[mechanical_fish]

It's fun to see people being encouraged to relive my youth. And 6502 assembly is indeed a nice, compact thing to learn.

Though I think the most valuable thing I learned from studying assembly was actually about higher-level languages: How function calls work, and the mechanism of stack frames. This discussion doesn't reach quite that far, and actually I'm not sure how one would work such things into a discussion of 6502 assembly – I learned about them in the context of 680x0 assembly. Back in my 6502 days, I never even encountered a compiler, so I never had the chance to disassemble a C or Pascal program. (To this day I can't name a 6502-based C compiler, though I'm sure they existed someplace. I knew about Pascal compilers, but I never got my hands on one; back in the 1980s compilers actually cost money.)

[jorgeleo]

Still there:

http://www.cc65.org/

What i learned from the 6502 was the use of pointers through the indirect addressing, later when I learned C they became vey easy.

[bcl]

I learned 6502 on my Atari 800. The closest thing to C that I used was a language called Action! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_programming_language)

[colanderman]

This discussion doesn't reach quite that far, and actually I'm not sure how one would work such things into a discussion of 6502 assembly

The 6502 supports function calls easily: JSR/PHA/PLA/RTS

(Better even than some modern microcontrollers…)

[kabdib]

... but limited to 256 bytes.

The 6502 stack is pretty much a toy for a language like C or Pascal, and you definitely need to use a non-hardware stack for actual variables and stuff, probably even return addresses.

(I never ran out of 6502 stack programming in assembly, and I wrote a LOT of it, back in the day).

[pjmlp]

> back in the 1980s compilers actually cost money

They still do, only in Linux/BSD land they do not.

After all, people have to bring bread back home.

[wglb]

Check out http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/dd299405.aspx. Gobs of stuff, compilers, linkers, headers free for the download. So the statement They still do, only in Linux/BSD land they do not. might not be true.

Visual studio full version is not free, but you can easily build (compile, link, run) everything for zero dollars. (Not even a picodollar.)

[pjmlp]

Try to get the free MFC framework, with the free 64 bit C++ compiler and the free static code analysis tools.

[wglb]

According to the release notes there, you get compilers that produce 32 and 64 bit executables.

[tluyben2]

You can find free compilers for (almost) everything on every OS. What do you mean with Linux/BSD land here?

And bringing bread home by making compilers; can you point out a commercial compiler that 'brings bread home' besides the Visual Studio compilers (which, actually, do not bring that bread; you can download the compilers for free)? I'm curious as I thought paid compilers currently are niche and don't make the companies selling them enough to actually pay more than maybe 1 person working on it full time, if that. Maybe Intel is making enough of pure compilers to actually call it a business?

[pjmlp]

I mean that having compilers with 100% full support is something that only happens in open source land.

All commercial UNIX vendors sell their compilers. Even in Solaris case, the EULA does not allow you to sell software done with their "free" compiler.

Intel compilers are not free for Mac OS X and Windows.

All the SDKs for game development from the console owners are not free.

The express editions of Visual Studio compilers are limited in which optimizations they offer, libraries and supported processor targets.

The compilers from Portland group for HPC.

The compilers from CodePlay for the game industry.

Even the compilers from Apple can be said that they are not free, after all you're paying indirectly for them when you buy a Mac Developer's license.

[wglb]

The xcode download that I use to build lots of stuff cost $0.

[pjmlp]

And how much did you pay for your Mac when compared with a PC with the same technical specifications?

Plus, last time I checked you need to pay to be able to have proper access to all developer information, https://developer.apple.com/programs/mac/.

Please read properly what I wrote, "paying indirectly for them", do you know what _indirectly_ means?

[duskwuff]

> Plus, last time I checked you need to pay to be able to have proper access to all developer information

You checked wrong. Developer docs for production versions of Mac OS and iOS are all available for free with Xcode. You only need to pay for membership to the developer program, which gets you access to prerelease OSes (and related documentation), and lets you distribute your applications through the App Stores.

[wglb]

Mac cost perhaps a grand five years ago, still running fine. So about $200 a year. Meanwhile cheaper laptops I have used die a quicker death as they are not built as well, apparently. So my guess is that they are roughly equivalent.

[pmjordan]

The Portland Group's (PGI) main business seems to be HPC compilers.

CodePlay make compilers for game developers.

There are companies that have made a business out of selling fully-integrated build & debug toolchains for embedded devices. There is usually some amount of customisation required for each type of device, and there's a lot of value in not having to do this yourself.

So yes, there are still companies making compilers as their main, paid product, but they tend to target specialised markets.

[tluyben2]

Thanks! I did see some AAA game compilers and tools before indeed. But I remember that being very niche and tight knit, small teams. Which is bringing home the bacon, but not compared to making more high level game tools (Unity for instance); unless you are an AAA game dev with very specific needs, you wouldn't bother even looking for those tools because they are so commodity, while high level tools like Unity and Unreal (with all it's add-ons) are not commodity and thus making millions of $.

But yes, you are right; embedded, HPC and gaming are good examples. Thanks for pointing that out.

[jasomill]

In 2011, 3% of Intel's revenue came from "software and services", up from 1% in 2010 [1]. They also acquired McAfee in late 2010. So it's probably safe to assume that compilers generate somewhat less than 1% of Intel's revenue, perhaps significantly less. But even if only 1% of that pre-McAfee 1% figure is compilers, that's still over $5 million (over $50 billion * .01 * .01), so I suspect Intel's compiler business profitably employs a number of full-time developers.

Microsoft's combined "servers and tools" operating segment represented nearly a quarter of its revenue and over 20% of its operating income last quarter [2], and while it's not immediately clear how much of this comes from the "tools" portion, I don't imagine it's anywhere near zero.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Fina... [2] http://www.intc.com/annuals.cfm