Yea, yea – might be boring – but I have not more to tell, than that another RC is uploaded on the servers (filenames see below).
Actually I could tell what the actual changes to last RC are:
1) some bugs fixed, that I discovered were still in the code regarding file system accesses (probably not the last ones…)
2) changes to the gcc C compiler.
The compiler is now based on David Flamand gcc 6809, on which he did some updates regarding the “orginal” repository (https://gitlab.com/dfffffff/gcc6809). Also David is still maintaining the repository – so there even might be some more fixes if needed.
Fixes…
Peer and I discovered a couple of bugs in the gcc compiler we used – and nearly always found ways to work around them. Lately we try to focus on not only finding ways around them – but we try to fix them. Luckily so far all “bugs” we found were in the actual m6809 core of the package – not the base “gcc” package.
For now (until we find more, or discover that I am wrong) all known bugs are fixed, which include:
- division with non constant 2nd operand
- shift operators with non constant 2nd operand (those two sound similar – but are actually different “bugs”)
- optimization Peephole may produce buggy code
- gcc6809 aborts with register spill warning
- GCC generates Buggy Code II
For further information – and how they were fixed, you can go to the above gitHub repository and look at the “issues”, there I documented my gcc adventures.
I have compiled quite a few of my “C” source files and not found any bugs/errors. So I am quite confident. Someday I have to look at those peepholes again though, since the created sources are not ALWAYS the most efficient.
Building…
The switch to the “new” gcc was mainly due to difficulties compiling my original setup under all currently by Vide supported OS. The nice thing with the “new” gcc is, that I can compile all 5 different versions (Win32, Win64, OSX, Linux32, Linux64) from the same source tree. I still do not crosscompile – I have setup emulation for the said OS and compile all of them natively (well, emulation native 🙂 ), which proved (after Peer found a good/easy way to setup an environment under windows, describtion of that can be found as a textfile in the C/src…) to be quite easy.
All gcc versions are now static compile versions (no need of any dll or other dynamic or shared objects) – but they are quite a bit larger (the size can probably be reduced though).
Still no update on any documentation though…
Release Candidate downloads
Not available. A new vide “full” version is available (or will be shortly).
Many thanks for this next RC.
Yesterday, I was approached by a student who was worried that he might not be able to participate in my Vectrex programming class because of not having Windows on his laptop, but Mac OS. I was very happy to be able to tell him that Vide is available for all three major operating systems 🙂
So thumps up! I can only imagine how much work it must be to keep up Vide development for Mac, Linux and Windows. And to provide releases for all three. This is great, and as you see, it is worth the effort!
Cheers,
Peer