Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-lcc!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!decvax!minow From: minow@decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st,comp.lang.c Subject: Re: "C" on Atari looks pretty wierd Message-ID: <120@decvax.UUCP> Date: Tue, 23-Dec-86 18:08:43 EST Article-I.D.: decvax.120 Posted: Tue Dec 23 18:08:43 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 24-Dec-86 00:07:10 EST References: <1587@hoptoad.uucp> Reply-To: minow@decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow) Organization: Ultrix Eng. Group - Merrimack, NH Lines: 31 Xref: mnetor comp.sys.atari.st:551 comp.lang.c:529 In article <1587@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) saw some wierd C in Atari C postings: >strcat(dir, "\\*.*"); /* Start with 1st file */ >//cpynchar(alert6 + 4L, dir, 20); >//form_alert(1,alert6); Not on my C compiler (Mark Williams). form_alert puts a dialog box on the screen with a simple message with a few (1-3) alternatives, such as "[icon][Really Delete File][No|Yes]" ([icon] is 0 for none, 1 for a "note" icon, 2 for "wait", and 3 for "stop"). form_alert saves a piece of the screen, displays the message, waits for a button press, and returns the choice. >Also, the library routines used are almost totally bonkers. E.g. >to open a file they use Fopen rather than fopen. To read it's Fread. >To scan a directory it's Fsfirst and Fsnext rather than opendir and >readdir. For malloc/free they even use Malloc/Mfree! What was wrong >with the old names, did they make software too easy to port? the Fxxx routines are direct calls to the operating system -- equivalent to Unix section II routines (open, close, sbrk, etc.) The file routines return small integers (channel numbers) The language support libraries also supportroutines. The low-level routines are useful if you want to save space. I've had little trouble porting programs from VMS/Unix/DecusC to the Atari. Given the price (monochrome 1040's are under $800 now, Mark Williams C is a bit over $100), the Atari developers did a very good job. Martin Minow decvax!minow