DOS ain't dead

Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 (Developers)

posted by Rugxulo , Usono, 12.11.2009, 03:04

> > Which MSVCRT? Which Windows? I don't think they are compatible, for the
> > most part, hence you're kinda on your own.
>
> I have msvcrt.dll in my Win98SE and all my mingw apps run fine there. If
> you don't use newer winapi funcs it's not problem under win9x.

Well, most of what I meant is that developers no longer test (or care) about anything older than XP.

> > You only need to download it once, though, and like I said, if you
> develop
> > some open source app, it doesn't need to distribute the .DLL with it
> (but
> > you'll need to ship srcs too if you do include it).
>
> Well but in some special cases, e.g. when need to copy prog on floppy to
> some old PC with windows it's faster to copy e.g. 8kB exe than loading 2
> floppies. Of course on modern PC where you don't count the size it doesn't
> matter some megs+

With decent compression (PAQ et al.) you can shrink the Cygwin .DLL to 400 or 500k. Its sources ultra-compressed are still about 7 or 8 MB, though.

> > In other words, it's harder getting something working on
> > several compilers than it probably should be.
>
> Hm I didn't have problems with it. I use GCC under DOS, Win, Linux, ARM
> and AVR MCUs and most of code doesn't need changes.

Inline assembly, C99, and libc are all vastly different, so it's a bit harder than it sounds (not to mention big/little-endian, INT_MAX, etc).

> > Actually, if you get the MinGW runtimes, you can build MinGW-ish apps
> from
> > Cygwin ("-mno-cygwin", IIRC), best of both worlds.
>
> Interesting, I didn't know this feature.

Still uses MSVCRT, though. It wouldn't be that bad except there is no real free alternative (no drop-in replacement, I mean, unless you run under WINE, assuming it even works there).

> > The days of one app to rule them all (and in the darkness bind them)
> are
> > over. You can no longer rely on Win32 apps working everywhere nor Linux
> > apps nor DOS apps, etc. It's really annoying.
>
> I don't understand, what one win32 app? I make separated dos, win, elf
> binaries.

Which is yet another pain. But no, I mean you can't even rely on a DOS app to run on all DOS-compatibles and Windows anymore. Win32 doesn't run on all Win32 anymore, and many ELFs require specific libraries (or even kernels) which is bad for compatibility (e.g. FreeBSD still doesn't have Linux 2.6 emulation). Virtualization helps, but it's still way too slow and bloated to be a quick fix.

Complete thread:

• Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - Rugxulo, 30.10.2009, 21:28 (Developers)
  • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - Japheth, 31.10.2009, 09:21
    • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - Rugxulo, 31.10.2009, 19:49
      • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - DOS386, 06.11.2009, 05:44
        • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - Rugxulo, 07.11.2009, 17:33
          • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - DOS386, 08.11.2009, 05:22
            • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - Rugxulo, 09.11.2009, 04:36
              • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - RayeR, 10.11.2009, 10:08
                • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - Rugxulo, 11.11.2009, 01:06
                  • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - RayeR, 11.11.2009, 03:12
                    • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - Rugxulo, 11.11.2009, 04:51
                      • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - RayeR, 12.11.2009, 01:49
                        • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - Rugxulo, 12.11.2009, 03:04
                          • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - RayeR, 12.11.2009, 12:08
                          • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - ecm, 12.11.2009, 15:04
              • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 | MinGW - DOS386, 15.11.2009, 11:18
                • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 | MinGW - Rugxulo, 15.11.2009, 18:03
                  • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 | MinGW - DOS386, 22.11.2009, 11:48
  • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - marcov, 01.11.2009, 00:18
    • Borland C/C++ 5.5.1 for Win32 - Rugxulo, 01.11.2009, 04:26