DOS ain't dead

dev86 BCC 0.16.21 and 1.0.1 (Announce)

posted by Rugxulo , Usono, 24.01.2026, 16:23

> 0.6.21 and 1.0.1 are both OpenWatcom builds.

Why two versions? What's the difference?

> The compiler is too large to compile itself.

I believe the old 2002 real-mode DOS version was compiled with MS C.

> Two weeks ago an intrepid hacker went through great lengths to self-host
> BCC. Among other tactics, they had to use an ancient version of BCC and
> write their own libc in ASM.

That seems to be "pts" (Peter Szabo), aka the mininasm guy.

Looks like he's trying to rebuild / bootstrap Minix 1.5 for 8086.

> That's fun that you ported a game to as86.

I also noticed recently that as86 was already installed (dated 2017) on Ubuntu 22.04.2. I know there used to be some small amount of code relying on it. (Though you can also output 16-bit .COM with GAS, I've ported to that too.)

Complete thread:

• dev86 BCC 0.16.21 and 1.0.1 - bencollver, 23.01.2026, 19:35 (Announce)
  • dev86 BCC 0.16.21 and 1.0.1 - Rugxulo, 24.01.2026, 07:34
    • dev86 BCC 0.16.21 and 1.0.1 - bencollver, 24.01.2026, 14:23
      • dev86 BCC 0.16.21 and 1.0.1 - Rugxulo, 24.01.2026, 16:23
        • dev86 BCC 0.16.21 and 1.0.1 - bencollver, 24.01.2026, 16:36