A C language extension for machine-independent programming

Abstract

MIC (Machine-Independent C) is an extension of the C language which has been designed to write portable programs as installed in various small computers. MIC provides unified semantics suitable for typical small computers with new facilities for machine-independent data definition, and its syntax conforms to the preliminary draft of the proposed ANSI standard for C. It is fully implemented as a compiler front end called MICP, and has been applied to actual programming. The principal features of MIC and its effect on facilitating machine-independent C programming are described. Results of practical application of MIC are also presented.