Subject: Re: Lets get this streight.
From: [email-masked] (Kai Ruottu)

20 Dec 1998 01:11:01 -0800
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Alan Grimes <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Thank you for responding directly to me, now I have a list of people I can rant
> at. I'll respond to each of your totally misguided attempts at a reply that
> indicate that you did little more than skim what I was writing. 
>
> Colin Peters wrote:
>>> Alan Grimes <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>> I'm kindof emberased to ask this but 
>>> I really need a DOS readable archive of the project...
> DOES THIS PHRASE NOT MAKE ANY SENSE TO YOU??? WHY DO YOU NOT ANSWER THIS REQUEST
> RATHER THAN GOING TO GREAT LENGTHS TO EXPLAIN TO ME THAT I'M A MORON WHEN I ALREADY
> STATED AS MUCH IN MY "PS:".

 Agreed, when a thing is asked, it is natural to expect somebody answer just to 
it, not to something else which the replier has now in his mind...  We had here 
a program where a quiz-master asked questions and the competitor always asked
"Canada"... Very funny, until you are the asker and cannot get any reasonable 
answer to a simple question...

 I have thought Colin, Geoffrey, Earnie and Tim be helpful and nice guys, but
answering to something else that has been asked would need a prompt excuse...

 Shit happens all the time and sometimes these answers can cause one go almost 
up the wall... One asks help in desperation and gets all kind of religious 
"System X is so good, install it immediately" - answers, not any to help in
asked problem... I know, I too have experienced this...

>>> Specifically, If you could pkzip anything that resembles a BFD library
>>> or a linker and the associated documentation and anything else that you
>>> think will help an aspiring OS maker 
> THIS IS WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO. I HAVE NO INTREST IN YOUR FUMBLING ATTEMPTS AT
> MAKING A PIECE OF $#!+ (WINDOZE) SHINE...

 Agreed..

 Seems that 'making Windoze' shine is the real purpose behind the InstallShield
packaging, not making the valuable stuff inside it easily available... For a 
Linux/Unix user too, like me, the 'full.exe' could be a real nuisance...

> -BFD libraries for 16 and 32 bit microsoft .obj files. :) (the prototype of my
> OS will be implemented in real mode) 

 You should look at the OS/2-emx project too, it's 'emxomf', 'emxaout' etc. 
utilities to convert between OMF and aout formats could be for some help...

> -GOOD Documentation for above libraries so I can develop my own executable file
> format and send it on to my addy, I will be MOST gratefull! :)

 I have emailed you my 'emx.hlp' document, made from Eberhard Mattes' docs, 
and with stuff added about the executable file formats in DOS, Windows and OS/2 

----- clip -------------
 The file structures and headers of DOS, Windows and OS/2 1.x executables are 
first studied here as an introduction to the 32-bit OS/2 2.0 LX format, which 
is given a thorough investigation. Then the 32-bit emx format, inherited from 
the OS/2 2.0 LX format and the UNIX a.out format) is described. Finally the 
Win32 PE format, which is the 32-bit executable format used in Windows 3.1x 
with the Win32s extension, Windows95 and Windows NT.
----- clip -------------

 Don't know how 'good' it is, but there are always the IBM RedBooks, the 
MS-docs etc. for more info about these NIH-format executables having the
Mark Zbikovski header, the '.OBJ' files etc...

>> I think you want to check out DJGPP. That is the DOS port of gcc. There's a
>> link off the Related Sites part of the Cygwin project page, down at the
>> bottom.
> I ALREADY HAVE COMPILERS. I DON'T HAVE A LINKER THAT WILL read microsoft .obj
> and TARGET ARBITRARRY EXECUTABLE FORMATS!!!! BESIDES DJGPP IS 32 BIT, I'M TRYING
> TO DO SOMETHING IN REAL MODE HERE...

 MS used to have its 'LINK.EXE' etc. as a 16-bit and as a 32-bit executable
freely available in the 'MSLFILES' archive...

>[email-masked] wrote:
>> << PS, I spent 2 hours downloading the darn "full.exe" form the FTP and my
>> version of Win32S (for win 3.11)  >>
>> There's no way it's going to run on anything less than W95,
> NO $#!+ SHERLOCK!!!! WAS I TRYING TO RUN IT???? HELL NO!! I WAS TRYING TO
> EXTRACT MY PRECIOUS BFD LIBRARIES FROM THE GODFORSAKEN DISTRIBUTION OF YOURS.
>> preferably with USB, so there's no reason for trying to have a 3.1 
>> compatible installer.
> WHY DO YOU PEOPLE KEEP RESPONDING TO MY POSTSCRIPT RATHER THAN THE BODY OF MY
> TEXT?

 Sigh, I too found recently myself answering to something else than was 
asked... Must be a new virus which infects the net addicts, not only their
Windoze machines any more... 

 Ok, the real reason seems to be that nobody knows how to extract 
things from that InstallShield package. Just installing it into a Win32 
system and taking the stuff from the installation seems to be the only
way. I do it this way, haven't yet invented anything else... 

> Geoffrey Noer wrote:
>>> I'm kindof emberased to ask this but I really need a DOS readable
>>> archive of the project...
>>
>> I think you want a set of development tools for DOS, not Win32.
>> If true, you want djgpp:
>
> EXCUSE ME? ARE *YOU* TRYING TO TELL *ME* WHAT *I* WANT? I THOUGHT THINGS 
> WORKED THE OTHER WAY AROUND... FEEL FREE TO SUGGEST WHATEVER YOU LIKE BUT
> DON'T TELL ME WHAT I WANT BEFORE PKZIPING THE SOURCE OF THE DISTRIBUTION
> AND SENDING IT TO ME!

 Things seem to become more and more strange... Also my RPM installer tries
sometimes to tell me that I have too old system, or that I don't really need
the files inside the package which I try to unpack...  I still think myself 
somehow sane and don't trust everything that my computer tries to tell me... 
For Linux there is the 'rpm2cpio' utility to convert the package into some 
readable format, and I have got what I need, but I haven't heard about a 
equivalent thing for InstallShield...

 Nobody seems to know either how to extract from those SVR4 pkgadd-packages 
under Linux, DOS, Windoze etc... Probably there is a 'pkg2cpio' or something.
The Unix 'cpio' format isn't quite well known, but surely much better than a
RPM...

>>> PS, I spent 2 hours downloading the darn "full.exe" form the FTP and
>>> my version of Win32S (for win 3.11) didn't like it! GEE THANKS!!! 
>> As the project WWW site says, Cygwin is for Windows NT, 95, and 98.
>> It never has and never will run on DOS, regardless of whether Win32S
>> is around or not.

 Don't worry, Cygnus probably gets over 50% about what the phone companies get
from your and my phone bills and uses it for developing free software... Mumit
Khan seems to get his deal too, when he wrote about downloading the huge 24M 
(just from my memory) source package... Although you never would get the 
binary release unpacked, your lost money went to a good purpose ;-)

> I DON'T F@$%ING CARE. GOT THAT?
> Earnie Boyd wrote:
>> C'mon, if you are going to package something as a self extracting .exe 
>> please make sure any moron dragging his 3 year old computer with 
>> PC-DOS 7.0 and win 3.11 over 28.8 can make use of it!
>> Tsk, Tsk, Tsk.  That's what you get for not reading.  See the faq.txt
>> file, 1st sentence.  And, BTW, Win 3.11 isn't supported.
> I COULD DUST OFF MY OTHER PARTITION AND SEE IF I STILL REMEMBER MY LINUX
> PASSWORD. BUT EVEN IF I GOT IN TO LINUX I WOULD HAVE NO CLUE AS TO HOW TO GO
> ABOUT DOING ANYTHING WITH THAT .bz2 OR WHATEVER IT IS YOU GOT ON YOUR FTP.

 Isn't there already a 'bzip2' for DOS?

 Ok, some kind of 'openness' is expected about public releases. If using some 
kind of weird packing: RPM, pkgadd, InstallShield,... there should be separate 
packages of the needed stuff for the users not using the 'right' system... This 
is not the fault of the Cygwin32 releases alone, there are other just as 
'narrow-minded' releases, e.g. the FreeBSD archives hide the FreeBSD system 
libs & headers inside a huge 30M 'Base Operating System' package as a 'tar.gz' 
format... Useful for a FreeBSD installer, but really a nuisance for a 
cross-compiler builder to download through a modem line, indeed...

 Cheers, Kai
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