Re: The C Stack in interpreters - why?

Marko Mäkelä <Marko.Makela@HUT.FI> wrote:


>John> Are there really systems with a hardware stack that C doesn't use?
>John> I've never seen one.
>
>The 6502 has only 256 bytes of stack. The CC65 compiler
>(http://www.cc65.org/) uses a separate parameter stack in order to
>save the precious hardware stack space for return addresses. The
>compiler also has to emulate 16-bit registers using zero page memory
>locations.
>
>Now you have seen one. :-)


          Life is complete. I can die now. Thank you.


>[Oh, right. How 'bout if I say I never saw a C compiler pass up the
>opportunity to use a usable hardware stack. -John]
                                            ^^^^^^
          Please, please. You should use the correct terminology. Let me
reword that for you:
                    The 6502 does not have a *real*[1] stack.


[1] Not to be confused with floating-point, especially by FORTRAN
programmers.


Sincerely,


Gene Wirchenko

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