Subject: Re: The guys at SAS
From: [email-masked] (James Cooper)
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 13:58:32 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Jan Eric Mortensen) writes:
>
>In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Doug Walker) writes:
>>
>> In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]. (Julian Barkway) writes:
>> |> Doug, out of curiosity, what do the initials SAS stand for?
>>
>> Legally, nothing.  The Institute's official legal name is
>> "SAS Institute, Inc."
>>
>> Back when the Institute was first formed and dealt mainly with
>> statistical analysis software, the official name of the product
>> was "Statistical Analysis System", but that name was dropped
>> a long time ago.  The Institute does a lot more than just
>> statistical software now.
>
>  I'm curious, how did SAS get involved with the Amiga and not the PC? AFAIK there is no PC version
>of the compiler(?)
> And do you make anything else for the Amiga?

SAS Institute needed to make their code more portable, and decided C was
the way to go.  After this decision, it was also decided that the best
way to make sure they got the support they needed from the Compiler was
to OWN it, so they bought Lattice, Inc.

Lattice, Inc. had a compiler for the Amiga, and one particular person at
SAS had been working with Lattice as a Beta tester, then code writer,
etc., etc. for quite a while.  He had some influence at the Institute,
and was given control of the Amiga version of the Lattice C Compiler.
This compiler was rev'ved to a new release, the name changed to SAS/C,
and released to the public.

Some of you may know that person's name... John Toebes.  More correctly
(and completely), John A. Toebes VIII.  He is no longer with SAS, but is
still out there working on Amiga stuff (some of which you should be
seeing soon).

No, SAS Institute does not do anything else for the Amiga.  There was a
Lattice C for the PC, and although it (in general) created far more
stable programs, of smaller size than any competition at the time, it
was slow.  Sales pretty much died (though I think they'll still sell you
a copy) when everyone decided they'd rather have SPEED (Turbo C) than
CORRECT OUTPUT.  Of course, since that time, there have been many
improvements to other PC compilers, though Lattice C was the first to
distribute a complete package with OS/2 and Windows support, as well as
extra libraries for Serial Communications, dBase III compatible data
handling, etc., etc.

-- 
---------------
Jim Cooper
([email-masked])                             bix: jcooper

Any opinions expressed herein are mine (Mine, all mine!  Ha, ha, ha!),
and not necessarily those of my employer.

Remember, "Euphemisms are for the differently brained."