Super C for 64/128

Karl Hultland · Post by **Karl Hultland** » Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:06 pm

I had that software for my C128 back in the day, I think it was sold by Abacus or Data Becker. Do anyone

know if it would be possible to port it to the CX16?

As far as I have been able to determine from searching on the net it was developed and written by

Thomas Eirich and Franz J. Hauck. I have located Franz J Hauck but have not tried to approach

him yet.

I found him working on Ulm University and am considering to contact him but hesitate as my German is a

bit rusty ? Do anyone here have any contacts at the Ulm University perhaps?

This link https://www.uni-ulm.de/en/in/vsst/team/franz-hauck/details/ list his publications and on the bottom of

the list we find the compiler

F. J. Hauck and T. Eirich, Der Data Becker Profi C-Compiler C64/C128. .... Data Becker, 1986

F. J. Hauck and T. Eirich, Der Data Becker C-Compiler C64. .... Data Becker, 1985.

pzembrod · Post by **pzembrod** » Fri Feb 12, 2021 7:10 pm

The challenge to port it to the X16 might be the relatively limited amount of linear RAM space; one would likely have to break out 8k-ish code chunks and move those into the banked RAM; how easy or hard that is depends on the architecture of their compiler. Apart from that, there should be no fundamental problem.

I will say, though, that I found the Data Becker C64 C compiler to produce relatively slow code, way back then. Most certainly an interpreted VM; calculating the first 1899 primes took 99 sec with their C, iirc, 105 sec with Kyan Pascal (which is known to use a VM), 24 seconds with UltraForth/VolksForth (indirect threaded code), 3 seconds with hand-crafted assembler. Code from my own cc64 takes 5 seconds with static variables, and 14 seconds with local variables on the stack.

Did the C128 Profi C produce code that was speed-wise in the order of magnitude of assembler?

In any case it would be very interesting to see the sources of their compilers, if they are willing and allowed to make them available.

Karl Hultland · Post by **Karl Hultland** » Sat Feb 20, 2021 11:20 pm

I am sure that cc64 will be more effective and create better code, the advantage of the Super C would be that it would run on the computer itself.

Except BASIC and assembly I assume that the only efficient and fast languages we could add would be something like Forth. ?

pzembrod · Post by **pzembrod** » Thu Mar 04, 2021 3:44 pm

On 2/21/2021 at 12:20 AM, Karl Hultland said:

I am sure that cc64 will be more effective and create better code, the advantage of the Super C would be that it would run on the computer itself.

cc64 runs on the computer itself, too. It's written in VolksForth and has a size of just 32k. It currently runs on the X16, the C64 and 64k-equipped C16.

On 2/21/2021 at 12:20 AM, Karl Hultland said:

Except BASIC and assembly I assume that the only efficient and fast languages we could add would be something like Forth. ?

?