Mail Archives: djgpp/2009/03/17/07:00:06
Hi,
On Mar 16, 11:15=A0am, DJ Delorie <d DOT DOT DOT AT delorie DOT com> wrote:
>
> > Is DJGPP still being actively worked on or is it in maintenance mode?
>
> We're still porting new versions of gnu tools etc as they are
> released.
Bash v4 is supposedly around the corner soon, but since DJGPP never
even got v3, I'm skeptical that it will be ported. It's already hard
enough running *nix-oriented shell scripts. Actually, a DOS port of
QEMU would be cool. Or a library with support for modern sound cards
(e.g. AC97) like what Mpxplay does. Or a new port of Xdelta.
EDIT: Uh, yikes, Wikipedia says Bash 4.0 was released 25 days ago. See
here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bash
http://tiswww.case.edu/php/chet/bash/bashtop.html
http://tiswww.case.edu/php/chet/bash/NEWS
> We're still accepting patches for bugs and such.
More testers are needed, e.g. nmalloc, CWSDPMI r6 "testing" (4 MB
pages), GNU Emacs 23, etc.
> We're not adding new features, unless someone volunteers to do so.
Volunteers are rare, and I'm personally not good enough. :-/
FreeDOS-32 kinda stagnated, but it compiles with DJGPP (and was
intended to at least run DJGPP apps). Somebody starting that up again
or polishing it up would be nice. Allegro is another project that
could be revived (although that's worse because they've dropped DOS
support since 4.2.2 or so). MAME is another one (ever since 0.100).
Actually, it seems lots of DOS projects are just abandoned for no good
reason. I don't personally understand that since DOS + DJGPP can still
do plenty of useful things.
> One of these days I'll find time to make 2.04 official, but I don't
> see much need for anything beyond that - 2.03 and 2.04 seem to be
> serving everyone's needs, and there just aren't that many people using
> a DOS-like environment any more.
>
> Not that DJGPP will ever go *away*, of course :-)
Well, with x86-64 already having been around for five years, and RAM
steadily increasing (2 GB or more seems to be default amount in new
computers ... slowly creeping towards the dreaded 4 GB limit), that
won't help us (as you already know). Even Windows' NTVDM being buggy /
very limited cripples peoples' interest in DJGPP. Sad but true.
Thankfully, FreeDOS and DOSBox and DOSEMU and QEMU etc. exist, but
that apparently isn't enough to get more people interested. (FreeDOS
in particular could use a lot more volunteers.)
> Of course it can be done! DesqView/X was that, many years ago. DJGPP
> even supports it (using their libraries).
Well, technically, that was DJGPP v1, right? Pardon my ignorance, but
I doubt it works with v2. (At least the X emu libs don't due to GRX v1
vs. v2 incompatibilities.) Besides, Symantec owns Desqview and hasn't
marketed it at all, so it's long dead and buried (which is kinda
annoying), so that's no help.
Actually, there are several GUIs already for DJGPP, so it shouldn't be
hard finding examples or inspiration. Good luck! Don't try to do too
much at first (or you'll get overwhelmed), but do keep the dream alive!
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