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FPC 16-bit (Announce)

posted by Rugxulo Homepage, Usono, 07.07.2013, 01:52

> Yes. But that is more context of declaring Windows XP dead. Or Vista. Or
> pre 3.x Linux kernels. Not natively hosted 8086 compilers anno 2013
Yes, because when I'm writing software, I really need to think first, not about what the project actually needs, but "what is popular?" and "what is the latest tech bandwagon to jump on?".

8086 software still runs, even on modern descendants. It doesn't care what year it is. If it didn't run, perhaps you'd have a point. However, people don't think of minimal requirements, they only see what's in front of them, and then only code for that.

The whole point of mentioning "8086" was to list a minimal subset for accomplishing some reasonable goals. It's not absolute. It was just an example of trying to restrict the millions of options available (that often conflict) in an effort to simplify and (maybe) target a larger audience than whatever "new" (incompatible) is being overly promoted these days.

> Maybe. Maybe if I dedicate my life I can also do it in 250kb. Or 128kb. Or
> whatever.
It wasn't meant to be an absolute metric, just an honest question: how much will ever be enough??

MS literally spent an extra billion dollars on the XBox 360 just to make them all come with 512 (instead of 256) MB of RAM. Nowadays, both XBox One and PS4 will come with 8 GB (though some big chunk of that is reserved for OS, I think). The original XBox only had 64 MB, and older consoles (PS1?) much much smaller (2 MB??). Heck, I think the Atari Lynx had 64 kb. Can't remember for Game Boy, GBC, NES, but it was probably 4 kb (plus whatever VRAM). The Atari 2600 was like 256 bytes!!!

> TARGET support. You tried to change it to HOST support.
Because it's been done successfully dozens of times! Sue me for not thinking it's impossible.

> Yes, even FASM. You know the end of a software tools discussion
> approaches if fasm is declared the pinnacle of development tools
It's too tiring to be diplomatic with you here. You've obviously
never used FASM nor read up on it or else you wouldn't say that.
FASM is very very far from being "only" a minimal assembler.

> > You know full well that FreeBSD isn't limited to servers, not even by
> > design.
>
> I never said that. But that is its main use, and thus anything used to
> gauge its usage should account for that.
We already know what the "modern" world thinks of FreeBSD, especially in light of Mac OS X.

> Because [MS?] are Unix licensee and have had their own *nix since years of
> yonder?

SFU is deprecated and to be removed eventually, just like the POSIX subsystem. No, I don't think MS licenses UNIX (tm) at all, and they long long ago sold off all their Xenix stuff. These days, they are wholly interested in exclusively "drinking their own champagne" (only using their own tech).

> I can be short about that, never considered POSIX as a dividing line of
> portable and non-portable. Only as a dividing line of Unix-like and not
> Unix like.
POSIX was originally meant to be a compromise between SYSV and BSD. Unfortunately, it's not really a good starting ground for software
(unless you literally don't care about others like decent Windows support ... it's beyond ridiculous to require a POSIX shell there).

Sorry if I don't see "POSIX only" as any better than "Windows only".

> I'm sure as a dos user you can sympathize.
Nobody sympathizes with anybody. I can show you several software websites (well, at least two) that flat out "mock" their own older versions (Win9x and DOS, respectively), which gave them their start. If you can't even sympathize with yourself, your history, who the hell can you respect??

But why respect anybody when we're so obviously superior in "2013"?? Oh, those fools of 2007, 2001, 1995 ... how stupid they were! Good thing our favorite software (whatever flavor of the month) is going to function and be supported forever.

> > They did, but ... old code was removed, patches were rejected, etc.
> These
> > are not technical limitations but human ones. They only want to promote
> > themselves and their ideals, not help others port the actual technical
> > code.
>
> So the noble forces of the old and useless gathered and forked in response?
> Maybe I missed it, WHERE did they go too ?
Yes, you missed it. Of course you missed it, how could you not? If you don't stay in contact with such groups, how would you ever know? Especially if you haven't booted up a DOS (or compatible) in several years, how could you know?

"I don't see it, therefore it doesn't exist."

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