C compiler review wanted

[Mark G. Woodruff]

I paid almost $400 for EcoSoft C for a Kaypro II with SLR's Z80ASM
assembler and linker early spring of last year.  For the price, I was
expecting a well-supported full K&R implementation.  I was unpleasantly
suprised.  The compiler is a subset (missing bit fields, #line, and
some more) of K&R.  It has far more of the UNIX(tm) C libraries that
I expected, or needed, but didn't include source code for them.  The
compiler does not support all the options in the manual, and parses
them wrong if grouped together.  It is slow, takes up more than a disk
with the assembler/linker, and generates poor code.  Functions and
pre-processor statements are only six characters significant in the
*source* code!  The 'register' statement is allowed, but is treated
as an 'extern', thus making 'register i = 1' invalid.  In summary,
I thought I was ripped off.  After two weeks of use, I gave up, and
now it sits gathering dust on my shelf.  I use Turbo Pascal for all
my programs.

I would not suggest you purchase at the price I paid.  If you can
get it cheaply (I'll gladly sell my copy), and aren't doing any
serious programming, you *might* consider buying it.

Regards,
Mark