DOS ain't dead

Dev86DOS 0.16.18 (DJGPP host) (Developers)

posted by Rugxulo , Usono, 22.04.2012, 18:08

> > I doubt a bit that FLTK will compile with cfront.
> >
> > Instead of bcc one could probably use TASK:
> > TASK C compiler
>
> The compilers discussed here produce poorly optimized code. This must be
> pointed out. If someone needs a real "optimizing" compiler, they are not a
> choice.

I seriously doubt anything converted by Cfront would fit into a 64k .COM file, much less if combined with FLTK. Besides, Cfront 3.0 is pre-standard and lacks exceptions, apparently. But just for the record, you can find Cfront sources here. You'd probably have better luck porting to OpenWatcom, but DJGPP is good enough, so there isn't much need.

BTW, I think you meant (T)ACK, the Amsterdam Compiler Kit, and that was never ported to DOS host or target, that I know of anyways. I know Pat Villani ported it to Cygwin "host", but I never tested it. But yeah, that's a nice compiler, still very *nix specific, so it wouldn't be easy to bootstrap for DOS (at least without lots of tweaking, even with DJGPP). You'd have to do similar to what the Linux port did, add some stub functionality in the library and a quick converter to native DOS executable format. Either that or revive em44 intermediate code interpreter.

Re: optimizing compilers, BCC/Dev86 barely does anything, only simple peephole optimizations. Obviously it hasn't been updated much over the years, but at least it works somewhat well for what little it does. Better than nothing.

Complete thread:

• Dev86DOS 0.16.18 (DJGPP host) - Rugxulo, 17.04.2012, 02:18 (Developers)
  • Dev86DOS 0.16.18 (DJGPP host) - georgpotthast, 17.04.2012, 18:23
    • Dev86DOS 0.16.18 (DJGPP host) - Rugxulo, 17.04.2012, 19:42
      • Dev86DOS 0.16.18 (DJGPP host) - Rugxulo, 18.04.2012, 01:54
        • Dev86DOS 0.16.18 (DJGPP host) - georgpotthast, 19.04.2012, 18:41
          • Dev86DOS 0.16.18 (DJGPP host) - roytam, 21.04.2012, 13:52
            • Dev86DOS 0.16.18 (DJGPP host) - georgpotthast, 21.04.2012, 16:25
              • Dev86DOS 0.16.18 (DJGPP host) - Khusraw, 22.04.2012, 09:34
                • Dev86DOS 0.16.18 (DJGPP host) - Rugxulo, 22.04.2012, 18:08
                  • ACK i86/i386 output & DOS - ecm, 22.04.2012, 23:24
                    • ACK i86/i386 output & DOS - Rugxulo, 26.04.2012, 09:33
                    • ACK i86/i386 output & DOS - tkchia, 01.04.2021, 16:50
                      • ACK i86/i386 output & DOS - ecm, 01.04.2021, 17:11
  • Dev86 0.16.19 (DJGPP host) - Khusraw, 17.09.2012, 14:47
    • Dev86 0.16.19 (DJGPP host) - Rugxulo, 19.09.2012, 02:07
      • Dev86 0.16.19 (DJGPP host) - Khusraw, 19.09.2012, 09:05