Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!husc6!mit-eddie!mit-hermes!phr From: phr@mit-hermes.AI.MIT.EDU (Paul Rubin) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Forwarded message Message-ID: <2773@mit-hermes.AI.MIT.EDU> Date: Tue, 6-Jan-87 12:45:44 EST Article-I.D.: mit-herm.2773 Posted: Tue Jan 6 12:45:44 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 6-Jan-87 22:56:36 EST References: <8701022135.AA07189@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <7472@utzoo.UUCP> <539@eneevax.UUCP> <10979@sun.uucp> Reply-To: phr@hermes.UUCP (Paul Rubin) Organization: MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA Lines: 20 In article <10979@sun.uucp> cmcmanis@sun.uucp (Chuck McManis) writes: > >The biggest problem of porting MINIX would be porting the C compiler, >since compiler design breaks down into two camps, the parser and the >code generator. You would literally have to rewrite half of the compiler >to port it. > No, you'd have to rewrite the whole compiler, since the compiler sources don't come with MINIX. You can get them but you have to pay big $$$. (Anything good enough for Tanenbaum to charge lots of money for, you don't get for $79.95). The GNU C compiler will be released soon and it generates better 68000 code than any commercial compiler we've compared it with. Maybe someone can make it work on an Atari. (Note: actually, parsing and generating machine code are each much less than 1/2 of a compiler. Between them, there are a lot of machine-invariant translation and optimization phases before instructions actually get written out.)