DOS ain't dead

GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) (Developers)

posted by Rugxulo , Usono, 19.03.2010, 00:58

> > FreeDOS touch is written in TASM (boo hiss ...
> Hey it was good in its day :)

But not everybody has it now, and sources that only compile in TASM are a pain to translate. (Well, we have upcoming WASM 1.9, YASM's wimpy mode, some macros for NASM, NoMySo, LZASM, etc. But none work perfectly.)

> > but I did a temporary quick hack to NASM which I will have to polish
> > up if anyone cares)
> Yes, publish if quick and easy to do. If anything always helpful to have
> more source conversions available as it helps others to learn these
> things.

Tell me if you're impatient, but I may double-check the guts of it to make sure it didn't assemble something incorrectly. (NDISASM to the rescue!)

> > P.S. Slightly annoying that you have to use a file handle to
> > touch a file instead of a pointer to ASCIIZ, but I guess
> > "open + touch" isn't so much to ask.
> Could be worse... FCB's

Win9x's int 21h, 7143h accepts ASCIIZ filename instead of handle, so at least I'm not alone in thinking a name is more obvious.

P.S. Charles Dye's Touch indeed does touch readonly, the "problem" was a misunderstanding on my part. By default (with no switches) it does "nothing" (only displays some info on the screen). To actually "touch", you have to use some of the options (e.g. /D /T). This is unlike FD or DR touches, which confused me (although it was documented!!). Anyways, his touch is probably better than FD and uses NASM, but it is 9k (6k UPX'd) and requires DOS 3 (instead of DOS 2). But I still like FD touch too. It's probably one of (if not the) oldest utils contributed for FreeDOS that's still in use!

Complete thread:

• TOUCH.COM 1.4.3 (minor fix: debug script) - Rugxulo, 02.03.2010, 01:10 (Developers)
  • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Rugxulo, 02.03.2010, 01:22
    • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Arjay, 11.03.2010, 17:09
      • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Rugxulo, 11.03.2010, 19:41
        • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Arjay, 18.03.2010, 16:31
          • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Rugxulo, 19.03.2010, 00:58
            • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Arjay, 22.03.2010, 00:40
              • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Rugxulo, 22.03.2010, 17:47
                • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) / Tim Paterson / DOS v3 required - Arjay, 23.03.2010, 16:25
                  • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) / Tim Paterson / DOS v3 required - Rugxulo, 23.03.2010, 16:59
                    • [deleted] - Arjay, 23.03.2010, 19:32
                      • TOUCH 1.4.4 - Rugxulo, 07.04.2010, 00:05
    • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Rugxulo, 07.04.2010, 01:06