an excellent starting point for someone
interesting in learning/using C but who isn't interested at this time in
making the Manx/SAS decision or spending the money for either one of those
compilers.
The problem with the freely distributable of DICE 2.05 is that it does
not contain the the CBM licensed includes or libraries. So, as is, you
can't really use it to write programs that take advantage of Intuition or
any Amiga specific routines. If what you want to do is limit your writing
totally to interaction with the CLI, it's fine. IF you register DICE ($40)
you will be mailed a full set of disks that include the include files and
needed libraries (Matt Dillon has licensed them for distribution from CBM).
Should you chose to go this route, then I think DICE is an excellent value
for the money. Now that SAS appears to be having user resistance in their
takeover of the Lattice compiler DICE may become a significant competitor
in the Amiga C compiler market.
-sja