Prepending _ in C external names necessary?

[Don Speck]

>   We're considering changing our C compiler to *not* prepend an underscore
>   at the beginning of all external names (functions, variables).

    The purpose of the underscore is merely to make it impossible for
external names to collide with the assembler's predefined identifiers.
This purpose is served just as well by appending, rather than prepending,
the underscore.  The former approach gives you a free extra character
of significance in identifiers.

	Don Speck	speck at cit-vlsi.arpa