Message-ID: <1636@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-May-83 14:08:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.1636
Posted: Mon May 30 14:08:49 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Jun-83 07:55:56 EDT
Lines: 40

From:      Howard Walter 

I highly recommend Aztec C From Manx Software. It costs $200 and is
worth every penny. It is more than just a C compiler - it is a micro-UNIX
for the vanilla 6502 apple. Here is a summary that I sent to several other
people.

Howard


I have no idea if Aztec C will run on a ///. I received three disks,
one is a startup disk which contains the "shell" and a bunch
of device drivers (keyboard with and without shift key mod, 40/80 column
displays), one disk which contains system utilities and a third which
contains libraries. Aztec C requires a 16k ram card and two
disk drives are HIGHLY recommended.

The shell allows commands like cp, mv, rm, ls. It is great to be able
to copy without loading another program. Simple shell files are
supported; the major loss is no wildcard match character such as ? or *.
System utilities consist of a relocating 6502 assembler, visual editor like vi
but lacking most of vi's features, linking loader, od, nm, a library
collector, an archiver and a C compiler. The C compiler compiles to an
intermediate "P" code which is interpreted at run time. A C compiler
which compiles to native 6502 code which can then be assembled is
promised in 1 week.

The library disk contains source code for all of the library functions and
most of the sytem utilities. The major losses are no source for the
assembler, C compiler and linker.

Several libraries are provided -  stdio library, basic system library (open,
close,etc), floating point math functions, and device drivers.

The three disks are completely unprotected and all software is
easily copied. This is refreshing in an industry where most
software is so highly protected it is unmodifiable by the purchaser.

I have found one bug in the software but it was easily fixed since I
had the source code.