Surely any Linux Live CD will have a copy of GCC on it ! Or Google "GCC Compiler"

Try

https://www.guru99.com/c-gcc-install.html

Edited By John Baron on 06/03/2021 19:36:33

are there no old version of Microsoft’s Visual C – I still have a copy on an old Win98 machine that is kept to drive a too good to throw scanner – there was a Borland-C that also ran on win98 + I think XP – may well have this on an old CD buried somewhere but 20yr old C – what do you need the C for as often it is the libraries that are the difficult bit to find

I've got Borland C++ on a CD somewhere I think but I'm fairly sure it won't run on XP unless you run it in DOSBOX. I assume you're looking for an IDE rather than just a compiler?

I use CodeBlocks, works on both W10 and XP, I think it doesn't work too well on Linux

The Arduino IDE will run on 32 or 64 bit Linux machines and is freely downloadable.

32bit Linux machines are somewhat on the way out but there are versions of Mint that still support 32 bit machines and are not too far removed from the classic XP model for graphical user interfaces but will take a little to get used to – the catch is how old is your XP and how much memory does it have – if very old then the hard drive is possibly not the modern SATA but the older PATA which prevents one immediate speedup by using one of the now cheap SSD (the smallest 128G would suffice and should be less than ?25 – the other key problem is the memory most XP systems should support 4GB but 2GB should work ok with MINT – if you have a later machine it may support the 64bit version and your choice is wider tho here the usual problem is they work better with more memory 4GB is usually quoted as a minimum

None of the old C compilers will cross-compile to Arduino code

Just a quick comment as I'm up to my eyebrows in DIY at the moment!

I wonder what Greensand's target computer is?

Compilers translate code written by humans into instructions understood by a machine. It's a translator. As such, compilers are usually set up to produce instructions for one particular type of computer, and, because operating systems have different interfaces, the compiler is usually limited to work with only one type of CPU and one operating system.

So although I can write a simple C program for Android, Arduino, Apple, STM, Windows and Linux, a different C compiler is required for each, because their hardware and operating systems are different. Machine instructions are as different as Finnish and Swahili! Loading 64 bit Intel machine code into an 8 bit Arduino Nano, or vice versa, won't work, even if the human C source code is identical.

All the earlier suggestions are good provided Greensands wants to write C programs to run on an XP computer. However, if an Arduino microcontroller is the target, only the Arduino-IDE will run on XP and produce instructions for it. If the goal is to program Arduinos, then the Arduino IDE is the best tool. It includes a cross-compiler, i.e. one set up to generate instructions for a different computer to the host. Although many compilers can be configured to cross-compile, it's a lot of hard work, perhaps taking a small team of experts a few months to set up. Much easier to use someone else's work than to roll your own.

Changing the subject slightly, most Arduino tutorials keep it simple by only using C syntax. C is a sub-set of C++, which adds a mass of powerfully complicated rather than user-friendly features. The Arduino compiler is really C++, but it's been stripped down somewhat so as not to generate code too big for a tiny microcontroller. Things like exception handling have been disabled. It's handy to be able to write C++ for the Arduino, but C does everything needed, albeit with a little more typing.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 07/03/2021 08:53:43

I’d be inclined to download the free version of visual studio? Can’t remember if it has a C language in it anymore.
if not then Eclipse used to be the go to for a free IDE?

You're right.

I have a few Asperger's symptoms and have suspicions about quite a few other Model Engineers too; grown men with toy trains forsooth! Never mind, it's an advantage when precise work of any kind matters!

Dave