Turbo C 2.0 vs MSC 5.1

[Steve Cole]

In article <14015 at haddock.ima.isc.com> suitti at haddock.ima.isc.com (Stephen Uitti) writes:
[Lots deleted...]
>[MSC 5.0] comes with a tiny compiler (quickc) that
>has a good environment, but is not quite compatible, and is not
>really a production compiler (doesn't support enough of the
>machine models).  

I'd just like to point out a few things about the NEW version of Microsoft's
Quick C (version 2).  

-It supports all of the memory models available on the IBM PC (small, medium,
 compact, large, huge.)
-It has a *very* much improved interface over QuickC v. 1.  (Primarily better
 help -- All of the library routines have online documentation, as well as
 things like symbolic constants and C language reference)
-It comes with new Presentation Graphics libraries that didn't come with
 MSC 5.1. (To draw graphs and such.)
-It comes with a *new* make utility so that the makefiles you use with
 Quick C will also work under UNIX.
-It uses incremental linking and compiling even on the old 8086 boxes to try
 and help speed compile and link times.
-It supports inline assembly code.  (No external assembler required.)
-The help system is extendable:  If you have your own personal libraries,
 you can write your own help pages and link them into the built in help
 system.  (The system uses "hyperlinks" to move from spot to spot; this is
 very nice.)
-It has its own debugger, and can produce code for use with CodeView.

It still compiles slowly, but that may be because I still use an archaic
PC XT, and everything seems slow.

I've been very very impressed with this new system.  The help is wonderful;
I'd always wanted my instant UNIX man pages when programming on the PC, and
now I've got something better.  Version 2 is simply heads and tails better
than version 1.  I quite seriously don't see any reason to use the "big"
compiler, MSC 5.1, instead.

(By the way, my version of QuickC is newer than my 5.1, it may be that much
of this stuff has been added to MSC since I got mine.)

Steve Cole,	scole at tekirl.labs.tek.com, or
		scole at sim.berkeley.edu (when the semester starts again).