Date   : Mon, 06 May 1985 17:23:18 GMT
From   : Rick Fairfield <zadco%ssc-vax.uucp@BRL.ARPA>
Subject: Summary of CP/M C compiler suggestions

                        May 6, 1985

     I received many replies to my request for a better CP/M
C  compiler  than  Whitesmiths.  Everyone  agrees  that Whi-
tesmiths C Compiler is a dog.  How can they  get  away  with
selling such trash at such a high price (about $700.00) - is
the market asleep?.  Anyway, here is a  summary  of  what  I
learned:

1)   The nearly unanimous favorite was the  Aztec  'C'  com-
piler from Manx Software. This compiler costs about $200.00.
The Aztec C compiler was liked because of its similarity  to
the 4.2 bsd Unix C compiler, because it includes source code
for the library, and because of it has pretty good  compila-
tion  speed.   However, a common complaint was that the code
generated is not very efficient, making for rather long pro-
gram  files. Since I am writing large programs this may be a
problem for me.

2)   There are a number of inexpensive  C  compilers  (under
$100.00),  all of which appear to produce efficient code and
sport fast compilation times.  These compilers suffered from
varying  degrees  of "non-standardness".  The BDS C compiler
was the most well liked in this class.

3)   Several people mentioned the  Eco-Soft  C  compiler  as
being the most modern, standard, and complete CP/M implemen-
tation. However, none of these people had actually used  the
compiler;  all  were  reporting second hand information.  If
anyone has any hands-on experience with  this  compiler  I'd
like to hear from you.

                                               Thanx,
                                               zzzzzadco

                                               aka Rick Fairfield
                                               Boeing Aerospace Co
                                               206-773-1004