At the time, even C/C++ compilers had little memory available to perform any meaningful optimization. GCC on UNIX, for example, had optimizations that would be

At the time, even C/C++ compilers had little memory available to perform any meaningful optimization. GCC on UNIX, for example, had optimizations that would be unthinkable for C compilers running on DOS. Microsoft was the first to invest in better optimization for Windows, and since then TC++ was left in the dust.