Mail Archives: djgpp/2009/03/19/08:30:17
Hi,
On Mar 19, 7:22=A0am, "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_h DOT DOT DOT AT nohavenot DOT cmm> wrote:
> "Rugxulo" <rugx DOT DOT DOT AT gmail DOT com> wrote in message
>
> news:4f7b4d8f-fa46-43d0-813f-1f37466aa3ce AT v38g2000yqb DOT googlegroups DOT com...
>
> > (or is outdated) making it not too useful anymore.
>
> Is there any current DOS site not-dedicated to a specific project (e.g., =
a
> version of DOS, a DOS compiler, a DOS graphics library)? =A0Perhaps, DOS
> Webring? =A0AFAIK, those were the best of the best...
There are some, yes. For instance, Programmer's Heaven has lots of
files, and Richard Bonner's site has a lot of links:
http://www.programmersheaven.com/
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~ak621/DOS/Websites.html
In particular, I meant Simtel is almost frozen in time ever since
Digital River took over. Almost everything there is outdated.
As far as webrings, I don't think those are active anymore. In
particular, I think SET had a good page, but he's apparently long ago
lost interest.
> 486dis_c.zip by Robin Hilliard (and from code by DJ Delorie and Kent
> Williams)
Honestly, the only disassemblers I use (besides GRDB) are ndisasm,
objdump -d -M intel, and BIEW (which can view or disassemble to file).
And there's an old IDA Pro Freeware version for DOS too (3.7, I
think ... haven't tested 4.5 under HX, too lazy). There are a billion
more, of course. EDIT: NDN has one built-in too.
> fhard101.zip by Aaron L. Brenner
> =A0 - driver to emulate a small HD using floppies, assembly, Public Domai=
n
Emulate a HD by what, manually swapping floppies? No, but I do know of
some floppy image -> drive emulators (shsufdrv, timage, e0x, etc).
> ddl.zip by P. Frost
> =A0 - command line device driver loader, copyrighted
FreeDOS has a good one called devload. And the one DR-DOS uses (by Jim
Kyle) was supposedly from the book _Undocumented DOS_.
> x2b11.zip
> =A0 - exe2bin replacement, assembly, Public Domain
Some linkers will do this for you. Also, OpenWatcom has one (FreeDOS
uses it).
> Well, first, I haven't thoroughly combed through some of those website,
> e.g., like the OS/2 sites. =A0OS/2 users had to have produced some good D=
OS
> stuff in their time that was little known outside the cult-like OS/2
> community. =A0
The problem is that EMX seems to be abandoned for whatever reason. If
it is used, it's OS/2 only, and they don't even bother testing for
DOS. So some things don't work even when they probably could. Not a
huge deal, but still annoying.
What's more annoying is when a new version obsoletes a different (but
still working version) like an older real mode version or compiled by
a certain compiler (since all have strengths and weaknesses, e.g.
OEmacs). In other words, if you want DOS16, OS/2, or Win31 apps, don't
always expect that one doesn't exist just because the latest version
doesn't have it (e.g. Jed). Obviously, though, something compiled by
DJGPP works in all of the above situations, which is a huge advantage.
You can't even get that good compatibility from most Linuxes or
*BSDs !!
> IIRC, there are also some DOS file collections from other countries, e.g.=
,
> Australia, that I didn't have links for. =A0
Like this (but Austria, not Australia)?
http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pc/dos/
> Or, was that Hobbes?... =A0
Even Hobbes (which was like a big OS/2 site) is outdated on some stuff
(e.g. not latest RSX, NT09D). And they lack older versions too (e.g.
EMX Emacs 19.27, which supposedly runs with RSHELLWX).
> Second,
> I've been collecting C code which is not-copyrighted (Public Domain) and
> could be compiled for 32-bits. =A0
I assume you know of Bob Stout's snippets page?
http://www.snippets.org/
> Many of the packages in these older DOS file
> collections are copyrighted without source, or if they weren't, they had
> code that was written in 16-bit assembly. =A0While I do code in 16-bit an=
d
> 32-bit assembly, I'm not that interested in porting from 16-bit assembly =
to
> 32-bit assembly as DPMI code to be used on a 16-bit DOS OS... =A0So, for =
the
> most part, I haven't been saving them. =A0IMO, the open source, GPL'd, co=
de
> movement that benefitted Linux, bypassed DOS. =A0
I don't know, it's like some people never even tried to make stuff
work in DOS. I think worse is when it doesn't work on Windows, then
people *really* get mad and run away. And that's become much more
common on modern versions.
> Most of those DOS collections
> had applications which are trivial programs (Sad!), pre-compiled executab=
les
> (Good!), usually lacked source (Bad!), shareware (Problematic!),
> postcard-ware (Huh!), had copyright restrictions to personal, educational=
,
> non-commercial, non-military, and non-government use, etc (No Big Brother=
!).
> Those last "moral" restrictions aren't allowed in a modern open source
> licenses... =A0(Shock! Surprise! =A0No government opposition allowed with
> GPL...) =A0
Yes, I know, it was a major source of frustration having such crappy
licenses for DOS apps. Some things (text editor, memory manager,
compiler, assembler, debugger, disassembler, compressor / archiver,
screen saver, defragger, undelete) are almost a necessity, IMHO.
(Well, not a necessity exactly, but you know what I mean.) In some
ways, I think we're all doomed to reinvent to wheel until everybody
finally agrees to "behave" and use *reasonable* compilers and licenses
(and support reasonable compatibility, avoiding NIH syndrome). It's
still a long way to go ....
> Unfortunately, other old file collections - no longer available -
> e.g., for DEC VMS, were just *understood* to be "Public Domain", but the
> code they had never stated that it wasn't copyrighted by the original
> author... =A0(Uncertainty!) =A0Anyway, I've still saved many DOS packages=
. =A0Some
> I've never used or opened.
I usually test everything I download, but there are some things I save
for the unknown future. In particular, I lose interest pretty quickly
on some little things (probably due to too many projects). It's hard
focusing enough to actually start, much less finish, a project. So
obviously I have some idea how hard it is. :-)
> =A0Periodically, I delete some - typically when I
> can't figure out why I saved it. =A0
Some things I just get so frustrated with that I delete, e.g. when it
doesn't compile easily or requires obscure tools.
> Crynwyr was the largest collection of DOS
> packet drivers. =A0But, numerous other DOS packet drivers, shims, network=
code
> templates are on those sites. =A0They should still work. =A0So, you could=
make a
> large collection of them. =A0
I've never understood networking very well, and DOS isn't exactly
friendly in that regard. Besides, I doubt Broadcom works in DOS
anyways. :-/ (Anyways, I've got good ol' Windows + DOSBox + QEMU
+ FreeDOS, which is better than nothing. Oh, and other older
computers. If I ever get off my duff and finish some stuff, I might
actually dual boot FreeDOS, esp. since non-NTVDM emulation is so damn
slow. I'm a fairly determined person, but I cannot stand waiting hours
just to compile something. Of course, most C code never compiles right
out of the box anyways, which is why I sorta almost prefer assembly.
But then you lose a big chunk of available code and still have to
figure out which assembler to use, always having different strengths
and weaknesses.)
> I'd suspect you could also build a large
> collection of DOS text editors too. =A0They should still work too.
I've collected a bunch of those, and most of the best ones were
compiled by DJGPP. ;-)
http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?t=3D6267&start=3D20
> Much of the other stuff is obsolete or trivial or copyright restricted or=
in
> Pascal... etc.
There is no such thing as obsolete, only what works and what doesn't
(or, realistically, sometimes is good enough and sometimes ain't). I
think part of DOS' problem is PR: "Ewww, 16 bits is old and slow."
It's not as slow as they think, and it still works! They just can't be
bothered. (Same with assembly, it's not dead, just it doesn't suit
them.)
> Also, some stuff still on Ibiblio too:http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc=
-stuff/
Yes, FreeDOS mirrors a lot of stuff there. (Hopefully they will still
do so while Jim if off getting his MBA. He was pretty diligent, to say
the least.)
- Raw text -