« BackAmsterdam Compiler Kitgithub.comSubmitted by andsoitis 4 hours ago
  • ptx an hour 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-name 2 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.

      • pjmlp 2 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.

        • barfiure 2 hours ago

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

          • ramon156 3 hours ago

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

          • bartkappenburg 3 hours ago

            Why the name amsterdam?

            • akritid 3 hours ago

              Renamed from Free University Compiler Kit

              • mbreese 3 hours ago

                > © 1987-2005 Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

              • einpoklum 3 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.

                • tgv an hour 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.

                  • consp 2 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.

                    • phicoh an hour 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.