- Amsterdam Compiler Kit
infobox software
developer =Andrew Tanenbaum andCeriel Jacobs
latest release version = 6.0pre3
latest release date = release date|2007|04|29
operating system =Minix andUnix-like
programming language = C
genre =Retargetable compiler
license =BSD licenses
website = http://tack.sourceforge.net/The Amsterdam Compiler Kit (ACK) is a fast, lightweight and
retargetable compiler suite and toolchain written byAndrew Tanenbaum andCeriel Jacobs , and isMinix 's native toolchain. The ACK was originally closed-source software (that allowed binaries to be distributed for Minix as a special case), but in April 2003 it was released under a BSDopen source license. It has frontends for C, Pascal,Modula-2 , Occam, andBASIC .The ACK achieves maximum portability by using an intermediate
byte-code language called EM. Each language front-end produces EM object files, which are then processed through a number of generic optimisers before being translated by a back-end into nativemachine code .Unlike GCC's
intermediate language , EM is a real programming language and could be implemented in hardware; a number of the language front-ends have libraries implemented in EM assembly. EM is a relatively high-level stack-based machine, and one of the tools supplied with ACK is an interpreter capable of executing EM binaries directly, with a high degree of safety checking.ACK comes with a generic linker and librarian capable of manipulating files in the ACK's own
a.out -based format; it will work on files containing EM code as well as native machine code. (You cannot, however, link EM code to native machine code without translating the EM binary first.)Target Processors
* 6500
* 6800
* 6805
* ARM
* 8080
*Z80
*Z8000
* i86
*i386
*68000
*68020
*NS32016
* S2650
*SPARC
* VAX4
*PDP11 See also
*
GNU Compiler Collection
*Portable C Compiler
*Small Device C Compiler References
*
*
*External links
* [http://tack.sourceforge.net/ official home page]
* [http://www.cs.vu.nl/ack/ Amsterdam Compiler Kit (ACK) information sheet]
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