simonsunnyboy wrote:ST programming is actually just a subdiscipline of programming embedded systems
I don't agree 100% with you there, unless you mean "game programming", which generally needs a real time executive running behind the scenes. I think, other than that, there are very few similarities between the ST and an embedded computer, other than, say "its processor has a Von Neumann architecture" or some other generic microcomputer related statement. On the other hand, you may be referring to the need to be efficient with limited resources (memory, CPU cycles, I/O etc), in which case it is quite possible to write tight code in C++, as long as you keep inheritance hierarchies relatively simple, and don't try to be too clever with design patterns (that book has a lot to answer for).
What I actually want to do is resurrect a GEM program I wrote many years ago, and it really lends itself to a proper OO implementation. At the moment all I have is Megamax C with no documentation; sure, I could download some new compilers but I thought I might as well go the whole hog and go GNU. To be honest, I didn't realise these early versions were in such a state. I think porting the code itself would be a challenge, but that's the beauty of it - it is a hobby after all.
I'm happy to document my experiences here if you like, but I think I'd rather come at it from a kind of "this is how it works for me" angle rather than the opposite "why won't it work??". So my OP was to ask where the best place was to get the latest working binaries from.
So... what I did find was an archive with nine zip files. Some French chap had just copied his own (presumed working) GNU environment and put it on 9 floppies. Thes were uploaded somewhere. So, thinking it might help things, I grabbed and installed them. It sort of works, sort of, but not very well. I have bash, for example, but it dosn't seem to like the DOS text file mode of the ST, which leads to all sorts of problems when reading the bash.rc file. I have already got elvis (vi clone) but it really is sluggish (see my other thread on that one). Works well, otherwise. All of the normal *nix type commands appear to work, but redirection to a file and pipe joins in the shell are not working. Funny thing is, redirection is broken in my gulam shell too (despite the docs saying otherwise).
Oh well..

Too many retro computers here: 1040STfm, Mega4, Ultrasatanx2 , Amiga A500, A500+ and A1200, Acorn Atom x2, BBC Micro, Electron, Spectrum 48k x2, +48, +128k, QL, Oric Atmos, ZX81, Memotech MTX512, Amstrad 6128 x2..