11 May
2019
11 May
'19
6:34 p.m.
On 5/11/19 2:00 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
Although I enjoyed DeSmet C, I used Microsoft C for
all subsequent high
level language progams that I wrote.? For example, I wrote the screen
capture TSR of "XenoFont" in MASM, and the printing program in Microsoft
C; I wrote "Sales tax Genie" (TSR) in MASM, but then later renamed the
.COM file to .EXE to use it as the "stub" program of a Microsoft C
Windoze program, to have a single file that could load the TSR in DOS,
AND be able to run as a Windoze program.? I never got around to redoing
the TSR formats to be able to ALSO load them as device drivers (lets you
get them into lower memory!); I intended to eventually create a single
executable file format that could be loaded by CONFIG.SYS, CMD.COM, AND
Windows.
My first FILES-11 RX01 read-conversion tool was written in PL/M and ran
on an MDS800.
My second FILES-11 RX01 reading/conversion utility was written largely
in FORTRAN. System was an 8080 S100 box with a WD1771 controller.
C on an 8080/85 system seems like a horrible waste of hardware, owing to
the need for procedure-local variables. Stack-based addressing isn't
pretty. Basically to load a 16-bit stack-based integer into BC you have
to do something like this:
LXI H,offset
DAD SP
MOV C,M
INX H
MOV B,M
Add to that, that really good "C" compilers for the x80/x86 took some
time to mature. My first C on an 8086 was Lattice; compiled on a
floppy-based system. But then Microsoft MASM 1.0 was terrible in its
own right as well--the list of errata was quite long. I remember
mumbling to myself "that's not what I wrote!".
--Chuck