The Amsterdam Compiler Kit (ACK) is a retargetable compiler suite and

toolchain A toolchain is a set of software development tools used to build and otherwise develop software. Often, the tools are executed sequentially and form a pipeline such that the output of one tool is the input for the next. Sometimes the term is us ...

written by Andrew Tanenbaum and Ceriel Jacobs, since 2005 maintained by David Given. It has frontends for the following

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

s: C, Pascal,

Modula-2 Modula-2 is a structured, procedural programming language developed between 1977 and 1985/8 by Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zurich. It was created as the language for the operating system and application software of the Lilith personal workstation. It w ...

, Occam, and

BASIC Basic or BASIC may refer to: Science and technology * BASIC, a computer programming language * Basic (chemistry), having the properties of a base * Basic access authentication, in HTTP Entertainment * Basic (film), ''Basic'' (film), a 2003 film ...

History

The ACK's notability stems from the fact that in the early 1980s it was one of the first portable compilation systems designed to support multiple source languages and target platforms. The ACK was known as MINIX's native compiler toolchain until the MINIX userland was largely replaced by that of

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was fork (software development), forked. It continues to ...

(MINIX 3.2.0) and

Clang Clang () is a compiler front end for the programming languages C, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++, and the software frameworks OpenMP, OpenCL, RenderScript, CUDA, SYCL, and HIP. It acts as a drop-in replacement for the GNU Compiler ...

was adopted as the system compiler. It was originally closed-source software (that allowed

binaries A binary file is a computer file that is not a text file. The term "binary file" is often used as a term meaning "non-text file". Many binary file formats contain parts that can be interpreted as text; for example, some computer document files ...

to be distributed for MINIX as a special case), but in April 2003 it was released under the

BSD licenses BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD lice ...

Working principle

Maximum portability is achieved by using an

intermediate language An intermediate representation (IR) is the data structure or code used internally by a compiler or virtual machine to represent source code. An IR is designed to be conducive to further processing, such as optimization and translation. A "good" ...

using

bytecode Bytecode (also called portable code or p-code) is a form of instruction set designed for efficient execution by a software interpreter. Unlike human-readable source code, bytecodes are compact numeric codes, constants, and references (normal ...

, called EM. Each language front-end produces EM

object file An object file is a file that contains machine code or bytecode, as well as other data and metadata, generated by a compiler or assembler from source code during the compilation or assembly process. The machine code that is generated is kno ...

s, which are then processed through several generic optimisers before being translated by a back-end into native

machine code In computer programming, machine code is computer code consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). For conventional binary computers, machine code is the binaryOn nonb ...

. 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. However, EM code cannot be linked to native machine code without translating the EM binary first.

Target processors

ACK backends can produce native machine code for a wide range of CPUs, even starting with small 8 bit CPUs. * 6502 * 65C124 - used for the first software controlled implantable defibrillator, the target was unique in that the C/EM code word size was 1 byte for an int and 2 bytes for a long. * 6800 (assembler only) * 6805 (assembler only) * 6809 (assembler only) * ARM * 8080^* * Z80 * Z8000 *

Intel 8086 The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit computing, 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-b ...

^* *

i386 The Intel 386, originally released as the 80386 and later renamed i386, is the third-generation x86 architecture microprocessor from Intel. It was the first 32-bit processor in the line, making it a significant evolution in the x86 archite ...

68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector ...

* 68020 * 68040 * NS32016 * S2650 (assembler only) * SPARC * VAX4 *

PDP-11 The PDP–11 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers originally sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 into the late 1990s, one of a set of products in the Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of a ...

* Broadcom VideoCore IV (BCM2708)* ^* Version 6.0

References

External links

*
Official sourcecode repository
including changelog (

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

) BASIC compilers C (programming language) compilers Computer science in the Netherlands Free and open source compilers Information technology in the Netherlands Minix Modula-2 compilers Pascal (programming language) compilers Software using the BSD license {{Free-software-stub

History

Working principle

Target processors

See also

References

External links