DOS ain't dead

You can't (legally??) find old Stony Brook compilers anymore, but I still thought it was interesting (see author, apparently sold company to Saperion in 2004).

Stony Brook Pascal+ for DOS ... TP6 compatible, highly optimizing (but slower compiles)? Came with (shareware) TechnoJock Object Toolkit (see author), a cool-sounding competitor to TurboVision.

Apparently "Stony Brook" is a city in New York (state)? Same with Stony Brook University. And they had a Pascal compiler (IBM 360) way back in the '70s, which you can nowadays find (with simulator?) on SourceForge.

On a related note, ADW Modula-2 for Win32/64 is freeware and based upon Stony Brook Modula-2. (I also found some vaguely interesting docs about the old DOS compiler's support of overlays.)

>>>> .DXE .DLL .SO (etc.)
>>>
>>> Yes, the DLL implementation in Borland Pascal has nothing like LoadLibrary.
>>> All the used DLLs are automaticaly loaded during the .EXE initialization
>>> and they can't be unloaded or replaced.
>>
>> [C. Peachment's shareware DOS Oberon compiler, written in TopSpeed Modula-2]
>> did support loadable modules and could even combine them for static .EXE.
>
> TSM2 was my compiler before I went to FPC (then with targets go32v2,
> emx(OS/2) and Linux).
>
> TSM2 was generally a 16-bit compiler but a later one than e.g. Borland Pascal 7.
> There were several major versions (1,2,3), with TSM2 1.15/1.17 widely sold and
> used in education, even when later versions were out.
>
> TS 3(.3x?) was the last product, but was offered as a bunch of modules and
> addons. Win3.1x, various protected mode options were all addon iirc.
>
> It had real mode (roughly small,compact,large,xlarge), 286 protected mode and
> a 386 enhanced extender for 286 protected modem, lifting several limits and
> efficiency).
>
> I never had the 386 addon, so don't know the exact details. I did have some of
> the win3.x stuff but never used it, since I never used win3 for anything
> serious.
>
> Afaik it could generate 287 code, but the assembler didn't know any 386/387
> opcodes. (requiring an external assembler to generate code for that).
> (386 db 66 based 32-bit integer support would have been very welcome,
> but few compilers support that)

So, apparently, JPI was a spinoff of Borland, initially focusing mostly on TopSpeed Modula-2 compiler? Later bought by SoftVelocity and bundled with Clarion (language). TopSpeed also supported other languages (e.g. Pascal). Part of the appeal was OS/2 1.x support, in addition to 16-bit DOS.

Regarding add-ons, apparently the TechKit added support for various things (assembly, RTL sources, Win16 development). The TechKit was also sold in "Extended" editions, and according to DDJ's 1990 Cruising With Topspeed, "includes support for DLLs that can be used under DOS").

> So, apparently, JPI was a spinoff of Borland, initially focusing mostly on
> TopSpeed
> Modula-2 compiler? Later bought by SoftVelocity and bundled with
> Clarion (language).

Yes, though that was afaik quite some time after the release of the 3.1 lines. Afaik Softvelocity used one of the compilers (C++ one?) internally, and bought it because of that stalling. But I'm not really sure.

> TopSpeed also supported other languages (e.g.
> Pascal). Part of
> the appeal was OS/2 1.x support, in addition to 16-bit DOS.

As I understand correctly, it was a never released compiler generation that should have replaced the old archaic compilers in assembler. I never knew many of the things on that page btw.

> Regarding add-ons, apparently the
> TechKit added
> support for various things (assembly, RTL sources, Win16 development). The
> TechKit was also sold in "Extended" editions, and according to DDJ's 1990
> Cruising
> With Topspeed, "includes support for DLLs that can be used under
> DOS").

Maybe. Take care with the division into packages. From what I can remember what each package exactly contained changed with the era.

Also I only used the M2 compiler, so don't know much about the pascal and C++ compilers and their features.

Anyway, I didn't have an extender, and got frustrated with realmode memory management, 64kb barriers etc. So started looking for a 32-bit compiler in any Wirthian language, and first looked at GPC, but it was too clunky and the project seemed quite apathetic, so then about a month later I found FPC.

That was also not a slam dunk, because all my questions were diverted with "will be fixed in next version", which didn't give me any immediate relief, but the 0.99.5 version a few months later was usable, and over the course of the next year I pretty much migrated and left M2 behind. I did maintain some tools till I move to Windows 2000, then I mostly ported the last ones I still needed to FPC.