DOS ain't dead

New version od Freepascal is released. Main change is the .CHM support and, as usual, some bugs are fixed.

But why my fix for banking mode graphics routines isn't included?
Did somebody look at my new comments about this bugreport?
http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=11724

EDIT by rr: changed subject from "Freepascal 2.2.4 released"

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DOS-u-akbar!

> New version od Freepascal is released. Main change is the .CHM support and,
> as usual, some bugs are fixed.

This has now been announced on the FreeDOS news page.

> But why my fix for banking mode graphics routines isn't included?
> Did somebody look at my new comments about this bugreport?
> http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=11724

It was too late, 2.2.4 is already in freeze for months.

I had a quick look at the report, and answered a bit.

> > But why my fix for banking mode graphics routines isn't included?
> > Did somebody look at my new comments about this bugreport?
> > http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=11724
>
> It was too late, 2.2.4 is already in freeze for months.
>
> I had a quick look at the report, and answered a bit.

http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=11699

Another report by you that could use some comments. Specially the vesamode issue mentioned in the first comment.

> New version od Freepascal is released. Main change is the .CHM support

Does it work for anyone ? Not for me, it allows me to "pick" a file but instead of displaying it does nothing or crash. Installer reports "CHM (requires LFN)"

> and, as usual, some bugs are fixed.

Not in the IDE and not about the bloat/UPX ... didn't test compiler core

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This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> > New version od Freepascal is released. Main change is the .CHM support
>
> Does it work for anyone ? Not for me, it allows me to "pick" a file but
> instead of displaying it does nothing or crash.

What do you mean by "pick"?

> Installer reports "CHM (requires LFN)"

What's the problem with this?

> > and, as usual, some bugs are fixed.
>
> Not in the IDE and not about the bloat/UPX ... didn't test compiler core
>

What bugs in the IDE are still open? Did you report those to http://bugs.freepascal.org/.

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Forum admin

> > New version od Freepascal is released. Main change is the .CHM support
>
> Does it work for anyone ? Not for me, it allows me to "pick" a file but
> instead of displaying it does nothing or crash.

(need more info there. If there is a fundamental problems with it under Dos, strange that it didn't get reported during the RC)

> Installer reports "CHM (requires LFN)"

That's probably the CHM creation library, not the use of help in the IDE. And that is possible, FPC doesn't adhere to SFN conventions for _development_ anymore, so newer packages might not work.

> > and, as usual, some bugs are fixed.
>
> Not in the IDE and not about the bloat/UPX ... didn't test compiler core
>

Do you have mantis numbers? There are still about 70 IDE bugs open, and I'm pretty sure I fixed *some* in 2.2.4

"Bloat" is an emotional outburst without any real defined meaning, so I'll reply in the same spirit: "Duh!"

> > Not in the IDE and not about the bloat/UPX ... didn't test compiler
> core
> >
>
> "Bloat" is an emotional outburst without any real defined meaning, so I'll
> reply in the same spirit: "Duh!"

IIRC, he wanted UPX removed from the download. So in this case, the bloat is probably not what you think.

> > "Bloat" is an emotional outburst without any real defined meaning, so
> I'll
> > reply in the same spirit: "Duh!"
>
> IIRC, he wanted UPX removed from the download. So in this case, the bloat
> is probably not what you think.

In the grand scheme of things, my answer (and reasons) are not changed.

rr wrote:

> What do you mean by "pick"?

From a directory - not obvious ???

> > Installer reports "CHM (requires LFN)"
> What's the problem with this?

1. What's the point of the question ???

2. ANSWER: That it doesn't work in DOS. That's all. There is nothing more behind. Really.

3. Wouldn't it have been more useful to test and report whether it works for you ?

> What bugs in the IDE are still open?
> Did you report those to http://bugs.freepascal.org/.

BUGS

Rugxulo wrote:

> IIRC, he wanted UPX removed from the download.

Exactly. And don't UPX the EXE's either.

> So in this case, the bloat is probably not what you think.

I don't care what some people "think", OTOH what I know is that UPX increases bloat, and in FPC this effect is very notable Also, there are still *some* binaries compressed with UPX 2.93 that refuse to uncompress.

marcov wrote:

> That's probably the CHM creation library, not the use of help in the IDE.

So if I don't compile from the source it is supposed to work ?

> Do you have mantis numbers?

NO, BUGS

> There are still about 70 IDE bugs open,

Weren't there over 100 bugs open some time ago ?

> and I'm pretty sure I fixed *some* in 2.2.4

Nice, sadly my minimal tests apparently didn't match those *some* bugs

> In the grand scheme of things, my answer (and reasons) are not changed.

we discourage UPX

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> > > Installer reports "CHM (requires LFN)"
> > What's the problem with this?
>
> 1. What's the point of the question ???
>
> 2. ANSWER: That it doesn't work in DOS. That's all. There is nothing more
> behind. Really.
>
> 3. Wouldn't it have been more useful to test and report whether it works
> for you ?

You could have written "I'm unable to install with the CHM package, because the installer shows an error message about missing LFNs."

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Forum admin

> > What bugs in the IDE are still open?
> > Did you report those to http://bugs.freepascal.org/.
>
> BUGS

Please enter them one per report if you put them into mantis, thank you.

> > There are still about 70 IDE bugs open,
>
> Weren't there over 100 bugs open some time ago ?

In total maybe yes, currently about 320. But that includes feature requests, bugs for old platforms where maintenance is slow (OS/2, Amiga, Dos etc) and stuff that is known, but needs major work in major new versions (like the numerous dynamic linking/packages related bugs).

If you really drill down, I think there are <100 hard bugs.

It helps that Sergei is now activly killing off XML packages bugs, some of which were open for quite long.

> > Weren't there over 100 bugs open some time ago ?
>
> In total maybe yes, currently about 320. But that includes feature
> requests, bugs for old platforms where maintenance is slow (OS/2, Amiga,
> Dos etc) and stuff that is known, but needs major work in major new
> versions (like the numerous dynamic linking/packages related bugs).
>
> If you really drill down, I think there are <100 hard bugs.

If it helps any, here are two active OS/2 programmers' webpages:

http://www.mgreene.org/
http://smedley.info/os2ports/

> New version of Freepascal is released. Main change is the .CHM support and,
> as usual, some bugs are fixed.

Okay, sorry to bump this old thread, but 2.2.4 is still latest version, so I figure it's more appropriate to put my random blatherings here.

I decided a while back that, as I don't grok Pascal, it wasn't worth downloading 2.2.4 until I "needed" it. Well, I still don't need it, but I guess I got bored and thought I should have it at least for archival purposes.

Anyways, main thing I noticed is that SourceForge seems to lack files for 2.2.4 (normal or full) for "GO32v2" (although it won't tell you until you click and it fails to find 'em). I would doubt that's intentional, but I ended up just searching for a (Russian) mirror and getting it there, esp. since even the main FPC site just points to SourceForge.

Anyways, just for the record ...

I didn't really install it, just played with it a bit. I didn't know the TUI IDE (UPX'd! heh) has a compiler built in! But anyways I unpacked it, and just grabbed aslddos.zip and a bunch of runtime objects and dumped it all in one directory. Of course, Vista hates it ("no full screen", ugh), most likely due to stupid VGA BIOS detection calls. But DOSBox ran it okay, and it was able to compile the simple BEER.PAS I had on hand, pretty much the only quick example I knew of offhand. (Ah, forgot about Adlib Tracker player example I saw the other day, oh well.)

> DOSBox ran it okay, and it was able to compile the simple BEER.PAS I had
> on hand, pretty much the only quick example I knew of offhand. (Ah, forgot
> about Adlib Tracker player example I saw the other day, oh well.)

Actually the code seems to not like latest FreePascal or else I did it wrong. It either won't compile or (with a tiny patch) crashes anyways. Oh well.

I even tried compiling Adplay (from Adplug) which does work, but I don't know how the developers ever built it because it was a no go for me. Maybe my libs are incompatible (too new???), I dunno. Very annoying when stuff won't compile. Oh well.

P.S. Adplug's Sourceforge site seems to have download issues too (missing DOS files), so maybe it's just a Sourceforge thing, I dunno. Had to search for a non-Sourceforge mirror just to download the dang thing. Bah.