Has anyone used ORCA C for the Apple IIgs? If so, how is it?
I've been coding in C for a long time on other platforms and now I
m interested on porting some things to the GS. I don't know much about
orca C but I was thinking about buying it.
Does anyone have a copy of the manual they could share with me? If I read
through the manual, I should be able to tell if the stuff I want to port
would be worth doing. I would also like to learn a bit more about ORCA C
before throwing down $100.00, I've looked all over the net for a manual
or more info, but information on ORCA C is scarce.
Thanks,
Jeffrey
I don't know anything about orca C but this link might be of interest to you.
http://www.cc65.org/
it's cross platform C compiler for 6502
Hello Jeffrey,
unfortunatly syndicom hasn´t realized up till yet, that a release of the manuals as PDF-download for free
might turnout to become a good argument for sales of the compiler....
up to the moment they are sitting on the distrubution rights - so it´s a legal issue if anybody publishes
a link to a scanned manual....
in my specific case it´s also a issue of the amount of documentation waiting to be scanned for heritage purposes...
( i mentioned this just 2 or 3 days ago in another thread here.... )
and i´m beyond the age that i want to fight a legal battle with syndicom about legal issues....
it might be interesting to find out if Google did.... maybe google already scanned the manuals at one of the libraries, but has also decided to keep the scans "on the shelf" due to that kind of possible legal fights....
maybe syndicomm will change behaviour someday in future - in own interest - if they recognize that even releasing that pdf files from the manuals might become a good argument for sales of the compiler itself - if people get chance to read the manual and recognize the advantages of the compilers and the platform.
I do have all manuals from all orca products due to the fact that i have purchased all of them
Orca M = Macro Assembler
Orca Pascal = Pascal Compiler
and of course Orca C - the C compiler.
One of the great advantages is the fact that you may "interact" with all 3 components,
meaning you may choose and work with one of the compilers to code one block of algorythms and then switch to
one of the other compilers to work at another part of the program and then finally bind all 3 or 4 parts together and get them finally compiled and linked together in one large program. I preferred this advantage because it permitted to
code the hardware dependent parts with the macro Assembler, the menues and program interfaces with Pascal,
and the math and operational code with C. This was a big advantage compared to the AZTEC C, which i had used before.
Next point was that it permitted pretty clean and easy access to the API interfaces of the IIGS Toolboxes and the related NDAs and CDAs.
As far up to my knowledge it´s also remarkable that there is a crosscompiler platform that is claimed to work flawless between Macintosh and Apple II series with exchange of the codes from Orca to the level at Macintosh and vice versa.
At the moment the only legal page related to the Orca C compiler is the page listing all known bugs and issues, which are rather well documented.... so beyond that list is not much more "bad bug ditch" to be expected:
http://warshaft.com/obugs.htm
So at the moment i´m sorry, but i believe i´m forced to state, that there is no big chance to get in touch with that manuals except you might catch the one or other a ebay or another trading platform. Maybe there is a chance to launch a search at amazon and the large amount of related bookstores.... maybe one of them has the manual as used book on the shelf for cheap sale....
sincerely speedyG
I just an old GS development kit that I bought online in the mail today. It has Apple Logo's on all the disks. It has an older version of ORCA C on it along with some other compilers and assemblers. I can only use it on sweet16 since my IIgs only has 1 meg of ram and no harddrive yet. I had to use an old mac to make disk images.
I coded a small test program and it compiles to memory and runs in the shell fine. When I try to create a standalone running prgram and I link it, it gives me an "error writing test.root error. I've been trying to figure this error out all day long with no luck. I've tried creating new latger disk images for compiling so it can't be running out of space and I've even moved the source file to different parts of the drive and different paths hoping for better luck. I just don't know what else to do about it.
Jeffrey
does it issue error code prior to writing to disk,
or while performing write attempt to disk ?
check def´s in linker....
speedyG
No Error code, just a popup saying "error writing.root" then I get an error in the terminal that says the same thing. When I check the actual disk there is a 1k file where it attempted to write the root file. I feel like my definitions are all ok, I checked all the paths and the files. I just don't know. I tried creating some test files with some other apps to see if it was a problem with the emulator not writing to disk images, but I didn't have a problem. I loaded up some pascal source in orca but it gives me the same compile error.
If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I'm all ears.
Jeffrey
just being speechless.... did you realy believe it not to be important to publish the fact of running in an emulator?
:~
>I just an old GS development kit that I bought online in the mail today. It has Apple Logo's on all the disks. It has an older version of ORCA C on it along >with some other compilers and assemblers. I can only use it on sweet16 since my IIgs only has 1 meg of ram and no harddrive yet. I had to use an old mac to >make disk images.
>
>I coded a small test program and it compiles to memory and runs in the shell fine. When I try to create a standalone running prgram and I link it, it gives me >an "error writing test.root error. I've been trying to figure this error out all day long with no luck. I've tried creating new latger disk images for >compiling so it can't be running out of space and I've even moved the source file to different parts of the drive and different paths hoping for better luck. I >just don't know what else to do about it.
>
>Jeffrey
I did say I was using an emulator in the same messge I reported the error. My IIgs doesn't have the memory for Orca c. See above where I says I can only use orca on sweet 16 due to memory and HD restrictions.
I guess I'm just going to buy the Orca C compiler from 16sector just so I can get the manual. I hate to shell out the cash without know if it will help me or not, but it looks like the only hope to help me sort out this issue.
Thanks,
Jeffrey
Before you buy, send an email to Mike Westerfield mikew50@aol.com
He wrote ORCA/C and he can answer your questions. He is really helpful and friendly, so I highly recommend talking to him before you make any decisions.
Worth every penny, and the manuals are great.