Good "netiquette" is to only discuss one topic per email thread, so I started a new thread for Runtime:
On Thu, May 2, 2024 at 4:12 PM Eric Auer via Freedos-devel <freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: [..] > *Runtime* > > Jim's version is a small C program, 120 lines, using catgets > for messages which can be translated in different languages. > The binary is a 22kB EXE (31kB without UPX). There were text > files with EN, RU, DE, HU and LV translations, I believe? > > My version is a small ASM program, made with NASM. It has > a main file, circa 450 lines, and a language include file, > circa 150 lines, which at the moment contains EN, DE, NL, > PT, ES, FR, TR, IT, PL and RU messages :-) To add languages, > you have to build a new binary. Not very hard, but harder > than just editing a text file which can be used by CATGETS. > The binary is a 2kB COM (3kB without UPX). > > Note that texts in all 10 language are INCLUDED in the 2kB > COM file of my tiny version. No separate NLS files there. > > As a task left as an exercise for the user, one could port > the C version to Tom's small KITTEN alternative to CATGETS. > > My preferred option would be to add HU and LV translations > to my small RUNTIME and use that instead of the big one ;-) > I wrote the Runtime program, so I guess I'll speak to that. This is a very old program. I don't remember why I wrote it, but I'm sure I was doing some debugging on a program and was trying to fine-tune the performance, and needed a way to test how long it took to run after making improvements. There are lots of programs out there to track the run-time of a program on DOS, and I probably gave a quick look around - but decided it would be just as easy to write my own for what I needed to do. It was just a quick program that I probably wrote in ten minutes. And I probably released it in case it was useful to someone else. I don't think I intended it to become part of the distribution, but it did. I just looked at the zip file for Runtime 1.0. It's a very simple program, just sets a timer, runs a program, then reports how long the program ran. That's the long version to say: I don't have a particularly strong opinion to keep the old Runtime in the distribution. We can swap it out. I looked at your Runtime, and the messages are very simple: 1. seconds [as in, 'this ran in 4 seconds] 2. passed [as in, '4 seconds have passed'] 3. a 1-line "about" message 4. a 1-line "usage" message 5. a 1-line "information" message 6. a "COMSPEC not found" error message So it's just 6 messages, which seems right. It's not a very complicated program. I'm in favor to swap out the old Runtime with this Runtime. No issues here. I think it would be great to have those 6 messages translated into the missing HU and LV translations, but I don't think we need to "wait" for those messages to get translated. What do others think? You can "+1" if you just want to agree to swap out my old Runtime with Eric's newer Runtime. _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
