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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!sdcsvax!noscvax!mball
From: mball@noscvax.UUCP (Michael S. Ball)
Newsgroups: net.wanted,net.micro,net.lang
Subject: Re: Information wanted for Alcyon.
Message-ID: <824@noscvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Mar-85 00:34:01 EST
Article-I.D.: noscvax.824
Posted: Mon Mar  4 00:34:01 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Mar-85 04:19:32 EST
References: <314@nmtvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: mball@cod.UUCP (Michael S. Ball)
Distribution: net
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Lines: 35
Xref: watmath net.wanted:5952 net.micro:9616 net.lang:1498
Summary: 

In article <314@nmtvax.UUCP> knight@nmtvax.UUCP writes:
>My wife is looking for a C compiler to run on a VME-10 under VersaDOS (no
>flames, please) and VMS.  She's seen ads from Alcyon.  Is their product
>worthwhile?  How does it compare to Whitesmith C?  What sort of compatibility
>is there?
>
>On a similar note, what about C compilers for VMS (preferably with an eye to
>compatibility with the compiler on the VME-10)?
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>Bob


We have been using Alcyon's C compiler for about a year now.  It seems
to be pretty stable and handles the whole language (except possibly
enum's, which we haven't tried).

The major problem is that ints are 16 bits long.  This causes difficulties
in moving code from machines where ints and pointers are the same size.
Actually, it causes problems only when the author of the code was
careless about typing, but that seems to be the norm.

The code generated is better than the average pcc derivative.  I haven't
had a copy of Whitesmith C for the 68K so I don't know about that.

My experience with Whitesmith on a Z80 is that the library contains
gratuitous changes from the normal Unix version, prehaps to prove that
it was independently developed.

	Mike Ball
	TauMetric Corporation
	1094 Cudahy Pl. Ste 302
	San Diego, CA 92110
	(619)275-6381