---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 09:13:56 -0400
From: Jim Cooper 
Subject: [ICOA] SAS/C for PPC - Unofficially...

Since this has come up in the list, I thought I might let you know 
what I can about this, for now.  Just so you know, yes, I am the 'Jim 
Cooper' who's been associated with SAS/C since SAS took it over from 
Lattice.  I've been at SAS 7.5 years, now.

Yes, Steve Krueger is getting a PPC "patch" release ready.  He's been 
the guy responsible for 6.56, 6.57, and 6.58, and the 'experimental' 
C++ 7.01, almost single-handedly (the Amiga porting work has all been 
his).

The PPC "patch" will be released under the same auspices as the 
experimental C++ - with SAS's blessing, but no official support.  It 
will be released in the hopes of getting a little free testing from 
the Amiga users, and in exchange, they get free updates _long_ after 
the company has stopped official support/development.

Steve does all his Amiga work at home, on his own time.  He does have 
an Amiga at work (the only one left at SAS!), but that's strictly for 
emergency use, and for a few scripts/processes he set up long ago... 
no reason to try to re-work them on another machine/OS as long as the 
Amiga keeps doing it's job.

Now, to clear up a couple of other points which have come up 
lately...

ˇELF output.  It took Steve all of about 3 days to make the compiler 
output ELF instead of Amiga HUNK format.  Of course, he had done work 
with ELF stuff before, but he's one guy working part-time on this, 
rather than a group doing this as their full-time job...

ˇThe compiler is NOT as bad as has been implied.  Currently, the code 
isn't as good as GCC will do in every case.  It's not bad, either. 
 And it's getting better, as Steve works with it more.  One particular 
test case was talked about, where GCC code ran about 10% faster, and 
that has been taken as the overall comparison factor... not a good 
thing.  Once Steve gets a PowerUp board and can really beat on the 
compiler, things should start shaping up.  (His board should arrive 
soon.)

This "patch" will require you to have 6.50 original disks, and 
currently only a few of the pieces of the package are ported.  The 
Compiler is done (code output already tested by someone at Phase 5), 
but you still have to use the 'ld' linker from the GCC package.  This 
is not that bad, and allows Steve to work on other more badly needed 
parts - such as CPR (partially done - should be finished & working 
fine before patch release), libraries (you do want a working 
'printf()', right? :-), etc.

That's it, for now.  The patch will appear on Steve's home page first, 
if you want to check it.  Please, be gentle... he just created this 
page this past weekend, and isn't through with it, yet.  :-)

Oh, and if you were at all interested in the 'experimental' C++, he's 
got a newer version there than the one on AmiNET.

http://www.warped.com/~stevek/

Thanks for your time.

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