The Amsterdam Compiler Kit (ACK) version 6.2+ has been released, offering a complete toolchain for compiling ANSI C, Pascal, Modula-2, and Basic. This mature software supports multiple platforms including CP/M, Linux variants, MS-DOS, and macOS. Installation requires an ANSI C compiler, flex, yacc, GNU make, Lua, and Python 3.4+, with a default build directory consuming about 1GB.
The system builds natively on Unix-like systems using MSYS2 and mingw32. Version 6.2+ introduces significant updates to the build mechanism. Usage involves the 'ack' command with platform-specific flags and optimization levels. Key gotchas include limited library support and platform-specific quirks like adjusting file descriptors on BSD systems. The ACK is licensed under a BSD-like license and maintains a developer mailing list for support and bug reports.
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