Path: ...!news.mixmin.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Dombo Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Computer architects leaving Intel... Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2024 22:15:35 +0200 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 44 Message-ID: References: <2024Aug30.161204@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <86r09ulqyp.fsf@linuxsc.com> <2024Sep8.173639@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <2024Sep10.101932@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <2024Sep11.123824@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2024 22:16:50 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="758339b1ac16d398416560148abe0cdb"; logging-data="3184408"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+ffZeDkhYp4aIfFWjkIF/0" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Cancel-Lock: sha1:7b5/ohULXOwF+vb0ZGfa4Wh8QuE= In-Reply-To: Content-Language: en-US Bytes: 3549 On 16-09-2024 13:12, David Brown wrote: > On 16/09/2024 02:00, BGB wrote: >> On 9/15/2024 2:09 PM, David Brown wrote: >> This is mostly for the crowd still messing around with a few older >> systems: >>    Commodore 64/128 >>    Apple II / II/C / II/E >>    Apple IIGS >>    NES and SNES >>    ... > > It is not a "crowd" - it's a small group of oddballs and enthusiasts.  I > fully support them, and playing with these things is a great hobby.  I > would maybe be doing that too, if I had twice as many hours in the week. >  But talking about "popular compilers like gcc and CC65" is like > talking about "popular sports like football and Inuit ear pulling > contests". > >> >> Also, some newer projects, like the "Commander X16" are also using >> CC65 (it was based around a 65C816 being used in a 6502 compatibility >> mode). >> >> >> Where, AFAIK, GCC proper has little interest in these targets. >> > > The GCC community would be quite happy to support such targets, but > someone would need to make the port.  And the architecture of the gcc > compiler suite is best suited to processors with reasonably regular and > orthogonal ISAs with plenty of registers and at least 16-bit width - > getting good results for a cpu like the 6502 from gcc would be an > extraordinary level of effort. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had a go at creating a 6502 back-end for GCC. There is a 6502 back-end for LLVM (https://llvm-mos.org), it appears that someone put a serious amount of effort into this. I've played a little with it (using Compiler Explorer site - https://godbolt.org/). Considering the limitations of the 6502 it seemed to be able produce relatively decent code from C++ code when optimizations are enabled. Like AVR-GCC you do need to keep in mind that the target is an 8-bitter and its limitations to get somewhat reasonable code out of it.