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andsoitis
Amsterdam Compiler Kit github.com

ptx2 hours ago

Is this the same compiler that famously spurred Richard Stallman to create GCC [1] when its author "responded derisively, stating that the university was free but the compiler was not"?

It seems to be free now anyway, since 2005 according to the git history, under a 3-clause BSD license.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.en.html

unusual-name3 hours ago

It's interesting that they have a Raspberry Pi GPU backend, but neither an ARM backend nor any modern ISA. (such as x86-64, Aarch64, etc.) Is there any example program that actually runs on the rpi gpu? I skimped the website, but it is only mentioned in the release notes.

pjmlp3 hours ago

One of the first widely used compiler toolkits with multiple frontends, intermediate language for the phases and a common backend.

Contrary to common understanding LLVM wasn't the very first one, ACK also not, there are others predating it when diving into compiler literature.

barfiure3 hours ago

I’m still making my way through the MINIX book. Love it.

AlexeyBrin7 minutes ago

Are you working through the 1st or 2nd edition of the book ? I think these are the ones that used ACK.

ramon1564 hours ago

Looks cool, last post in 2022 though? Is it feature complete?

HelloUsername3 hours ago

gjvc3 hours ago

[flagged]

bartkappenburg4 hours ago

Why the name amsterdam?

akritid4 hours ago

Renamed from Free University Compiler Kit

mbreese4 hours ago

> © 1987-2005 Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

einpoklum4 hours ago

tl;dr: A kit for targeting several old or old-ish platforms, with code in some languages popular in the 1980s: C89 (ANSI C), Pascal, Modula 2, Basic. A 'kit' here means: frontend, codegen, support libraries and some tools. This is apparently known as being the default toolchain for Minix 1 and 2.

But - the repository is not "everything you need"; it actually relies on a lot from an existing platform - GCC, Lua, Make, Python etc. So, you would typically use this to cross-compile it seems.

tgv3 hours ago

It doesn't rely on gcc. Any C compiler will do. The rest is there to build it on " Linux, OSX, and Windows using MSYS2 and mingw32". Indeed for cross-compilation, as it won't run on CP/M.

consp3 hours ago

> apparently known as being the default toolchain for Minix 1 and 2.

That is not very surprising since Tannenbaum is a professor there and cowrote wrote the ACK and wrote Minix.

phicoh2 hours ago

ACK used to be self-hosting. Of course, standard Unix utilities like sh and make are required. I still use one of those versions.

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