[Simh] DECUS C

Ethan Dicks ethan.dicks at gmail.com
Tue Aug 3 10:04:50 EDT 2010


On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 7:47 AM, Michael Richter <ttmrichter at gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, what C compilers were available on the VAX/780 running VMS?  Were any
> of them free/open software?

Besides VAX C and DEC C and DECUS C which were already mentioned, back
in the day (c. 1983), we ran Whitesmith's C, but it was definitely
K&R, not ANSI C, and it was definitely commercial, not open source.
Later (c. 1989?) we migrated over to VAX C (licensed on our 11/750),
but in the early days, DEC didn't provide a C compiler, so
Whitesmith's was possibly our only option that far back.  For our
PDP-11 products, we used DECUS C.

I don't think there was anything remarkable about Whitesmith's C
except that it was available to buy when others were not, so unless
you have a need to cut executables for VMS 3.x or something equally
obscure, I'd recommend exploring the more modern options.  VAX C ran
on VMS 4.x and 5.x, IIRC.

-ethan



More information about the Simh mailing list