So I've had some thoughts regarding the MS-DOS 4 source drop, regarding
things I'd like to do with the code. I'm not really that good of a coder
and probably would only be able to do some of them myself. (I'd kill for
a 3.3 drop - would obviate a lot of these things! And 5 and 6.2 even
more.)
First big issue, and one I can only partially resolve. I'm taking a
strict approach to the contents of the TOOLS folder - want to get rid of
it and replace it with open-source equivalents. That means, most
practically, OpenWatcom 1.9 (there's prolly other options but the more
like MSC it is the less torturous porting is going to be). And the code's
going to need to be dinked as far as possible to roll in Watcom instead of
MSC - that's going to be a major pain in the neck.
Some of the code's pretty braindead, too. Especially what looks to have
come from IBM. I mean...house styles vary, but Algolization is still just
hideous-looking. But it goes beyond that - think some of the utilities
are going to need major rewrites. I'm thinking of writing a new front-end
around the FDISK code, but I haven't really been able to take the code and
sort through everything to figure out what parts I'll need in order for
FDISK to...fdisk (and don't know enough about int13, MBR or FAT to do it
my damnself). I was looking into D-Flat, but my brain melted - might have
to write bespoke UI code.
Additionally, the whole "Message Server" thing. (I think the broken TYPE
command when COMMAND.COM is run under FreeDOS is related to this.) I'd
like to have the feature reduced to compatibility only and use good
old-fashioned AH=9 like older DOS versions. It'll probably also iron out
some of the compile issues I've had trying to port the C stuff to Watcom!
After these things are ironed out, I guess the next phase would be, unless
another code drop obviates the effort, to recreate features of later
versions. I've actually done this with some apps. (The obvious question:
Why not use what FreeDOS already has? A: Because I'd like to have the
entirety of the project under a single license - that being the X license
Microsoft and IBM are already using.) High memory support - big feature
of 5.0 - that's a big part of why 5 was considered a _good_ version of DOS
and 4 wasn't.
(If I sound like about an idiot, I probably sounded about ten times so on
this list 20, 25 years ago... bear with me :P, I've been learning things
and hope to continue to do so.)
-uso.
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