Question

[smdjeff]

What's the difference between this port of GCC for 6809 and say
https://gitlab.com/dfffffff/gcc6809

[nils-eilers]

Both are broken beyond repair

[smdjeff]

Agreed. BTW, I had to go through a number of C compliers to get reasonable code out of a Z80 project. GCC is probably not well suited for 6809 because of the way it handles indexing, stack, and parameter passing.

[SonnyJim]

@nils-eilers I've literally just compiled and built gcc6809 and used that to create a FreeWPC ROM that boots in PinMAME. So I'm not sure where 'broken beyond repair' comes from?

[nils-eilers]

I had to go through a number of C compliers to get reasonable code out of a Z80 project.

@smdjeff Interesting. So with which Z80 C compiler did you end up with?

@SonnyJim A couple of code generation errors were reported (sorry, I don't know any further details). However, a recent GCC throwed countless errors. Did you use an ancient one?

[SonnyJim]

I'm using the gcc version you are commenting on lol. It does build, but the build system it's extremely fragile. For example, I've been banging my head trying to get it to build after seeing your message, only to realise that for some reason it had overwritten /usr/bin/true with m6809-unknown-none-ranlib!.

It definitely works and is not 'broken beyond repair' which is why I felt the need to comment.

EDIT: I might work on a docker/VM image to sort of side step this dev env setup issues.

[nils-eilers]

OK, this 6809 GCC is based on the stone age GCC 4.4 I think. And which GCC version are you using to generate the GCC 6809 cross compiler?

[SonnyJim]

m6809-unknown-none-gcc-4.3.6
gcc version 11.4.0 (Ubuntu 11.4.0-1ubuntu1~22.04)

[nils-eilers]

Thanks

[SonnyJim]

I've just compiling with 13 and you are right, it's an absolute nightmare. I don't really have the technical skills to fix it, so all I can suggest is trying an earlier compiler if you can. Failing that I'm in the process of uploading a VM Appliance to archive.org that has a working gcc6809 and FreeWPC source tree. It's not great but it's the best I can do I'm afraid.

[smdjeff]

I had to go through a number of C compliers to get reasonable code out of a Z80 project.

@smdjeff Interesting. So with which Z80 C compiler did you end up with?

@nils-eilers sdcc. It made a huge difference in the resulting assembly code for parameter passing and inlining. Excellent results really that run in MAME and on real hardware from 1982. smdjeff/sega-vector@e64cd9c

Sdcc supports 6502, but unfortunately not the relatively less popular 6809. There's a similar stand alone compiler that does build easily and run called cmoc/lwtools. I made some effort to try that with FreeWPC. But found the codebase here absolutely littered with GCC extensions and complex build dependencies in the "scripting" it supports.

IMHO. I've come to the conclusion that this codebase is a dead end. And should just be archived at this point. I may look into learning a few bits from it, like how to control the DMD, security chip, and boot sequence, but dumping everything else in favor of something simpler and easier to maintain with sensible tooling and modern scripting languages.

[SonnyJim]

parameter passing and inlining

I seem to remember if you do too many function calls the whole thing would fall over, so this makes sense.

I've come to the conclusion that this codebase is a dead end. And should

just be archived at this point. I agree, I'm in the process of putting together what I can onto Archive.org and moving on. The FreeWPC manual is still available and has some good information about the various hardware mentioned: https://bcd.github.io/freewpc/index.html

…

On Fri, 7 Feb 2025 at 17:24, Jeff Mathews ***@***.***> wrote: I had to go through a number of C compliers to get reasonable code out of a Z80 project. @smdjeff <https://github.com/smdjeff> Interesting. So with which Z80 C compiler did you end up with? @nils-eilers <https://github.com/nils-eilers> sdcc. It made a huge difference in the resulting assembly code for parameter passing and inlining. Excellent results really that run in MAME *and* on real hardware from 1982. ***@***.*** <smdjeff/sega-vector@e64cd9c> Sdcc supports 6502, but unfortunately not the relatively less popular 6809. Theres a similar stand along compiler that *does* build and run called comic/lwtools, unfortunately the FreeWPC source is absolutely littered with weird GCC extensions and build dependencies. IMHO. I've come to the conclusion that this codebase is a dead end. And should just be archived at this point. I may look into learning a few bits from it, like how to control the DMD, security chip, and boot sequence, but dumping everything else in favor of something simpler and easier to maintain. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#5 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAA6HTFT55KS3MQBPPOX2B32ORGRXAVCNFSM6AAAAABWQARINGVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMNBSGA2DKMZVGQ> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>