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).