#Amiga Compiler
17 messages in this thread
Ok, Now that there is going to be a 68080 machine (and cards are aleady
available) and to borrow from a meat commercial … "Where's the compiler???"
How can I write software for this wonderful new product line, when there is no
available commercial compiler? Please, don't tell me that it'll compile for
68000 generic code. ACK! I want to make use of every ounce of compute power
avaiable and generic code doen't cut it in my book. Since SAS is (has been)
out of the picture, Anyone know who'll make it? No need for me to buy a '060
to develop on if no compiler is available.
/s/Geoff… cross developing for UNIX, MAC, AMIGA, & PC.
SAS will likely restart their product development. Escom has discussed this
with them. I do not know the results of this, but $$$ tends to convince
people. Secondly, another (as yet unnamed) German company has a C++ product
that Escom is trying to get on to the Amiga, and may be a "standard" compiler
soon. You'll have to wait, but I'd say there will likely be further SAS
support.
Secondly, if you compile for the 68040, you will achive all you need. The main
differences with the '060 are internal, not large changes in the instruction
set, so 68040 optimized code will do quite well on a 68060. A 68060 specific
version would have very subtle and fairly insignificant differences to a 68040
version.
Much though I've been happy with SAS's compiler over the years, I'd much prefer
to see Escom/AT try to get a more up-to-date compiler and environment ported to
our machine, like Metrowerks Codewarrior… Metrowerks seems like they're open
to deals of various sorts.
(Okay, okay, so it's a Mac product. But it's a darned good Mac product… 🙂
–>Steve Bennett
>>(Okay, okay, so it's a Mac product. But it's a darned good Mac product… 🙂
Yeah, actually SAS's compiler isn't very good. (sorry). It is really slow
compared to similar Mac products RUNNING ON THE SAME PROCESSOR. You'd expect a
powerpc compiler to beat it, but I've used a C compiler (don't remember which,
Turbo C maybe) on a 68020 Mac and it was lightning compared to SAS. The C code
is alright, but the C++ preprocessor is rediculous. I use (and am abused by)
Visual C++ on a PC, both 486 and 586, and it compiles most C++ programs about
10 times as fast as SAS on a 40MHz 68030. The 68000 code of most Mac compilers
is a lot better thought out and evolved than the SAS. It's nice that they made
it, but someone needs to make a really kickass compiler. I've looked at even
optimized SAS/C code under assembly, and the whole model the code is built by
is in need of improvement. It works, and is more reliable than Microsoft C++
(which has made some of my programs tell me 10^3 is 999) but a fancier C++
compiler would be great. I would jump ship in a minute if something better
came along, and who could blame me… it's not like SAS has been loyal to us,
why be loyal to them. If a fairly quick and dirty C++ compiler came up, I'd
buy it in a minute.
Ian,
Well I like a reliable compiler like SAS's.
> …but the C++ preprocessor is rediculous.
And it maybe gone by now. The Amiga was just one platform that the SAS
compilers supported. They have continued working on the rest and getting rid
of the preprocessor was one of the planned changes as I remmember it.
I would think they could have a major update ready in a few months if they came
back into the Amiga market. What would be in that release is anyones guess at
this point. Unless you work at SAS that is. 😉
//
\X/ Amiga lives? Gerald Bonnstetter, Bonnsoft
Steve,
I couldn't agree more — Code Warrior is a far superior product to SAS/C. I
would love to see it made available for the Amiga.
-Steve Ahlstrom
>Metrowerks seems like they're open to deals of various sorts.<
Well, the AmigaOS was written in C, (MacOS was in Pascal) if I am correct…
And they make CodeWarrior Mac & BeBox PowerPC C compiler…
Sounds QUITE interesting to me…
Let's wait two more weeks… B-(
Regards
Rafa <Motorola Inside> from Berlin, thanks to AP1.80
>…olive oil is the way to go.<
You should be able to create code for the amiga using codewarrior, all that
would be needed would be a linker ( of course they probably use pascal
convention everywhere which would spoil my idea ). It's a pity that the unix
world abandoned the 68k series otherwise we could use their compilers.
Don't worry, microsoft will port visual c++ to the amiga, won't they?
Phill
>Don't worry, microsoft will port visual c++ to the amiga, won't they?<
Hopefully, they won't. Remember AmigaBASIC? B-(
Rafa <Motorola Inside> from Berlin, thanks to AP1.80
>…olive oil is the way to go.<
Yes, I remember AmigaBASIC 🙂
Phill
>>Don't worry, microsoft will port visual c++ to the amiga, won't they?
Not impossible, if they start to sell. It would be faster and more powerful
than SAS, but I personally would not be happy thinking any part of the AmigaOS
was compiled with a Microsoft product. I remember what crap AmigaBASIC was.
Crashed as soon as I upgraded to 2.0. Great programming job. Pretty slow too.
Now to be honest, I've used Microsoft C++ more than any other C++ compiler, and
have some good things to say about it too, it is fast, and the interface isn't
bad at all. But I have had it generate buggy code that works okay on Borland
Turbo SAS GCC whatever. Especially numerical stuff, the math libraries SUCK.
They are inaccurate, and I have even had it cause me some major problems
before, when I wrote a program to simulate the earth's magnetic field intensity
vectors with spherical harmonic analysis… with Microsoft C++.
Let's just say, don't let Microsoft play God. The earth will hang on the 6th
day.
AmigaBASIC also didn't work if you had an accelerator with 32 bit addressing. I
guess they were used to programming on macs where it seemed to be encouraged to
treat addresses as 24 bit values with an extra 8 bits for you to use how you
wanted.
Phill
>>AmigaBASIC also didn't work if you had an accelerator with 32 bit addressing.
Yeah, actually that was its problem. It broke as soon as I got my 3000. Glad
I didn't depend on it for my living or anything. Its one thing when a software
package doesn't work with an OS upgrade… its quite another when a software
creator doesn't work. What if I had some programs written in BASIC that I
actually used for something at the time? I'm a scientist, and often write
programs to complete repetitive tasks or complex calculations. BASIC is
adequate for this… but had I a lot of programs written in AmigaBASIC I
needed, I would have been screwed. Sure there are alternatives NOW, but in
1990 I don't think there was a BASIC package I knew of I could use. So I
started using assembly, since it was all I had at the time to program with,
once BASIC failed! I would have learned C had I enough money for a compiler,
which, again, in 1990 were all expensive (remember SAS was once $400) and there
were no PD alternatives etc. at that time. All I had was Devpac.
I prefer 68000 to basic, it just takes a lot longer to write the code 🙁
There was ABasic which was written by metacomco, but that was withdrawn and
replaced by AMIGABasic. I think it was still available ( maybe public domain ).
Phill
I'm no fan of Microsoft but keep in mind they were dealing with Commodore at
the time.
I've always wondered if they ruined AmigaBASIC to get even with Commodore.
Remember that back in the 70's, Commodore was just about the only company to
purchase a BASIC from Bill Gates, as opposed to licensing it. He always felt
that they gave him a raw deal – though he was ecstatic to get it at the time.
Or so I've been told.
—Betty