X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to djgpp-bounces using -f From: Rugxulo Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: Vista-compatible? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:08:05 -0800 (PST) Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 101 Message-ID: References: <7705c9030901110150i372286a6r4a363842638a0a21 AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <1ce4ad0c-442e-421e-acb7-0e8abf5ffb3d AT f33g2000vbf DOT googlegroups DOT com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 65.13.115.246 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Trace: posting.google.com 1233014886 28079 127.0.0.1 (27 Jan 2009 00:08:06 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse AT google DOT com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:08:06 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse AT google DOT com Injection-Info: a12g2000pro.googlegroups.com; posting-host=65.13.115.246; posting-account=p5rsXQoAAAB8KPnVlgg9E_vlm2dvVhfO User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Opera/9.63 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en) Presto/2.1.1,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by delorie.com id n0R0F4fG013155 Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Hi Rod, (BTW, I've still got a few comments on MOSS to send you) On Jan 24, 8:35 pm, "Rod Pemberton" wrote: > "Rugxulo" wrote in message > > news:1ce4ad0c-442e-421e-acb7-0e8abf5ffb3d AT f33g2000vbf DOT googlegroups DOT com... > > > On Jan 11, 3:50 am, "Blair Campbell" wrote: > > > Are there updated packages since 2006 available with better support > > > for vista? > ... > > The problem is that Win7 shares the same Vista kernel / internals, so > > things won't necessarily get better [for DJGPP and/or DPMI...] > > What do you recommend for DJGPP? > > Is there a future for DJGPP in environments which are eliminating or have > eliminated DOS support? > > As I see it, DJGPP only has a few choices: > >   1) stay limited to DOS (and environments which support DOS boxes, e.g., > older Windows and Linux with DOSEMU and FreeDOS) This is pretty much the status quo, and it requires no work, and I think some of the smart guys of yesteryear are really really busy with other stuff (and that's assuming they even still use DJGPP: some do, some don't). So I'd wager this is where we'll stay without some serious Jolt cola. >   2) rework for portable DOS emulators such as DOSBox (I like, but DPMI > disabled.) DOSBox will even run on non-x86 cpus (e.g. even Mac OS X w/ PPC). The problem is that it's only for games, has some issues, and is kinda slow for normal DOS stuff. But it does have decent graphics and sound emulation, maybe better than DOSEMU (which I admit I've only very barely used). >   3) rework for Windows console applications  (Pelles C, LCC-Win32, MinGW, > Cygwin...) Kinda like RSXNTDJ, I guess. Of course, that's basically abandoned, but I think it's niche was back before MinGW was stable (since Cygwin's license is more restrictive). I tried it the other day for the first time, and it seemed to work fairly well (dual DOS and Win32 apps). Of course, nobody seems to have 1.6 beta2 except the (slightly truncated) archive on web.archive.org, which is kinda annoying. But 1.6 beta2 seems to be Win32 only (I guess preferring separate DOS and Win32 compiles). EMX works well too (supposedly in OS/2 or DOS- compatibles via RSX) but seems to be mostly abandoned. (The newer GCC 3.2.2 or whatever on Hobbes isn't DOS-compatible, so since I lack OS/ 2, I couldn't run it. So I guess for that we're stuck with 2.8.1 unless there's some other version I'm unaware of.) I dunno, compiling separately for each OS target seems like reinventing the wheel, making too much work for ourselves. Some kind of compatibility would be nice, maybe like Bryan Ford's Vx32 or whatever. >   4) rework for Linux (Why bother...? GCC toolchain.) Since MOSS can read ELF, you've suggested there could be some compatibility layer there. I don't think that's the worst idea. Also Daniel Borca's DJGPP/ELF exists as well as Josh Vanderhoof's Cross-ELF linker thingamabob. >   5) create an "NTVDM" for Vista or port DOSEMU to Windows (NT's NTVDM was > supposedly DOS 5.0 with some patches...) I dunno, I would've hoped that MS would keep their NTVDM up to date or at least still running, but I guess when you migrate everything every few years, you lose interest. (Rumors keep abounding about various things, e.g. eventually moving to all "managed" code and/or running compatibility in a VM, etc.) It's not really evil or disadvantageous to support other OSes binaries, not sure why no one bothers. It's not impossibly hard to do, I mean, people do it. I think people are too chauvinistic about their host OS. We need to work together instead of being so stubborn about minor nits. > Various C compilers exist for Linux and Windows.  So, the upgrade path, IMO, > becomes environments where there aren't compilers and which support DOS, > either DOS boxes or DOS emulation.  I know DOSBox is intended for gaming and > supposedly has DPMI disabled, but I like the idea of DOSBox since it should > be free of v86 mode... DOSBox is good, it just requires a ton of dependencies on Linux, for instance. And you have to convince Linux distros to include it (which some seem to not want to do). And it builds via C++, which adds more complexity. But yeah, it runs okay.