Mark Wahl, at student at UC Berkeley, has been looking into a public domain C compiler that can be ported to the QL. As some of you may already know, the only public domain C compiler for the QL is the Small C compiler available from the Quanta Library. Small C only supports a subset of C and not the full language. Metecomco Lattice C supports full C, but it is a commercial package that is partially hardware based. Even with out copyright laws, it would be difficult to distribute.
Mark has looked into two different compilers, the GNU C compiler GCC and one called c68 written for the Atari ST. Due to the size of the source for the GNU C compiler, Mark has not had a chance to really investigate if a port will work. On the c68 compiler, he has tried to compile it with the Lattice C compiler, but recieved an error message stating “Too many variables.”
Due to his work load at school, Mark can not dedicate too much time in pursuing this effort too quickly. If anyone is interested in taking up the challenge, contact the QHJ and we’ll put you in touch with Mark.