Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 16:54:00 CDT From: "George Jetson" To: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu Subject: factor, gcc, and bcc... Or, Why you might prefer the DJGPP compiled versions of things over the MSC/Borland compiled versions of things... The basic answer is that software developed for Unix often compiles and runs better when compiled under a Unix(ish) compiler than it does when ported to a DOS compiler. Example: I snagged a copy of factor (the cute litle program, usually found in /usr/games, that prime factors numbers) from an FTP site, with an eye to getting it running under DOS. I transferred it to my PC, compiled it with GCC (DJGPP) and it runs flawlessly. Next, I tried compiling it with bcc (Borland C++, v2.0) and it compiled fine, but when I ran it, got err msg "ouch". This msg is the general abort out of factor (I.e., the msg is generated by the program, not by the runtime or the OS) and, as far as I can tell, it was probably caused by some error parsing the cmd line args. Well, the point is, it wasn't worth my time messing around trying to find out what the problem was, since I already had a working version. But I am curious, and if anyone has any ideas, I'd be glad to hear them... ----- Finally, I think the idea of putting GO32.EXE on a RAM disk (putting that dir first on your PATH) is a very good idea.