1.1 Origin and history of C--
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The author of SPHINX C-- is the Canadian Peter Cellik. His last version
of SPHINX C-- is v 0.203 of October 28, 1996. Regrettably he abandoned
further development of the language. This project, nearly dead, was taken
up in 1998 by the Russian Mihail Sheker. The compiler started off as
freeware (or greenware, as Peter Cellik called it) and it remains freeware.
The compiler could originally create only *.com files, and was intended
for creating small demos and TSRs. It has since been expanded to better
meet current requirements.
In developing the compiler, the following principles were observed where
possible:
1. Keep the syntax compatible with Peter Cellik's last version. This
minimizes the work required to adapt programs written for his version 0.203
to the latest version of C--.
2. Make the compiler syntax similar to that of ANSI C, which makes it
much easier to translate programs written in C.
3. Efforts were also made to write a compiler that could be mastered with
little effort by someone knowing only assembly language.
These often conflicting principles influenced the choice of how to write
this compiler. Judge for yourself how well these goals were achieved.
Please email any suggestions for improvement or other ideas to
sheker@mail.ru. I will be delighted to consider all suggestions, but I
cannot guarantee that they will all be implemented, for were this to
happen, the result would be chaos. But those suggestions which are, in my
opinion, promising and possible, will be included in the compiler (so it
behooves you to present your arguments well).