[pups] Re: GCC

[pups] Re: GCC

[norman]

Jonathan Engdahl:

  Consider lcc, the Princeton C compiler. It's much smaller than gcc, and ANSI
  compliant.

lcc's a good compiler; it has become cc in my own peculiar Ancient UNIX
environment.  But my environment is on VAXes, not PDP-11s; the lcc I use
probably cannot be compiled to a core compiler binary of less than about
180KB, of which 136KB is text, and that is without any real code generators.
(For those who know lcc: I am using a slightly-hacked-up lcc 3.6; the
180KB binary includes just the symbolic and null code generators, not
the enormous one I ended up with for the VAX.)

On the other hand, it is probably easier to split lcc into overlays or
multiple passes to make it fit on a PDP-11 than to do the same to gcc;
and lcc works fine as a cross-compiler.  And it's a good solid ANSI
compiler; enough so that it is a little annoying to use it on heritage
code (it grumbles, correctly, if a function returns no value and wasn't
declared void), and helpful or very painful (depending on your point of
view) when used on really old code that is sleazy about mixing types of
pointers in procedure arguments, or reusing one structure as part of another,
or the like.  I had an interesting time a few months ago getting an old
version of tbl to compile cleanly and produce correct results under lcc;
the program contained some ancient constructs that are truly remarkable
to look back on, especially for those of us who started out programming
that way and learned better the hard way ...

If I were going to work with PDP-11s, I would probably use lcc as a
cross-compiler myself, after writing or snitching a code generator of
course.

Norman Wilson

[pups] lcc (was: GCC)

[Greg Lehey]

On Friday, 18 January 2002 at 17:13:26 -0500, norman at nose.cs.utoronto.ca wrote:
> Jonathan Engdahl:
>
>   Consider lcc, the Princeton C compiler. It's much smaller than gcc, and ANSI
>   compliant.
>
> lcc's a good compiler; it has become cc in my own peculiar Ancient UNIX
> environment.

It also has the advantage that there's a good book about it describing
exactly how it works: "A retargetable C compiler: Design and
implementation" by Christopher Fraser and David Hanson
(Benjamin/Cummings, 1995, ISBN 0-8053-1670-1).

Greg
--
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers

[pups] lcc (was: GCC)

[Robin Birch]

In message <20020119112351.F60575 at wantadilla.lemis.com>, Greg Lehey 
<grog at lemis.com> writes
>On Friday, 18 January 2002 at 17:13:26 -0500, norman at nose.cs.utoronto.ca wrote:
>> Jonathan Engdahl:
>>
>>   Consider lcc, the Princeton C compiler. It's much smaller than gcc, 
>>and ANSI
>>   compliant.
>>
Where can it be found and is it legal to use it on the sorts of systems 
that we play with?.

regards

Robin
>> lcc's a good compiler; it has become cc in my own peculiar Ancient UNIX
>> environment.
>
>It also has the advantage that there's a good book about it describing
>exactly how it works: "A retargetable C compiler: Design and
>implementation" by Christopher Fraser and David Hanson
>(Benjamin/Cummings, 1995, ISBN 0-8053-1670-1).
>
>Greg
>--
>Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key
>See complete headers for address and phone numbers
>_______________________________________________
>PUPS mailing list
>PUPS at minnie.tuhs.org
>http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/pups

[pups] lcc (was: GCC)

[emanuel stiebler]

Robin Birch wrote:
> 
> >>
> >>   Consider lcc, the Princeton C compiler. It's much smaller than gcc,
> >>and ANSI
> >>   compliant.
> >>
> Where can it be found 

Please have a look at :

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/software/lcc/

> and is it legal to use it on the sorts of systems
> that we play with?.

The copyright is with Addison-Wesley. However, few companies bought the
right 
to use it. No idea about the price, and whom to ask at Addison-Wesley
...
 
cheers

[pups] lcc (was: GCC)

[Bill Gunshannon]

On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, emanuel stiebler wrote:

>
>
> Please have a look at :
>
> http://www.cs.princeton.edu/software/lcc/
>
> > and is it legal to use it on the sorts of systems
> > that we play with?.
>
> The copyright is with Addison-Wesley. However, few companies bought the
> right
> to use it. No idea about the price, and whom to ask at Addison-Wesley
> ...
>

And one other note.  I had the department secretary request a copy of
the book for me back before Christmas.  They said it would ship around
2 January.  When it hadn't shown up by the middle of the month I asked
her to check with our book rep again.  This time they told her it was
out of print and there was no idea when or even if it would be printed
again.  :-(

On another note, as long as we're talking compilers and PDP's, one of
profs here was cleaning his office and found documentation for WATBOL
on the PDP-11.  This reminded me that Waterloo had done a lot of things
for older systems like the PDP.  I wonder what the chances are someone
there could be found who would be willing/able to release this older
stuff under something like the BSD license so it could be used for
other projects??

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
bill at cs.scranton.edu     |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>

[pups] lcc (was: GCC)

[emanuel stiebler]

Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> 
> 
> And one other note.  I had the department secretary request a copy of
> the book for me back before Christmas.  They said it would ship around
> 2 January.  When it hadn't shown up by the middle of the month I asked
> her to check with our book rep again.  This time they told her it was
> out of print and there was no idea when or even if it would be printed
> again.  :-(

Strange ...

Most of the bookstores seem to have it in stock. Just click on the link
with the "bestbookbuys" 

And on a different note, the book is very good in explaining how it
could
work. But it is describing the version 3.6 of the compiler, so you have
to go through all the sources of 4.1 anyway, because of all changes . 
And you don't touch the book anymore ;-)

cheers & have fun

[pups] lcc (was: GCC)

[Greg Lehey]

On Sunday, 20 January 2002 at 10:52:38 +0000, Robin Birch wrote:
> In message <20020119112351.F60575 at wantadilla.lemis.com>, Greg Lehey <grog at lemis.com> writes
>> On Friday, 18 January 2002 at 17:13:26 -0500, norman at nose.cs.utoronto.ca> wrote:
>>> Jonathan Engdahl:
>>>
>>>  Consider lcc, the Princeton C compiler. It's much smaller than gcc,
>>> and ANSI
>>>  compliant.
>
> Where can it be found and is it legal to use it on the sorts of systems
> that we play with?.

It's in the FreeBSD Ports Collection as /usr/ports/lang/lcc, but it's
still version 3.6; if you update it for more recent versions, let me
know and I'll commit it.

Greg
--
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers

[pups] lcc (was: GCC)

[Jonathan Engdahl]

> >>   Consider lcc, the Princeton C compiler. It's much smaller
than gcc,
> >>and ANSI
> >>   compliant.
> >>
> Where can it be found and is it legal to use it on the sorts
of systems
> that we play with?.

About 10 years ago I used version 3 something and wrote a code
generator for a Transputer-like CPU on a chip that we did. I
wrote the author just to clarify, and he said that using their
compiler to generate code for our chip was fair use, as long as
I wasn't selling their code.

I never took a compiler course, but it wasn't that hard to
understand what was going on. I didn't have the book either. I
considered gcc first, but I never did figure it out.

In version three, the front end hands the code generator some
trees, and the code generator walks the trees and spits out
code. For a limited-stack machine similar to the Transputer, it
was easy, except I had to totally redo register allocation.

The front end for version 3 was very good. I recall I only had
to change two or three things in it.

My conclusion is that you have to be a compiler expert to write
a code generator for gcc. Any competent programmer could do it
for lcc.

I think the new version has a code generator generator.

Doing an lcc code generator for the PDP-11 is on my "someday"
list. One thing that you could to do to make it fit on the
PDP-11 is break it up into preprocessor, front-end, and code
generator programs.


--
Jonathan Engdahl                    Rockwell Automation
Principal Research Engineer         1 Allen-Bradley Drive
Advanced Technology                 Mayfield Heights, OH 44124
http://users.safeaccess.com/engdahl jrengdahl at safeaccess.com

"The things which are seen are temporary,
 but the things which are not seen are eternal."  II Cor. 4:18

[pups] lcc (was: GCC)

[Cyrille Lefevre]

Greg Lehey wrote:
> It's in the FreeBSD Ports Collection as /usr/ports/lang/lcc, but it's
> still version 3.6; if you update it for more recent versions, let me
> know and I'll commit it.

your port tree isn't up-to-date anymore :)

$ cvs log ports/lang/lcc/Makefile
...
revision 1.15
date: 2002/04/12 19:29:14;  author: ade;  state: dead;  lines: +1 -1
Remove lang/lcc -- it's been broken for so long and there is no new
version.

Cyrille.
-- 
Cyrille Lefevre                 mailto:cyrille.lefevre at laposte.net

[pups] lcc (was: GCC)

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Friday, 10 May 2002 at  6:43:51 +0200, Cyrille Lefevre wrote:
> Greg Lehey wrote:
>> It's in the FreeBSD Ports Collection as /usr/ports/lang/lcc, but it's
>> still version 3.6; if you update it for more recent versions, let me
>> know and I'll commit it.
>
> your port tree isn't up-to-date anymore :)

Not at all.

> $ cvs log ports/lang/lcc/Makefile
> ...
> revision 1.15
> date: 2002/04/12 19:29:14;  author: ade;  state: dead;  lines: +1 -1
> Remove lang/lcc -- it's been broken for so long and there is no new
> version.

Your MUA doesn't note the date of the message to which you were
replying.  It was 22 January, long before this commit.

Greg 
--
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers

[pups] Re: GCC

[Warren Toomey]

In article by Lars Brinkhoff:
> norman at nose.cs.utoronto.ca writes:
> > I would probably use lcc as a cross-compiler myself, after writing
> > or snitching a code generator of course.
> 
> bwc at borf.com writes:
> > I got Dennis' sixth edtion compiler to compile not long ago.
> > My advice would be to start there.
> 
> How about the 2.11BSD compiler?  

The next question is, why to do this, and for which operating system(s)?

If it's to get an ANSI C compiler, or some extra performance, then I
can see the point. If it's to ditch a `contaminated' compiler, then
I can see a few difficulties, especially if the target is 2.11BSD

The 2.11BSD linker knows an awful lot about overlays, and any replacement
would need to do the same.

Anway, that's my $0.02. I thought about porting lcc to 2.11BSD ages ago,
but I've never had the time to do it.

Cheers,
	Warren

[pups] Re: GCC

[Davidson, Steve]

Johnny,

I have access to both RT-11 and RSTS/E systems here.  I would be happy to
give the testing a shot.  My preference would be RT first, and then if you
get no other takers, RSTS.

Regards,

			Steve

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Johnny Billquist [SMTP:bqt at update.uu.se]
> Sent:	Saturday, January 19, 2002 10:13
> To:	SHOPPA at trailing-edge.com
> Cc:	PUPS at minnie.tuhs.org
> Subject:	Re: [pups] Re: GCC
> 
> On Sat, 19 Jan 2002 SHOPPA at TRAILING-EDGE.COM wrote:
> 
> > Johnny Billquist <bqt at update.uu.se> writes:
> > > DECUS C might be a better starting point.
> > 
> > DECUS C is kind-of a funny case.  Whereas most C compilers are
> > traditionally maintained and distributed as C source code, DECUS C
> > is distributed and maintained in PDP-11 assembly language.
> 
> True.
> 
> > For other C compilers, a significant milestone was when they were
> > rewritten in C and compiled themselves.  DECUS C is the odd guy out
> because
> > it never tried to reach this milestone.  In some sense this is a good
> thing,
> > because it lets you build it on a machine without any access to any C
> compiler.
> 
> Which definitely is a good thing in this case. Since most systems don't
> have a C compiler anyway, the first compiler have to get down there
> someway, and MACRO-11 is the only language you *know* exist.
> 
> I'm soon done with a cleanup of DECUS-C by the way. I've tried to collect
> all the different versions I can find, and incorporated my own fixes as
> well. This version will support I/D space correctly in RSX (which no other
> version except my in-house hacks have done), will have a working profiler
> again, and also supports RMS and DAP. Fun fun...
> I'm testing it right now, and most things looks like they are working like
> a charm.
> However, if someone have plenty of time, and an RSTS/E or RT-11 system
> around, I'd sure appreciate some help. I've tried to keep those parts
> up-to-date as well, but I cannot test, or fix broken things.
> 
> This compiler have been a mess for many years now... About time it got
> some cleanup.
> 
> Oh. And I don't know if Allan Baldwin (sp?) have some extra hacks in for
> his IP-stack, and I haven't even investigated.
> Anyone know?
> 
> 	Johnny
> 
> Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
>                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
> email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
> pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
> 
> _______________________________________________
> PUPS mailing list
> PUPS at minnie.tuhs.org
> http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/pups

[pups] Re: GCC

[Johnny Billquist]

On Sat, 19 Jan 2002 SHOPPA at TRAILING-EDGE.COM wrote:

> Johnny Billquist <bqt at update.uu.se> writes:
> > DECUS C might be a better starting point.
> 
> DECUS C is kind-of a funny case.  Whereas most C compilers are
> traditionally maintained and distributed as C source code, DECUS C
> is distributed and maintained in PDP-11 assembly language.

True.

> For other C compilers, a significant milestone was when they were
> rewritten in C and compiled themselves.  DECUS C is the odd guy out because
> it never tried to reach this milestone.  In some sense this is a good thing,
> because it lets you build it on a machine without any access to any C compiler.

Which definitely is a good thing in this case. Since most systems don't
have a C compiler anyway, the first compiler have to get down there
someway, and MACRO-11 is the only language you *know* exist.

I'm soon done with a cleanup of DECUS-C by the way. I've tried to collect
all the different versions I can find, and incorporated my own fixes as
well. This version will support I/D space correctly in RSX (which no other
version except my in-house hacks have done), will have a working profiler
again, and also supports RMS and DAP. Fun fun...
I'm testing it right now, and most things looks like they are working like
a charm.
However, if someone have plenty of time, and an RSTS/E or RT-11 system
around, I'd sure appreciate some help. I've tried to keep those parts
up-to-date as well, but I cannot test, or fix broken things.

This compiler have been a mess for many years now... About time it got
some cleanup.

Oh. And I don't know if Allan Baldwin (sp?) have some extra hacks in for
his IP-stack, and I haven't even investigated.
Anyone know?

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

[pups] Re: GCC

[SHOPPA]

Johnny Billquist <bqt at update.uu.se> writes:
> DECUS C might be a better starting point.

DECUS C is kind-of a funny case.  Whereas most C compilers are
traditionally maintained and distributed as C source code, DECUS C
is distributed and maintained in PDP-11 assembly language.

For other C compilers, a significant milestone was when they were
rewritten in C and compiled themselves.  DECUS C is the odd guy out because
it never tried to reach this milestone.  In some sense this is a good thing,
because it lets you build it on a machine without any access to any C compiler.

Tim.

[pups] Re: GCC

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Johnny Billquist <bqt at update.uu.se> writes:
> DECUS C might be a better starting point.

norman at nose.cs.utoronto.ca writes:
> I would probably use lcc as a cross-compiler myself, after writing
> or snitching a code generator of course.

bwc at borf.com writes:
> I got Dennis' sixth edtion compiler to compile not long ago.
> My advice would be to start there.

How about the 2.11BSD compiler?  

-- 
Lars Brinkhoff          http://lars.nocrew.org/     Linux, GCC, PDP-10
Brinkhoff Consulting    http://www.brinkhoff.se/    programming

[pups] Re: GCC

[Bill Gunshannon]

On Fri, 18 Jan 2002 bwc at borf.com wrote:

> Just check out the chapter on precidence parsing in the dragon book
> before you work on the compiler.

The dragon book!!  The best book on compilers ever written.

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
bill at cs.scranton.edu     |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>

[pups] Re: GCC

[bwc]

I got Dennis' sixth edtion compiler to compile not long ago.
It's definitly not ANSI C, in fact it's not quite K&R C, but
I really like coding in it.  My advice would be to start there.

Just check out the chapter on precidence parsing in the dragon book
before you work on the compiler.

  Brantley Coile

[pups] Re: GCC

[Jonathan Engdahl]

Consider lcc, the Princeton C compiler. It's much smaller than gcc, and ANSI
compliant.

--
Jonathan Engdahl            Rockwell Automation
Principal Research Engineer 1 Allen-Bradley Drive
Advanced Technology         Mayfield Heights, OH 44124 USA
Mayfield Heights Labs       engdahl at safeaccess.com 440-646-7326

[pups] Re: GCC

[Johnny Billquist]

On Fri, 18 Jan 2002, Bill Gunshannon wrote:

> Not only is size a problem, but even as a cross-compiler it is lacking.
> I am pretty sure support for the PDP stopped many releases ago and even
> at the peak of support I don't believe there was ever as or ld support
> for the PDP.  I have considered reviving the PDP cross compiling work
> and looking at writting a translator to take the output from -S (which
> I am quite certain would be AT&T format) and convert it to Macro-11.
> I usually end out weighing this against the work necessary to just write
> a C-compiler for the PDP (using Small C as a starting point).  If only
> I could retire so I'ld have the free time.  :-)

Two things.
1. DECUS C might be a better starting point.
2. With DECUS C, you also have an as, which might fit the bill without
having to convert stuff to Macro-11.

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

[pups] Re: GCC

[Aaron J. Grier]

On Fri, Jan 18, 2002 at 10:44:17PM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> In article by Aaron J. Grier:
> > > Is anyone using GCC to compile code for the PDP-11?
> > on the PDP or cross-compiled?  (will gcc run under 2.11?)
> 
> Not until you can get a 32-bit process address space and virtual paging
> on the PDP-11 :-)

isn't that what VAX is all about?  ;)

-- 
  Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | agrier at poofygoof.com
          "Making people dance so hard their pants almost fall
                 off is kind of fun."  -- David Evans

[pups] Re: GCC

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Bill Gunshannon <bill at cs.scranton.edu> writes:
> I don't believe there was ever as or ld support for the PDP.

I added PDP-11 support to GNU binutils last year.  It's not well
tested, though.

-- 
Lars Brinkhoff          http://lars.nocrew.org/     Linux, GCC, PDP-10
Brinkhoff Consulting    http://www.brinkhoff.se/    programming

[pups] Re: GCC

[Bill Gunshannon]

Not only is size a problem, but even as a cross-compiler it is lacking.
I am pretty sure support for the PDP stopped many releases ago and even
at the peak of support I don't believe there was ever as or ld support
for the PDP.  I have considered reviving the PDP cross compiling work
and looking at writting a translator to take the output from -S (which
I am quite certain would be AT&T format) and convert it to Macro-11.
I usually end out weighing this against the work necessary to just write
a C-compiler for the PDP (using Small C as a starting point).  If only
I could retire so I'ld have the free time.  :-)

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
bill at cs.scranton.edu     |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>

[pups] Re: GCC

[Warren Toomey]

In article by Aaron J. Grier:
> > Is anyone using GCC to compile code for the PDP-11?
> on the PDP or cross-compiled?  (will gcc run under 2.11?)

Not until you can get a 32-bit process address space and virtual paging
on the PDP-11 :-)

	Warren

[pups] Re: GCC

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Wilko Bulte <wkb at freebie.xs4all.nl> writes:
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2002 at 10:53:20PM -0800, Aaron J. Grier wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 17, 2002 at 08:36:05AM +0100, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> > > Is anyone using GCC to compile code for the PDP-11?
> > on the PDP or cross-compiled?  (will gcc run under 2.11?)

Cross compilation, I assume.  Doesn't matter to me, I just want to
know if anyone's using it.

> On the PDP: very unlikely. gcc is far too big to fit in even split
> ID I would assume?!

Yes.  Dunno if it could be made to work with overlays or something,
but it'd be very slow.

-- 
Lars Brinkhoff          http://lars.nocrew.org/     Linux, GCC, PDP-10
Brinkhoff Consulting    http://www.brinkhoff.se/    programming

[pups] Re: GCC

[Wilko Bulte]

On Thu, Jan 17, 2002 at 10:53:20PM -0800, Aaron J. Grier wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2002 at 08:36:05AM +0100, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > Is anyone using GCC to compile code for the PDP-11?
> 
> on the PDP or cross-compiled?  (will gcc run under 2.11?)

On the PDP: very unlikely. gcc is far too big to fit in even split
ID I would assume?!

-- 
|   / o / /_  _   		email: 	wilko at FreeBSD.org
|/|/ / / /(  (_)  Bulte		Arnhem, the Netherlands

[pups] Re: GCC

[Aaron J. Grier]

On Thu, Jan 17, 2002 at 08:36:05AM +0100, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Is anyone using GCC to compile code for the PDP-11?

on the PDP or cross-compiled?  (will gcc run under 2.11?)

-- 
  Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | agrier at poofygoof.com
          "Making people dance so hard their pants almost fall
                 off is kind of fun."  -- David Evans