HI-TECH C v4.11 for Z80

[scruss]

Over on Facebook's Zilog Z-80 DIY group, Chris A Hills noted that he got permission from Microchip to release HI-TECH C v4.11 for Z80. This is a bit more advanced than the CP/M-hosted v3.xx that's widely available.
Before you all rush off and start downloading it:

• this is a download of disk images for MS-DOS from 1989. It will need some fiddling with Dosbox to get it running.
• the compiler currently targets CP/M COM files.

Download link: http://www.safetycritical.info/pub/Microchip_Hitech_C_Z80.zip
(archive.org mirror)

Licence:

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[GeoffB17]

Well, interesting.

I've got the CP/M release, from 1985, with the manual etc, which I have used on my PCW.

On PCs, I've mainly used Microsoft C 5.0 and now 7.0

I take it this version is a 'cross-compiler', i.e. you run the system on a PC (8086) but the 'target' is the Z80 (I assume still CP/M).

Anyway, I've downloaded the .ZIP, and unpacked it OK, although there's some problem with some long filenames that irritate my old version of PKUNZIP, and I didn't bother to mess with JZIP which would have been OK.   All the 'working' files seem to be 8.3 filenames, these are OK.   The long ones are some .PDF files with I guess all the docs, I'll need to see what's in these.

Anyway, the files I see are NOT disk images, but the straight file set.   The .PDFs are pretty large, all the rest look totally normal size.   No .DSK.   I've just unpacked unto my main XP machine, but I have three working pure 100% DOS machines (two with MSDOS 5.0, one with 6.2) so I should have no problem getting the system working.   There are some 'extra' progs there to check out, versions of standard utilities like DUMP (not sure if this is a DOS or the CP/M version).

I'll check out the docs (.PDF files) and see what info is there.

Geoff

[GeoffB17]

Right, had a quick look at one of the doc files, which reveals that...

This system may actually be a cross compiler for a range of targets, incl Z80 and Z180, and 8086, and other things - but it might be that the docs cover these other things, but the code incl does not?   I'll read further.

The docs refer to a number of facilities that sound more like things that are in my MS C 7.0 that what's in the HiSoft system I already have.   Again, I'll have to check things in more detail.

Geoff

[GeoffB17]

The libraries included are ONLY those for Z80 & CP/M, so it's the generic documentation.

I see the files include those for a process called LUCIFER (source and .EXE) which from a quick look seems to be a PC program to emulate CP/M , and provide the facilities of a monitor for testing/debugging a Z80 program.  The software seems to handle disk i/o literally to DOS devices, but all other I/O is intercepted.

Geoff

[scruss]

Lucifer's a remote serial debugger, if I understand the docs correctly. Link it into your CP/M executable, then you can talk to it remotely over serial from your PC: setting breakpoints, single-stepping, and so on.
The docs are a bit generic. HI-TECH made compilers for many embedded systems, but Microchip bought them for their PIC compilers and stopped sales of all other systems.