DOS ain't dead

early Turbo Pascal quirks (Announce)

posted by Rugxulo , Usono, 28.06.2010, 07:02

> > > To be honest, the only huge benefits to using TP55 at all (IMHO)
> > > are 8086 compatibility and really small .EXE size.
> > You meant the large EXE size :) Now I've shared some COM file generating
> > code you can hopefully re-use that to get the added benefit of asm size
> > with TP5!

BTW, I know the .EXE header wastes a bit of space, but I guess they didn't figure it mattered much. Early TP (e.g. v1 or v302) only generated .COM files and also included the whole runtime inside! (Still smaller than the C alternative.) So TP55 output is actually a fair bit smaller (several kb).

Yeah, I know, those are old and odd (direct screen writes?). No longint and only v302 has paramcount/paramstr. And the codegen is slow (even moreso under DOSBox). But hey, it's kinda funny how tiny the whole compiler + runtime + editor is.

P.S. In case anybody else is wondering (like me earlier today, going crazy trying to find out), you quit the editor with ^K^D (which, AFAICT, isn't WordStar compatible, no idea where they came up with that weird combination.)

Complete thread:

• Galactic Conquest v9 beta 55 - sinclaj1, 29.12.2009, 20:53 (Announce)
  • Galactic Conquest v9 beta 55 - Rugxulo, 29.12.2009, 22:05
  • Galactic Conquest v9 beta 55 - Deniska, 07.01.2010, 00:53
    • Galactic Conquest v9 beta 55 - sinclaj1, 07.01.2010, 05:46
  • Galactic Conquest v9 beta 55 - sinclaj1, 08.05.2010, 04:21
    • Galactic Conquest v9 beta 55 - Arjay, 08.05.2010, 15:07
    • Galactic Conquest v9 beta 55 - rr, 08.05.2010, 21:06
    • Galactic Conquest v9 beta 55 - additional feedback - Arjay, 09.05.2010, 21:26
      • Galactic Conquest v9 beta 55 - additional feedback - sinclaj1, 13.05.2010, 05:58
        • Galactic Conquest v9 beta 55 - additional feedback - Arjay, 19.05.2010, 17:27
          • Galactic Conquest v9 beta 55 - additional feedback - sinclaj1, 24.06.2010, 16:01
            • Congratulations / Galactic Conquest v9 beta 55 - Arjay, 25.06.2010, 03:37
              • Galactic Conquest: GCFONT.PAS (drop in LoadFont replacement) - Arjay, 25.06.2010, 10:16
                • Galactic Conquest: GCFONT.PAS (drop in LoadFont replacement) - Arjay, 25.06.2010, 12:20
                • Galactic Conquest: GCFONT.PAS (drop in LoadFont replacement) - sinclaj1, 26.10.2010, 05:56
                  • Galactic Conquest: GCFONT.PAS (drop in LoadFont replacement) - Arjay, 26.10.2010, 11:57
                    • Galactic Conquest: GCFONT.PAS (drop in LoadFont replacement) - sinclaj1, 26.10.2010, 13:59
                      • Galactic Conquest: GCFONT.PAS (drop in LoadFont replacement) - rr, 26.10.2010, 21:13
                  • Galactic Conquest: GCFONT.PAS (drop in LoadFont replacement) - rr, 26.10.2010, 21:07
                    • Galactic Conquest: GCFONT.PAS (drop in LoadFont replacement) - Rugxulo, 27.10.2010, 23:43
              • Congratulations / Galactic Conquest v9 beta 55 - Rugxulo, 26.06.2010, 14:59
                • Galactic Conquest v9 file compression / UPX vs aPACK - Arjay, 27.06.2010, 00:11
                  • Galactic Conquest v9 file compression / UPX vs aPACK - Rugxulo, 27.06.2010, 08:10
                    • TP5_2COM - an example of how to generate a COM file from TP5 - Arjay, 27.06.2010, 13:30
                    • Galactic Conquest v9 file compression / UPX vs aPACK - Arjay, 27.06.2010, 14:00
                      • Galactic Conquest v9 file compression / UPX vs aPACK - Rugxulo, 28.06.2010, 06:45
                        • early Turbo Pascal quirks - Rugxulo, 28.06.2010, 07:02