Re: Apple II C compiler

[Chris Morse <chris@cosmicwolf.com>]

On 28 Aug 2003 19:33:22 +0200, MagerValp <MagerValp@cling.gu.se>
wrote:

>>>>>> "PS" == Paul Schlyter <pausch@saaf.se> writes:
>
>CM> but if you're going to REALLY be coding in C for the machine, then
>CM> use a modern machine for it. It's just so much faster.
> 
>PS> I disagree --- having a development machine which is different
>PS> from the target machine slows down the development process quite a
>PS> bit.
>
>Not at all. You can still test the code more or less instantaneously
>in an emulator. And depending on your transfer setup, testing on the
>real machine can also be almost as quick - on my C64 I simply load
>from device 6 and it loads straight from my PC's hard drive.
>
>Is there even a native ANSI C compiler for the 6502?

Thanks, good to see someone sees it from my point of view.  Depending
on how you do it, it MAY or MAY NOT slow you down... in this case,
it's A LOT faster than I could do on an Apple II machine itself.

I have a simple batch file that lets me compile, link, replace the
target program in a .DSK image, and then boot AppleWin with that disk
image.  With no compile errors, this all happens in under a second.

Doing the same thing on an Apple II would take, I would guess, 15
seconds easily.  Between disk access, unloading an editor, loading a
compiler, executing the compiler, writing the output, yadda yadda..
There's really just no comparison.

Hence my quest for a version of "a2tools" that will work with ProDOS
disk images.  Right now I can insert/replace my programs on DOS 3.3
disk images, but if I want to develop under ProDOS I have to use a GUI
program manually to do the file->DSK transfer.

Thanks to Rob Greene for making AppleCommander open-source.  The disk
classes are great for putting together programs that manipulate or
catalog disk images.  So I'll have my ProDOS-compatible a2tools soon.

// CHRIS