Date   : Fri, 20 Jul 1984 12:41:00 EDT
From   : leisner.henr@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: Re: C Compiler for CP/M-80?

Dave,

I've used BDS C and Aztec C on a Xerox 820 (I've also used Whitesmith's
C and Small C).  BDS C is lightening fast to compile, seems to produce
reasonably efficient code but I don't trust it (I once developed a
program on another C compiler and ported it over to CP/M and BDS made me
crazy).  I'd recommend it for doing developed on the compiler but don't
trust it for portable code.  Friends of mine have told me it misses some
obvious errors.  It also is a limited implementation (i.e.  cannot
define static arrays with data at allocation time).

Aztec seems to be the best of all worlds -- reasonably fast compiles,
reasonably efficient code, Unix compatibility.  The only complaint I
have with Aztec is their library source is generally uncommented
(especially the assembly language written stuff).

Whitesmiths is a product I cannot say a good word about.  It's
expensive, it takes forever to compile, it takes up enormous amounts of
space (I think printf("Hello world" is 18 k of 8080 object code), the
older versions I/O is not Unix compatible and the documentation is
unreadable.  Stay away from it by all means unless newer versions are
different than the one I'm using.

All in all, Aztec is very recommended as being Unix compatible.  BDS is
recommended with a grain of salt, but it is great for hacking out one
day programs since it compiles so fast.

Hope I've helped.

Marty.