Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Thank you! lol
I'll have to give that all a look over. :)
On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 6:07 PM, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
This might be longer than necessary, but I figured I may as well dump
it all on ya, just to be complete!
On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 4:09 PM, Mercury Thirteen
mercury0x0...@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for the links, I appreciate that but I know... pretty much
nothing of
Pascal lol
My only experience has been with the easy HLL (portable) stuff. Over
the past few years, I tried to learn some (but not all) of the various
Pascal-y languages and dialects. So I spent a fair bit of time toying
with various compilers.
Here's some links to tutorials, if you think that'll help, if you
think FPC is more feasible than using OpenWatcom/C (presumably for the
much better string support):
* http://www.taoyue.com/tutorials/pascal
* http://www.oocities.org/siliconvalley/park/3230/pas/pasles00.html
* http://www.standardpascal.com/
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Pascal_and_C
* http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/images/20803/TP_55_OOP_Guide.pdf
* http://www.delphibasics.co.uk/
So I'm not much help on the systems-level stuff. Plus, since most
existing legacy TP code is compiler specific (inline asm/BASM), you
almost definitely can't recompile Paku Paku or FD KEYB (or presumably
CompInfo or Which or whatever) with ppcross8086.exe without heavy
changes. (But I doubt it's impossibly hard. Inline asm is supported
but a bit differently.)
In fact, due to platform limitations, getting it to work under HX was
a feat in itself (kludge.pas needed for compiling with smartlinking),
so even that isn't 100% automatic. I would've (obviously?) preferred
to have a go32-v2 (32-bit DOS) hosted version of the
i8086/msdos-targeted compiler, but the very few people from FPC who
hang out on BTTR's forum didn't even pretend to care. So I don't know
what tests (if any) they run on the snapshots. Maybe not even tetris
and samegame, and those were the only two official examples that I
know were tested once before.
Granted, it *does* work quite a lot, even now. But nobody had time,
skill, energy, or interest to perfect it (yet, if ever). But doing it
all myself sounded impossibly hard (esp. these days, too tired), so
I've not even pretended to hack / rebuild FPC directly.
I only mention it because it is quite a nice compiler and has had some
decent work done on it in recent years (and was April 2014 SourceForge
Project of the Month). It's certainly better than GCC or even FBC,
esp. for 16-bit support (obviously).
P.S. Do read their wiki, if actually interested. In particular, it
does support LFNs and multiple memory models. Actually, there's only
one compiler .EXE, but the separate .ZIPs have different runtimes /
libs (since the bigger ones are of more experimental quality, plus
probably to keep .ZIP size down).
I think I just need to clean up my code and things should be fine.
Actually,
I can't even say my code. The directory traversal routine (which is the
root of the problem) was part of an old public domain program I found
years
ago.
I'll get it working eventually. :)
writeln('Good luck!');
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Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
I know, right? The IDE is Windows-based but yes, it surprisingly defaulted to QB compatibility rather than FB. Yeah, the lack of a 16-bit target made me pretty much write it off for this project. The project is having string space corruption issues right now anyway, so a C rewrite (or just forgetting the project altogether lol) may be more prudent. On Thu, Jan 1, 2015 at 12:20 PM, dos386 dos...@gmail.com wrote: Nevermind... figured it out. The IDE set the default language to QB compatibility. Duh. Duh! Didn't know that FreeBASIC would have a DOS IDE, even less one defaulting to lang QB. BTW, FreeBASIC 1.01.0 is out, it still mostly works, and supports DOS. I don't see yet how your 'simple shell' would enhance FreeDOS. what parts does it better then FreeCOM in what specific way? Note that you can't replace FreeCOM by your 'simple shell' compiled using FBC for the simple reason that FBC doesn't support 16-bit 8086 target. Hacking on -gen GCC and subsequently compiling with WATCOM might be theoretically possible but is not something that would work out of the box. -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Thanks for the links, I appreciate that but I know... pretty much nothing of Pascal lol I think I just need to clean up my code and things should be fine. Actually, I can't even say my code. The directory traversal routine (which is the root of the problem) was part of an old public domain program I found years ago. I'll get it working eventually. :) On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 4:57 PM, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 1:56 PM, Mercury Thirteen mercury0x0...@gmail.com wrote: Yeah, the lack of a 16-bit target made me pretty much write it off for this project. The project is having string space corruption issues right now anyway, so a C rewrite (or just forgetting the project altogether lol) may be more prudent. I'm far from an expert in QB, but if all you need is a 16-bit language with decent string support (while also allowing low-level system stuff), I'd suggest Pascal. Specifically, FreePascal (either Turbo or Delphi dialect) has some fairly good 16-bit target support in its 2.7.1 snapshots: ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/snapshot/v27/i8086-msdos/ N.B. These pre-built binaries are for Win32 host only. I've never tried rebuilding it, but it claims to work at least on OS X or Linux host as well. (Dunno about go32v2, seems nobody cares for that much anymore. Honestly, we're lucky anything works.) It does mostly work under HX, in limited testing, but you'll have to get that from Wayback since Japheth's site is AWOL. http://wiki.freepascal.org/DOS -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Hi, On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 1:56 PM, Mercury Thirteen mercury0x0...@gmail.com wrote: Yeah, the lack of a 16-bit target made me pretty much write it off for this project. The project is having string space corruption issues right now anyway, so a C rewrite (or just forgetting the project altogether lol) may be more prudent. I'm far from an expert in QB, but if all you need is a 16-bit language with decent string support (while also allowing low-level system stuff), I'd suggest Pascal. Specifically, FreePascal (either Turbo or Delphi dialect) has some fairly good 16-bit target support in its 2.7.1 snapshots: ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/snapshot/v27/i8086-msdos/ N.B. These pre-built binaries are for Win32 host only. I've never tried rebuilding it, but it claims to work at least on OS X or Linux host as well. (Dunno about go32v2, seems nobody cares for that much anymore. Honestly, we're lucky anything works.) It does mostly work under HX, in limited testing, but you'll have to get that from Wayback since Japheth's site is AWOL. http://wiki.freepascal.org/DOS -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Hi,
This might be longer than necessary, but I figured I may as well dump
it all on ya, just to be complete!
On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 4:09 PM, Mercury Thirteen
mercury0x0...@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for the links, I appreciate that but I know... pretty much nothing of
Pascal lol
My only experience has been with the easy HLL (portable) stuff. Over
the past few years, I tried to learn some (but not all) of the various
Pascal-y languages and dialects. So I spent a fair bit of time toying
with various compilers.
Here's some links to tutorials, if you think that'll help, if you
think FPC is more feasible than using OpenWatcom/C (presumably for the
much better string support):
* http://www.taoyue.com/tutorials/pascal
* http://www.oocities.org/siliconvalley/park/3230/pas/pasles00.html
* http://www.standardpascal.com/
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Pascal_and_C
* http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/images/20803/TP_55_OOP_Guide.pdf
* http://www.delphibasics.co.uk/
So I'm not much help on the systems-level stuff. Plus, since most
existing legacy TP code is compiler specific (inline asm/BASM), you
almost definitely can't recompile Paku Paku or FD KEYB (or presumably
CompInfo or Which or whatever) with ppcross8086.exe without heavy
changes. (But I doubt it's impossibly hard. Inline asm is supported
but a bit differently.)
In fact, due to platform limitations, getting it to work under HX was
a feat in itself (kludge.pas needed for compiling with smartlinking),
so even that isn't 100% automatic. I would've (obviously?) preferred
to have a go32-v2 (32-bit DOS) hosted version of the
i8086/msdos-targeted compiler, but the very few people from FPC who
hang out on BTTR's forum didn't even pretend to care. So I don't know
what tests (if any) they run on the snapshots. Maybe not even tetris
and samegame, and those were the only two official examples that I
know were tested once before.
Granted, it *does* work quite a lot, even now. But nobody had time,
skill, energy, or interest to perfect it (yet, if ever). But doing it
all myself sounded impossibly hard (esp. these days, too tired), so
I've not even pretended to hack / rebuild FPC directly.
I only mention it because it is quite a nice compiler and has had some
decent work done on it in recent years (and was April 2014 SourceForge
Project of the Month). It's certainly better than GCC or even FBC,
esp. for 16-bit support (obviously).
P.S. Do read their wiki, if actually interested. In particular, it
does support LFNs and multiple memory models. Actually, there's only
one compiler .EXE, but the separate .ZIPs have different runtimes /
libs (since the bigger ones are of more experimental quality, plus
probably to keep .ZIP size down).
I think I just need to clean up my code and things should be fine. Actually,
I can't even say my code. The directory traversal routine (which is the
root of the problem) was part of an old public domain program I found years
ago.
I'll get it working eventually. :)
writeln('Good luck!');
--
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sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your
hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought
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Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
On Wed, Dec 24, 2014 at 1:41 AM, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote: Fast is subjective (unless you mean compile-time speed, which I'm assuming here). There are too many diverse x86 machines (with different speeds) to call anything universally fast anymore. I was referring to both compile time (PowerBASIC often compiled my programs in less than a second) and speed of the finished executable. For example, I once made a simple program to do a constant benchmark (a simple incremented loop) and display the result every second. The program was compiled under QBASIC, PowerBASIC and VisualBASIC for DOS, and all three resulting executables were run on the same machine. The one made with PowerBASIC blew the others out of the water, achieving significantly higher numbers than either of the others. Also, there are hundreds of programming languages (and cpus and OSes), and apparently no one group targets very many (anymore? did they ever?). It's quite disappointing how few compilers themselves are actually portable. Agreed! OpenWatcom is of course much less popular than GCC for its own development and thus weaker but is still also relatively good. Too bad most people ignore it. (I still haven't tried the unofficial 2.0-pre builds.) Nor have I. I didn't even realize they were that far along lol FreeBASIC is not officially optimizing like the above but still behaves loads better than a toy. It's quite robust, all things considered. Indeed, I was quite impressed with it and will most likely use it for some future projects. Honestly, writing and maintaining a compiler is very hard work (not that I would know personally). I started a BASIC compiler *wayyy* back in the day and experienced the... joy? of writing one firsthand. Needless to say that project was abandoned pretty quickly. If my version of BASIC would've given significant benefits over any other BASIC out there, I (maybe) would've continued, but with PowerBASIC, QB64 and FreeBASIC doing so was pointless. -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
It will provide all the typical features of the base shell, in a new implemented, most likely buggy way (FreeCOM also had bazillion of bugs which were removed over much time and effort) can it run batches? whats the resident footprint? including the following new features: -The new drives command displays what drive letters are available in the environment and details on each. make it drives.exe, usable with any other shell -A selection of four separate shells running concurrently which can be switched between using Alt-Tab. well - maybe useful, but I never missed this (for command.com) -Multithreaded file copying, moving and deleting. I doubt this makes much sense with singlethreading, synchronous DOS just my 2 cents Tom On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 4:18 PM, Tom Ehlert t...@drivesnapshot.de wrote: but for a simple shell it would just be too time consuming, especially since I want to get a useable product out fairly quickly. I don't see yet how your 'simple shell' would enhance FreeDOS. what parts does it better then FreeCOM in what specific way? Tom -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel Mit freundlichen Grüßen/Kind regards Tom Ehlert +49-241-79886 -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 11:08 AM, Tom Ehlert t...@drivesnapshot.de wrote: in a new implemented, most likely buggy way (FreeCOM also had bazillion of bugs which were removed over much time and effort) Hopefully not! :) can it run batches? As of right now, no, but in its final form, yes. It supports all the environment variables and such as well. whats the resident footprint? I'll have to get back to you on that one. make it drives.exe, usable with any other shell A great idea! Consider it done. -Multithreaded file copying, moving and deleting. I doubt this makes much sense with singlethreading, synchronous DOS You may be right, and I'm in a bit of a debate anyway over how to implement this feature. I originally envisioned a system where you could initiate a file copy in one shell, switch to another and continue working while the original shell continues to operate, initiate a massive nested folder delete in the second, move to a third shell while the first two continue to operate, etc. Now, granted, there's not very many times when the average user would need to do all these monumental file operations at once, plus the threaded nature of the feature only extends to things directly under the shell's control - e.g. copying, moving and deleting. It can't thread actual DOS apps, so I wonder if it wouldn't make more sense to just include the multiple file operation feature without the multiple shells. Under this model there's only one shell interface, but when you initiate a file operation, you would no longer have to wait until it finishes to continue. I think this might be a better, more straightforward way to go. -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Are you kidding? There's been many many times I wanted a feature that would allow me to do a dos function in the background while I kept doing whatever it was I was already doing in the foreground. A way to switch to a second shell, do something, and switch back would be fantastic. (btw, I'm a huge powerbasic fan, do you have your old code available somewhere? I'd love to have a look at it. -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Hi, Travis, and thanks for the feedback! Are you kidding? There's been many many times I wanted a feature that would allow me to do a dos function in the background while I kept doing whatever it was I was already doing in the foreground. A way to switch to a second shell, do something, and switch back would be fantastic. I'm starting to think one shell would be sufficient, as long as any file operation the user may perform will execute and complete in the background. I think I'll implement the feature in this manner and if folks actually want multiple separate shells, I can add that later on. (btw, I'm a huge powerbasic fan, do you have your old code available somewhere? I'd love to have a look at it. I hear you there, PowerBASIC was awesome in its day and in fact it was the using of this language that let me get my GUI done to the furthest level of completion - despite it still never getting finished lol The entire PowerBASIC source for version 1.42 of my GUI's kernel can be found here http://mercurycoding.com/k142.bas. -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
On Dec 23, 2014, at 1:57 PM, Mercury Thirteen wrote: (btw, I'm a huge powerbasic fan, do you have your old code available somewhere? I'd love to have a look at it. I hear you there, PowerBASIC was awesome in its day and in fact it was the using of this language that let me get my GUI done to the furthest level of completion - despite it still never getting finished lol The entire PowerBASIC source for version 1.42 of my GUI's kernel can be found here http://mercurycoding.com/k142.bas. Thanks for that, grabbed it. As far as I know, powerbasic is the only company that still actively sells and supports a dos compiler. Their version 3.5 is still available for purchase. I have their windows version too, though I'm 1 version back (running pbcc 5.0, and pbwin 8.0), but still an excellent product. I am glad they still support dos, but it sure does make it hard to opensource pb code, because nobody wants to pay for the compiler these days. :-(. Anyway, getting off topic here, sorry folks, but thanks for the url, already downloaded it, will begin fiddling with it, to see what I can do with it. I've never been that great at i386 assembly, but I'm decent enough to figure this all out with a bit of study. -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Thanks for that, grabbed it. As far as I know, powerbasic is the only company that still actively sells and supports a dos compiler. Their version 3.5 is still available for purchase. I have their windows version too, though I'm 1 version back (running pbcc 5.0, and pbwin 8.0), but still an excellent product. I am glad they still support dos, but it sure does make it hard to opensource pb code, because nobody wants to pay for the compiler these days. :-(. Anyway, getting off topic here, sorry folks, but thanks for the url, already downloaded it, will begin fiddling with it, to see what I can do with it. I've never been that great at i386 assembly, but I'm decent enough to figure this all out with a bit of study. No problem! Yeah, PowerBASIC was a great product wihch produced some of the fastest apps around. It was a pretty phenomenal compiler, but as you point out, nobody wants to have to buy a compiler anymore. Plus now with the likes of GCC, Open Watcom, FreeBASIC, et al., you really no longer have to purchase a commercial product to get awesome optimized code output. Even at version 1.42 the GUI wasn't much to look at. IIRC, it was basically just an execution environment at that point which let small little apps run which were coded in the instruction format it understood which in turn were generated by a little assembler I built for that purpose. At one point I had it running a tiny app which displayed the current speed benchmark, another showing the date and another showing the time all simultaneously. In the debug shell there was a 'thread' command which showed all currently running applications and their specifics, along with provisions to load more apps, kill apps and so on. In the interest of being able to run more software I eventually abandoned the custom instruction set in favor of a virtual x86 machine model which will be able to load and run multiple DOS apps in isolated memory spaces. Using this design, one could use whatever development tools they wish instead of having to rely on my obscure little assembler. My apologies also for drifting off course! [/OffTopicSideDiscussion] lol -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
TrueBasic (www.truebasic.com) still sells the DOS version of their compiler, but it's not actively developed any more. -Original Message- From: Travis Siegel [mailto:tsie...@softcon.com] Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2014 2:16 PM To: Technical discussion and questions for FreeDOS developers. Subject: Re: [Freedos-devel] New software! On Dec 23, 2014, at 1:57 PM, Mercury Thirteen wrote: (btw, I'm a huge powerbasic fan, do you have your old code available somewhere? I'd love to have a look at it. I hear you there, PowerBASIC was awesome in its day and in fact it was the using of this language that let me get my GUI done to the furthest level of completion - despite it still never getting finished lol The entire PowerBASIC source for version 1.42 of my GUI's kernel can be found here http://mercurycoding.com/k142.bas. Thanks for that, grabbed it. As far as I know, powerbasic is the only company that still actively sells and supports a dos compiler. Their version 3.5 is still available for purchase. I have their windows version too, though I'm 1 version back (running pbcc 5.0, and pbwin 8.0), but still an excellent product. I am glad they still support dos, but it sure does make it hard to opensource pb code, because nobody wants to pay for the compiler these days. :-(. Anyway, getting off topic here, sorry folks, but thanks for the url, already downloaded it, will begin fiddling with it, to see what I can do with it. I've never been that great at i386 assembly, but I'm decent enough to figure this all out with a bit of study. --- --- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Hi, On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 1:52 PM, Mercury Thirteen mercury0x0...@gmail.com wrote: No problem! Yeah, PowerBASIC was a great product which produced some of the fastest apps around. Fast is subjective (unless you mean compile-time speed, which I'm assuming here). There are too many diverse x86 machines (with different speeds) to call anything universally fast anymore. It was a pretty phenomenal compiler, but as you point out, nobody wants to have to buy a compiler anymore. Au contraire. In reality, most compilers are proprietary (and very very expensive). So GCC and Clang and such are actually the rare exception rather than the rule. Also, there are hundreds of programming languages (and cpus and OSes), and apparently no one group targets very many (anymore? did they ever?). It's quite disappointing how few compilers themselves are actually portable. http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html Plus now with the likes of GCC, Open Watcom, FreeBASIC, et al., you really no longer have to purchase a commercial product to get awesome optimized code output. Again, optimized is subjective. There's too many x86 machines (let alone others) to call anything absolutely optimal anymore. GCC has had tons of work put into it over the years and had many releases, so yes, it's fairly good at a (semi-)wide selection of processors, depending on version. OpenWatcom is of course much less popular than GCC for its own development and thus weaker but is still also relatively good. Too bad most people ignore it. (I still haven't tried the unofficial 2.0-pre builds.) FreeBASIC is not officially optimizing like the above but still behaves loads better than a toy. It's quite robust, all things considered. Honestly, writing and maintaining a compiler is very hard work (not that I would know personally). My favorite these days would probably be FreePascal. Their work (esp. considering the low amount of volunteers) is very impressive. My apologies also for drifting off course! [/OffTopicSideDiscussion] lol Well, this is freedos-devel , so I don't know where (or what) would be more on-topic. Perhaps more actual development (and sharing code) since some rare person here may frown upon abstract discussion on compilers and such in general. -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Hi, On Sun, Dec 21, 2014 at 1:27 AM, Mercury Thirteen mercury0x0...@gmail.com wrote: Can anyone can shed some light on why I'm getting these build errors? My syntax is exactly as it should be from the demos and examples I've seen, I've even tried a half dozen different ways to express the routine. I have no idea why the compiler is choking here. Probably because the inline asm syntax isn't what you expect. Check the FAQ or ask on the forum. I don't know offhand. Also keep in mind that this isn't real mode anymore, it's protected (specifically, DPMI based upon DJGPP v2's libc). If that's too tough, you might have to use something like -gen gcc and heavily massage the output to work with real mode OpenWatcom or similar. -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Hi, On Sun, Dec 21, 2014 at 2:07 AM, Mercury Thirteen mercury0x0...@gmail.com wrote: Nevermind... figured it out. The IDE set the default language to QB compatibility. Duh. Great, just after replying, now I see this new message. ;-) But seriously, this isn't for the faint of heart. You're probably not going to be able to translate real mode stuff without a lot of effort. As nice as FB is overall, it's not a good choice for porting old software unless you really stick to the HLL-only end or just know lots about DPMI (which I do not). (Even lang qb without all the unportable stuff isn't 100% compatible.) BTW, I have no idea why lang qb is default in whatever IDE you're using. Most people seem to prefer fblite or even native fb syntax. I'd probably recommend fblite if you can force yourself. But be sure to read the FAQ, docs (fbhelp), and ask questions on the forum. http://www.freebasic.net/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=FaqDOS http://www.freebasic.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=4 On Sun, Dec 21, 2014 at 2:27 AM, Mercury Thirteen mercury0x0...@gmail.com wrote: Can anyone can shed some light on why I'm getting these build errors? My syntax is exactly as it should be from the demos and examples I've seen, I've even tried a half dozen different ways to express the routine. I have no idea why the compiler is choking here. -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Nice timing! lol Seriously, though, I'm starting to see what you point out. I got all of my code running in FB and it did great - quite impressive, really. However anything which depends on real mode assembly or interrupt calling will just take too long to get running properly so I think I'll have to stick with QBASIC for now. At least that's a small step in the right direction on the pathway to totally free software. PowerBASIC was what, $129? Not to mention *very* closely guarded. At least QBASIC was actually a free tool, albeit closed source. Yeah, there are ways around the idiosyncrasies of DPMI (I've had too much experience with it while recoding my GUI in Watcom lol) but for a simple shell it would just be too time consuming, especially since I want to get a useable product out fairly quickly. If people actually like it then the time investment for recoding it in C from the ground up will be justified. On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 6:53 AM, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, On Sun, Dec 21, 2014 at 2:07 AM, Mercury Thirteen mercury0x0...@gmail.com wrote: Nevermind... figured it out. The IDE set the default language to QB compatibility. Duh. Great, just after replying, now I see this new message. ;-) But seriously, this isn't for the faint of heart. You're probably not going to be able to translate real mode stuff without a lot of effort. As nice as FB is overall, it's not a good choice for porting old software unless you really stick to the HLL-only end or just know lots about DPMI (which I do not). (Even lang qb without all the unportable stuff isn't 100% compatible.) BTW, I have no idea why lang qb is default in whatever IDE you're using. Most people seem to prefer fblite or even native fb syntax. I'd probably recommend fblite if you can force yourself. But be sure to read the FAQ, docs (fbhelp), and ask questions on the forum. http://www.freebasic.net/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=FaqDOS http://www.freebasic.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=4 -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
but for a simple shell it would just be too time consuming, especially since I want to get a useable product out fairly quickly. I don't see yet how your 'simple shell' would enhance FreeDOS. what parts does it better then FreeCOM in what specific way? Tom -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
It will provide all the typical features of the base shell, including the following new features: -The new drives command displays what drive letters are available in the environment and details on each. -A selection of four separate shells running concurrently which can be switched between using Alt-Tab. -Multithreaded file copying, moving and deleting. On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 4:18 PM, Tom Ehlert t...@drivesnapshot.de wrote: but for a simple shell it would just be too time consuming, especially since I want to get a useable product out fairly quickly. I don't see yet how your 'simple shell' would enhance FreeDOS. what parts does it better then FreeCOM in what specific way? Tom -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel -- Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Nevermind... figured it out. The IDE set the default language to QB compatibility. Duh. On Sun, Dec 21, 2014 at 2:27 AM, Mercury Thirteen mercury0x0...@gmail.com wrote: Can anyone can shed some light on why I'm getting these build errors http://mercurycoding.com/unnamed.png? My syntax is exactly as it should be from the demos and examples I've seen, I've even tried a half dozen different ways to express the routine. I have no idea why the compiler is choking here. -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Hi Jim! I've quite literally *just* begun work on this so it's nowhere near ready for prime time. As soon as I fix the 'cd' command it'll be much more useful, so I'll probably release the first version then even though the advanced features won't be quite ready for another release or two. The problem is that since it was originally part of my GUI, it was made to rely on the functions available in that environment. Since it doesn't make sense to port the entire code base just for a standalone shell, I'll be writing new functions which accomplish the same job and yet don't depend on the rest of the routines which comprised the GUI's makeshift API. Also, the original source is PowerBASIC code, so I'm recoding it in QBASIC for accessibility to a wider audience and to avoid the huge delay associated with porting it to a completely different language such as C - if folks like the shell, I can always do a C port later on. I'm hoping to have basic usable functionality by the end of the year, and it will be released under version 3 of the GPL. I'm the only IT guy for my company so I know where you're coming from! No problem on that other email, whenever you have time is fine. It's great to be here and I'm looking forward to the project's future! :) -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Hi, quick hint: original source is PowerBASIC code, so I'm recoding it in QBASIC for accessibility to a wider audience and to avoid the huge delay associated with porting it to a completely different language such as C... Use freebasic. It is a free open source compiler so it is much easier to own than powerbasic or qbasic. Also, there is a qbasic or quickbasic compatibility mode in freebasic which makes porting of qbasic code relatively painless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebasic Note that, like freepascal and djgpp (gnu c/c++ for dos), freebasic also is a 32 bit compiler so you have no 640 kB limit for many things when using freebasic in DOS :-) Cheers, Eric -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
I'm wondering why I never thought of that lol Downloading FreeBASIC now :) Thanks for the tip! -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Can anyone can shed some light on why I'm getting these build errors http://mercurycoding.com/unnamed.png? My syntax is exactly as it should be from the demos and examples I've seen, I've even tried a half dozen different ways to express the routine. I have no idea why the compiler is choking here. -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Hi Eric! Yes, this shell (as well as my GUI from which I'm porting it) is completely open source. I guess it could fit under either category? When the port is finished, it will be an exact clone of the MS-DOS command.com, only with added features. Users need not concern themselves with said added features unless they wish to do so, as it will be functionally identical to the shell they're used to unless they explicitly make use of the advanced options. That said, I certainly don't wish to step on any toes, as it were, so if the best course of action is to put it in Util then so be it. I'm not petitioning the disposal of the tried-and-true FreeCOM by any means. :) Hosting isn't a problem - I already have a website to host my projects and adding a spot for this shell when it's finished won't be a problem. I'm mainly just seeking a listing somewhere on the all software list so folks know it's available. My next question: How do I get my software listed on the FreeDOS site? Is it a Wiki-type situation where I can go in and edit it myself or does someone else handle that? Maybe I jump the gun here and I would find out more if I just waited for Jim and Rugxulo to reply as you suggested, eh? lol Speaking of Jim, I know he was requesting help redesigning the software list and I emailed him to volunteer for it, but have received no reply to date. If that's still needed, I'd be happy to do that as well. Overall, I love this project and want to help as much as I can. :) Best regards, Mercury -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 1:27 PM, Mercury Thirteen mercury0x0...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Eric! Yes, this shell (as well as my GUI from which I'm porting it) is completely open source. I guess it could fit under either category? When the port is finished, it will be an exact clone of the MS-DOS command.com, only with added features. Users need not concern themselves with said added features unless they wish to do so, as it will be functionally identical to the shell they're used to unless they explicitly make use of the advanced options. That said, I certainly don't wish to step on any toes, as it were, so if the best course of action is to put it in Util then so be it. I'm not petitioning the disposal of the tried-and-true FreeCOM by any means. :) Hosting isn't a problem - I already have a website to host my projects and adding a spot for this shell when it's finished won't be a problem. I'm mainly just seeking a listing somewhere on the all software list so folks know it's available. Very interesting! Do you have a website for your shell so others can look at it? What open source license did you use for this? Did you use GNU GPL or another free software license? My next question: How do I get my software listed on the FreeDOS site? Is it a Wiki-type situation where I can go in and edit it myself or does someone else handle that? Maybe I jump the gun here and I would find out more if I just waited for Jim and Rugxulo to reply as you suggested, eh? lol Generally, before we add a new program to the Software List on the website, we like to see that people are using the new program and find it interesting, and maybe that it's had a few releases. That way, we know the program has some momentum behind it, and the project won't disappear or go stale. So, release early, and release often! Let others try it out and discuss it! The BASE category in the software list is reserved for those programs that replace original MS-DOS functionality, and we try to keep it to one program each. For example, we are unlikely to add a second FIND program to the BASE list, or a second COMMAND.COM to the BASE list. We usually add these second versions into the UTIL category (or wherever else seems appropriate) - and if people seem to prefer the second one (in UTIL) to the first one (in BASE) then we switch things around. Speaking of Jim, I know he was requesting help redesigning the software list and I emailed him to volunteer for it, but have received no reply to date. If that's still needed, I'd be happy to do that as well. I've been very busy with work (I'm the IT Director CIO at a university) so I haven't had as much time as I would like to work on open source software this Fall. But I'm working my way back. I'll go find your other email and reply to that. Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. Overall, I love this project and want to help as much as I can. :) It's great to have you join us! -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] New software!
Hi Mercury, nice to hear that you are a long time (Free)DOS fan :-) If you want to offer software for FreeDOS, it has to be free open source software in the first place. The next question is whether it is okay for widespread use, or only for users with very special interests. Depending on that, you can either have it listed in a category of our list of recommended part of the distro tools, where the util category for example already has the 4DOS shell. You will not make it into the base one, unless your command.com is more like MS DOS, but at the same time better than the current FreeCOM which holds the base spot for shells. So it would be util: http://www.freedos.org/software/?cat=util If your software has a more exotic target audience, it can still be added to our collection of DOS software hosted on IBIBLIO. Modern drivers such as Jack's and Bret's disk and USB drivers are there, too... http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/ As you see, the recommended / distro things also are on ibiblio. The licensing is important. For the rest, there are no exact rules for what gets on ibiblio and what not. Basically if it is too specific and already has a good website for itself, it makes less sense to mirror it on ibiblio. It can still get linked from the links collections on the FreeDOS website nevertheless. Regards, Eric PS: I speak as experienced FreeDOS guy here, for more elaborate answers you better wait for Jim and Rugxulo who are more into the (not formal) formal procedure. fully functional Command.com replacement built into the otherwise graphical shell to serve as a debugging aid. I am currently extracting it from the shell it was a part of seven years ago, making selected updates and recreating it as a standalone application. My shell provides several improvements over the traditional command interpreter, such as multiple directory locations (which can be switched between using alt-tab) background file copying / deleting and new commands like drives which displays the letters of all available drives as well as details for each one (e.g. hard drive, floppy, mapped network drive, CD-ROM, etc.) and other niceties. I would like to make this software available on the FreeDOS site once completed; what is the formal procedure for doing so? -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
