Re: [N8VEM-S100:613] Re: Alcyon C Compiler [aka CP/M-68K compiler]

[Mike <mi...@pikeaero.com>]

On 12/28/2011 06:48 AM, lynchaj wrote:
> Thanks Mike!  That's great news!
> 
> The Alcyon C compiler running on Linux will be useful for CP/M-68K.
> 
> Any luck on trying the CP/M-68K source code?  That should be
> interesting too.

No, I don't have a good enough build of the compiler yet to really
attempt to build anything for real. I'll need probably another 12 +/-
hours on it before it's functional enough on Linux to give compiling
CP/M-68K a whirl.

> 
> You mentioned DRI used the Alcyon C compiler for the original CP/M-68K
> compilation.
> 
> It just makes me wonder if that same source code could not be used on
> other CPUs as well.

The source is old. It looks like it was developed on a PDP/VAX or so. It
uses a lot of non-standard and weird stuff which is the main focus of my
effort at this point is fixing up all the weird code to make it more
compatible with modern 'C' compilers. Yes, once I'm through with it, it
should be a relatively straight forward job to port to other platforms
like Windows, DOS, CPM/M or whatever.

> 
> Certainly the CBIOS would need to be tweaked but is there anything
> inherently 68K dependent in the source code like big endian vs little
> endian?
> 

I have not examined the CP/M-68K source in enough detail to make an
educated comment on that yet. My main focus so far is on getting the
compiler up and running. I expect there are little pockets of platform
dependent code, but from the code that I have looked at, it looks pretty
generic.

> This could prove to be very interesting regardless of how we get CP/
> M-68K running on the S-100 68K CPU board.
> 

Oh, absolutely. That's why I've been working on the Small-C and
Small-C-Plus ports to 68K, because I just want something a little more
lightweight, easy to port, and easy to make ROM-able images from than
the full blown GCC suite.


--Mike


http://8bit.zapto.org