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[ Atariscne.org - News ] GCC optimizations and 68000 cycle counter

PeyloW of T.O.Y.S. have been busy lately by optimizing the GNU C Compiler (GCC) v15.2 to create faster code for 68000 processor.

The improvements include using proper dbra/dbf loops, auto inc/dec of address registers (you know, the stuff that is nice on 68k!).

PeyloW writes in an Atari-Forum post:

At a very high level there are 7 groups of changes made:

• Cost Model - More accurate cost models, allowing gcc to chose better.
• Register Allocation – Adopt LRA, and tune to prefer fewer registers.
• Loop Optimization – Adopt new doloop hooks to enable more explicit use of dbra.
• Memory Access Reordering – More of cleanup pass for other optimisations, try to ensure memory access is sequential.
• Autoincrement Optimization – Which allows more auto increment to be used instead of indexed addressing.
• 16/32-bit Optimization – And merging of 2x word accesses into single long access. Also narrow mulu/muls operators to word size if operand sizes can be determined at compile time.
• Various Smaller Optimizations – Grab bag of stuff. Single bit extraction bit btst/tas, and simple peephole optimizations.

While working on GCC, PeyloW also developed a separate tool to count 68000 cycles out of assembler sourcecode to easily check if the compiler changes actually improve stuff - but can certainly can be very useful for other purposes as well.

Both projects can be found on Github, see links below.

🔗 m68k GCC Build Scripts and Documentation

🔗 A detailed writeup of PeyloWs GCC optimizations

🔗 clccnt — MC68k Clock Cycle Counter

[ Atariscne.org - News ] Vintage Computing Festival Europe 2026

The annual European Retro Computing Gathering "VCFe" will take place from 1st to 3rd of May 2026, in Munich, Germany. One focus this year are less present machines, the "Beasts of Burden", means more unknown working horses of the retro computer range. If that doesn't attract, keep in mind that may is also beer garden season.

🔗 VCFe 2026 website

[ Atariscne.org - News ] Writeup of Scatman John

A couple of years ago on Silly venture a music demo was released from a new group; Nutmeg Mine.

The demo may not be the best since sliced ​​bread and we have wondered how the hell Silly Venture could run the demo on an ST as it requires more than 4MB of memory. Maybe they had a zeST?

Anyway, Caulky, the coder of Nutmeg Mine's "Scatman John" demo is now making an attempt to win next year's Meteoriks awards "best writeup". If the category is added as Caulky hopes.

It is an entertaining and detailed description from the start of the demo group to the end of the demo.

🔗 Read the Writeup by Caulky/Nutmeg Mine

💾 Download the demo from Demozoo

💾 Download the demo from Pouet

[ Demozoo ] The Meteoriks 2026

The Meteoriks nominees have been revealed at Mountain Bytes 2026. You can check the full list of nominations at demozoo and there is also a watchlist of other productions that didn't quite make it to a nomination but were highly discussed by the jury and quite worth watching.

The laureates for the different categories will be revealed at Revision.

[ Atariscne.org - News ] Slashhack 2026

Swedish Atari Klubben's traditional "Slashhack" is taking place from 20th o 22nd of March 2026 in Falköping. Currently, about 20 visitors are expected.

As the official announcement indicates, there is room for a cozy culture clash between:

"1. Traditionalists! Unite in the separatist group V.I.N.T.A.G.E. (Vampire Is Not The Atari Genuine Experience). The slogan is "Boo for Gigabyte"! (club chairman).

2. Forward-thinkers! The club chariman probably cried a little when color TV was introduced and called SVT in anger when we got more TV channels."

Sounds like a place to be!

And reminds me of this! ;)

🔗 Slashhack 2026 website