DOS ain't dead

Hi Pascal dudes,
I know I've already e-mailed most of you about this (which in hindsight probably would've been better to post here, but I didn't know marcov's e-mail offhand). Anyways ...

Gautier de Montmollin no longer develops his tiny DOS editor (and the site's URL is long gone, but see WayBack Machine archive, screenshot). He only works on a few SF projects these days. But he's given me permission to post sources here. He doesn't seem concerned about copyrights although he does warn that EDITOR*.PAS were originally derived from Borland (probably GPL incompatible, he says). I don't expect anyone to port this to FPC or VPC, but it may have some interesting tidbits in there (e.g. DR-DOS specific, maybe other stuff too) that can be gleaned for other Pascal editors. In particular, Stefan Weber tells me some of its 16-bit-isms may be hard to port (esp. the inline asm). But hey, it can't hurt to take a look, can it??

http://rugxulo.googlepages.com/edit_src.zip (Turbo Pascal 6)

N.B. rr, this means your link to "EDIT by Gautier de Montmollin" under "Text editors, IDEs" (http://www.bttr-software.de/links/#texted) is broken.

> he does warn that EDITOR*.PAS were originally derived from Borland
> (probably GPL incompatible, he says).

Looks like there is really a lot of copyrighted borland code in there, and not just Editors* From a version (6.0) that is afaik never released into PD. TP 5.5 is the newest PDed one. (TP7 French is free though).

IOW it could be that this code is illegal to distribute, be careful with hosting it.

> I don't expect anyone to port this
> to FPC or VPC, but it may have some interesting tidbits in there
> (e.g. DR-DOS specific, maybe other stuff too) that can be gleaned for
> other Pascal editors. In particular, Stefan Weber tells me some of its
> 16-bit-isms may be hard to port (esp. the inline asm). But hey, it can't
> hurt to take a look, can it??

I had a quick look, but I think it would be wisest to diff the modified TP src against the originals to see what degree they are modified (or cut down). It might be easier to do the relevant mods in the FPC tv sources.

I think it would be doable, simply a lot of work.

> N.B. rr, this means your link to "EDIT by Gautier de Montmollin"
> under "Text editors, IDEs" (http://www.bttr-software.de/links/#texted) is
> broken.

Thanks, "fixed".

---
Forum admin

> Looks like there is really a lot of copyrighted borland code in there, and
> not just Editors* From a version (6.0) that is afaik never released into
> PD. TP 5.5 is the newest PDed one. (TP7 French is free though).

There's no TP or BP in the public domain (PD). It's still copyrighted freeware.

---
Forum admin

> > he does warn that EDITOR*.PAS were originally derived from Borland
> > (probably GPL incompatible, he says).
>
> Looks like there is really a lot of copyrighted borland code in there, and
> not just Editors* From a version (6.0) that is afaik never released into
> PD. TP 5.5 is the newest PDed one. (TP7 French is free though).
>
> IOW it could be that this code is illegal to distribute, be careful with
> hosting it.

I can't tell which is Borland's and which isn't. Plus, even then, I don't know what license they wanted it to be under (if any). And I don't have TP6. So I have no clue. No harm intended, this is not a commercial product. I'm sure Borland is well aware that sources will always float around out there. (I've seen lots floating out there, even binaries, on well-known sites too.)

BTW, at one time, Borland was going to open source Brief. For whatever reason, I guess they never got around to it.

Should one of us try e-mailing CodeGear?

> I had a quick look, but I think it would be wisest to diff the modified TP
> src against the originals to see what degree they are modified (or cut
> down). It might be easier to do the relevant mods in the FPC tv sources.

I guess you mean GdM should do this?

> I think it would be doable, simply a lot of work.

You don't have to port it all, just look and see if any pieces are interesting.

> Should one of us try e-mailing
> CodeGear?

Just try it! Years ago I asked David Intersimone to release an early TASM for DOS as freeware (like TP55). He "promised" to do so, but it never happened as we all know.

---
Forum admin

> > Should one of us try e-mailing
> > CodeGear?
>
> Just try it! Years ago I asked David Intersimone to release an early TASM
> for DOS as freeware (like TP55). He "promised" to do so, but it never
> happened as we all know.

Yes, a quick look shows him promising to release lots of stuff. Maybe he just forgot or got too busy or ran into legal hurdles. (Looks like he's still active, too. No e-mail of his easily found, though. I'm not hopeful on this.)

Soon to arrive will be Turbo C 1.0, Turbo C 1.5, Turbo Pascal Toolboxes, Brief, Turbo C++, and more.

We all know that TC 2.01 and TC++ 1.01 are freeware now. And even TASM32 5.3 is hidden in their free 2006 C++ Builder behemoth.

> > Looks like there is really a lot of copyrighted borland code in there,
> and
> > not just Editors* From a version (6.0) that is afaik never released
> into
> > PD. TP 5.5 is the newest PDed one. (TP7 French is free though).
>
> There's no TP or BP in the public domain (PD). It's still copyrighted
> freeware.

Could be. I don't follow it as much, since while there are one or two things we could use from TP7 (colorsel unit and TV demo), since we have an own, copyright free TV, we stopped asking them.

> > > Looks like there is really a lot of copyrighted borland code in there,
> > and
> > > not just Editors* From a version (6.0) that is afaik never released
> > into
> > > PD. TP 5.5 is the newest PDed one. (TP7 French is free though).
> >
> > There's no TP or BP in the public domain (PD). It's still copyrighted
> > freeware.
>
> Could be. I don't follow it as much, since while there are one or two
> things we could use from TP7 (colorsel unit and TV demo), since we have an
> own, copyright free TV, we stopped asking them.

Well, his editor has readonly file issues and is limited to 64k file sizes, which I'm sure yours is not. Not sure what he uses EMS for (Exec? save/restore screen? compile .ext assoc + errors?), but there's something in there about that (which you undoubtedly don't need). And I doubt you need his LFN functions either.

His OPENDOS unit is interesting, but he lacks some functions (e.g. 2707h, preferring running TASKMGR.EXE directly, which doesn't work by default for me since only DRDOSCFG is set instead of OPENDOSCFG, probably same issue for NWDOSCFG users). Also, the whole "opened files" status of the task monitor always says "0" for me. In other words, he hasn't had DR-DOS for a few years now (nor updated this since 2005)!

some misc. DR-DOS links:

http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pc/simtelnet/msdos/turbopas/opendos2.zip
http://www.cowlark.com/obsolete-dos-software/index.html
http://www.delorie.com/opendos/archives/browse.cgi?p=opendos
http://www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t109018.html
http://www.drdos.com/dosdoc/index.htm
http://www.drdos.com/dosdoc/multtask/index.htm

P.S. That PS util above can be compiled with TC++ 1.01 and JWasm 1.94c. (Still seems to work too! )

On a semi-related note, Gautier also has a 3d engine he coded in DOS that compiles with GNAT / Ada (last updated in 2005).

http://rugxulo.googlepages.com/ENG3D017.zip (w/ srcs)

Screenshots:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071012222608/homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise/gdm/e3d.htm

> Yes, a quick look shows him promising to release lots of stuff. Maybe he
> just forgot or got too busy or ran into legal hurdles.
> (Looks like he's
> still active, too. No e-mail of his easily found, though. I'm not hopeful
> on this.)

David I is afaik still an evangelist for CG or something, since he occasionally shows up e.g. at Dutch Delphi launches and seminars.

> On a semi-related note, Gautier also has a 3d engine he coded in DOS that
> compiles with GNAT / Ada (last updated in 2005).
>
> http://rugxulo.googlepages.com/ENG3D017.zip (w/ srcs)
>
> Screenshots:
>
> http://web.archive.org/web/20071012222608/homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise/gdm/e3d.htm

Okay, he's fixed a few previously undetected errors and recompiled with newer compiler:

http://rugxulo.googlepages.com/ENG3D018.zip (920k, w/ srcs)

EDIT: Perhaps someone here will also find this useful:

> P2Ada is a Pascal to Ada translator. Recognizes particularities of
> several Pascal dialects: Turbo/Borland/Delphi (mostly), CodeWarrior,
> ISO, ISO Extended (a bit). Includes a full ayacc / aflex parser &
> lexer for Ada 95+ with sources.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/p2ada/

> > P2Ada is a Pascal to Ada translator. Recognizes particularities of
> > several Pascal dialects: Turbo/Borland/Delphi (mostly), CodeWarrior,
> > ISO, ISO Extended (a bit). Includes a full ayacc / aflex parser &
> > lexer for Ada 95+ with sources.
>
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/p2ada/

Well, if you find the other way around

> Well, his editor has readonly file issues and is limited to 64k file
> sizes, which I'm sure yours is not. Not sure what he uses EMS for
> (Exec? save/restore screen? compile .ext assoc + errors?), but there's
> something in there about that (which you undoubtedly don't need). And I
> doubt you need his LFN functions either.

I don't know what I was looking for that I stumbled upon this (I forget), but here's (yet) another DOS text editor: it's interesting, allegedly compiles with BP7, real mode, but supports > 64k file sizes by some HD swapping algorithm. Just for completeness' sake, I thought I should tell you Pascal dudes at our beloved forum:

http://home.zcu.cz/~jcerveny/