DOS ain't dead

Open Watcom "Next Generation" (Announce)

posted by lifelike, 14.04.2025, 21:01

> I also have the opinion that Jiri seems to be a big believer in progress
> and hence is focused on 64-bit support, sometimes neclecting the DOS part
> of OW 2.0 a bit.
>
> However, the main problem I have with OW 2.0 is that there's no "stable"
> release, just monthly "snapshots".

So what version is a good choice for DOS 16-bit development (mainly C, probably no need for C++)?

Looked at the various versions on GitHub and it is a bit confusing. It also looks like a huge difference in size between versions, from just a few MB to hundreds of MB. The former sounds more reasonable to me (compared to the about 1.5 MB needed for the full 16-bit large memory mode c+asm+make+link toolchain from Microsoft: https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS/tree/main/v4.0/src/TOOLS).

As long as some old version from Watcom is reasonably bug-free I don't really see a huge reason to worry about newer versions. Maybe if they finally do something about the the license that might be worth upgrading for? https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2/discussions/271

Complete thread:

• Open Watcom "Next Generation" - Japheth, 20.03.2025, 14:11 (Announce)
  • Open Watcom "Next Generation" - tkchia, 20.03.2025, 15:48
    • Open Watcom "Next Generation" - Japheth, 21.03.2025, 08:21
      • Open Watcom "Next Generation" - lifelike, 14.04.2025, 21:01