DOS ain't dead

BORLAND DPMI-16bit (Announce)

posted by Rugxulo , Usono, 13.08.2011, 01:35

> > By running HDPMI16 just before BP/Tyrian 2000, the problem disappears.
> > Somehow the Borland 16-bit extender and UIDE are incompatible.
>
> When I use DPMILD16, application crashes, starts, but hang up on some
> internal err
>
> > Is this problem new?
>
> I think that is new problem, older UIDE works with 16-bit DPMI

GVFM, by default, runs fine for me (but not under HDPMI16?). It's other versions of older RTM.EXE + DPMI16BI.OVL (e.g. 1993, 1998) that seem to cause a reboot, e.g. Chasm: The Rift (both demo and shareware editions) or Cash Invaders. Note that I didn't try removing UIDE. If I use the same RTM + DPMI16BI as GVFM, it doesn't crash or reboot, but it still doesn't work for those: runtime 200 error (which Veit's R200FIX TSR doesn't help, sadly).

It could be Jack's bug, but I doubt it. It's probably Borland's bug. They had a lot of bugs, and IIRC they were one of the main holdouts for 16-bit DPMI (besides Win 3.x). IIRC, even CWSDPMI never bothered with 16-bit support because no apps consistently used "pure" DPMI but instead always assumed some kind of built-in extender. Even various 32-bit things (e.g. Doom and/or DOS/4GW) had bugs, and almost everybody was more interested in that anyways. :-/

Or it could be BIOS bugs. This (huge RAM) machine here seems to choke a few different "old" DOS tools, e.g. DOS-Minix 2.0.4 (dunno, bad return from int 15h, 88h or E801h ???) for some reason incorrectly handles itself ("cannot fork ... no core") despite having way way way too much RAM free and apparently requires manually setting "memory" in the monitor before booting (see man page for example).

So, again, we need to isolate a particular Borland app (preferably something publicly available) and test under various setups and machines before claiming that "UIDE is buggy". It's probably moreso the app's fault (or similar, PEBKAC).

Complete thread:

• UIDE etc. (July 22) - Rugxulo, 25.07.2011, 21:26 (Announce)
  • UIDE+jemm+VCPI - david, 28.07.2011, 13:34
    • UIDE+jemm+VCPI - Rugxulo, 28.07.2011, 22:38
  • FYI: DEATH (of Jack) - DOS386, 29.07.2011, 09:20
    • FYI: Jack still alive - Japheth, 30.07.2011, 07:57
      • FYI: Jack still alive - DOS386, 30.07.2011, 16:12
    • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - david, 31.07.2011, 18:31
      • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - Japheth, 31.07.2011, 21:09
        • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - david, 02.08.2011, 17:10
          • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - Rugxulo, 13.08.2011, 01:35
            • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - bretjohn, 13.08.2011, 17:30
              • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - Rugxulo, 14.08.2011, 00:13
                • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - Laaca, 14.08.2011, 12:07
                  • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - Khusraw, 14.08.2011, 18:04
                    • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - Rugxulo, 14.08.2011, 18:36
                    • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - Laaca, 16.08.2011, 22:24
                • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - bretjohn, 14.08.2011, 18:48
          • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - a workaround for this issue - Japheth, 15.08.2011, 16:29
            • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - a workaround for this issue - Rugxulo, 15.08.2011, 22:29
              • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - a workaround for this issue - Japheth, 16.08.2011, 03:37
              • BORLAND DPMI-16bit - a workaround for this issue - Rugxulo, 16.08.2011, 07:51