DOS ain't dead - About Open Watcom's Debugger WD

Japheth

Germany (South),
19.12.2012, 09:55

About Open Watcom's Debugger WD (Announce)

Recently I experimented a bit more seriously with WD. The results of this experiment so far are:

1) the DOS version of WD works with (more recent?) FreeDOS kernels
2) there are a few bugs/missing features in the "standard" trap file of the DOS version ( which is used when no /TR= cmdline parameter is given )
3) the so-called DIP module for codeview symbolic debug info is slightly broken.
4) the HX trap file for WD also has a serious bug.

A package has been made, consisting just of the DOS debugger, that handles 2), 3) and 4): http://www.japheth.de/Download/wd.zip

The hx trap file contained in the hxdev217.zip package has also been updated.

Hopefully the bugs will be fixed in the next OW release also, but who knows if there ever will be one ( there are plans to extend OW for 64-bit, but there's a "certain" probability that this won't happen because of limited resources ).

Btw, apparently there exists a book about the hx dos extender: http://www.amazon.com/HX-DOS-Extender-Othniel-Hermes/dp/6200954720

I didn't buy it :-D and don't know what it contains - does somebody know if it is serious?

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Rugxulo

Usono,
19.12.2012, 21:01

@ Japheth

About Open Watcom's Debugger WD

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> Recently I experimented a bit more seriously with WD. The results of this
> experiment so far are:

Very good to know. I guess I'll mirror it on iBiblio for us.

> Hopefully the bugs will be fixed in the next OW release also, but who knows
> if there ever will be one ( there are plans to extend OW for 64-bit, but
> there's a "certain" probability that this won't happen because of limited
> resources ).

Since Google Groups doesn't mirror their newsgroups anymore, I've not really been following their latest very closely. For sure, it's been a while due to various reasons (esp. new maintainer), and yes they do have several ambitious plans for the future, but I have no doubt they are working on it. But I have no idea when that can be reasonably expected. (64-bit already was half done for Alpha, but I too doubt that will be finalized before next release. More likely is more Fortran updates and other minor things.)

> Btw, apparently there exists a book about the hx dos extender:
> http://www.amazon.com/HX-DOS-Extender-Othniel-Hermes/dp/6200954720
>
> I didn't buy it :-D and don't know what it contains - does somebody know if
> it is serious?

I hate to be cynical, but it seems like a quick money grab. The guy seems to have tons of other "books", all overpriced.

"the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online" ... "52 pages"

Arjay

20.12.2012, 06:21

@ Rugxulo

About Open Watcom's Debugger WD

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> > Btw, apparently there exists a book about the hx dos extender:
> > http://www.amazon.com/HX-DOS-Extender-Othniel-Hermes/dp/6200954720
> >
> > I didn't buy it :-D and don't know what it contains - does somebody know
> if
> > it is serious?
> I hate to be cynical, but it seems like a quick money grab. The guy seems
> to have tons of other "books", all overpriced.
As of December 2011 he's apparently written 3651 books which sounds like a lot until you learn that 3 of his colleagues have apparently collectively managed to publish 180707 "books" between 2009 and Dec 2011. Another 5 folks 356765 "books". So his output seems somewhat lacking in comparism.

> "the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from
> Wikipedia or other free sources online" ... "52 pages"
There appear to be 2082 apparent other works of plagiarism by Othniel Hermes. Note the release dates doesn't he turn them out fast although as above he's not as fast as his colleagues. I also guess some of his titles are for specialist markets, so there is more limited demand ;-)

Other people have also wondered who this alleged amazing author ^H^H^H^H^H^H duplicator of content is. Personally I don't believe that person is likely to even exist.... but I could be wrong.

It would appear that the organisation behind this book are VDM Publishing based in Saarbrücken who I noted appear to have an alleged track record of duplicating content from Wikipedia under various publishing house names and author names to the extent that there is now a table in Wikipedia covering this apparent output !

RayeR

CZ,
21.12.2012, 02:45

@ Rugxulo

About Open Watcom's Debugger WD

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> I hate to be cynical, but it seems like a quick money grab. The guy seems
> to have tons of other "books", all overpriced.
>
> "the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from
> Wikipedia or other free sources online" ... "52 pages"

Cool 52 pages! I guess this is less than Japhets's documentation freely included in HX zip package. Simply some parasite is trying to make a money from other's work, shame on him...

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DOS386

20.12.2012, 04:05

@ Japheth

About Open Watcom's Debugger WD

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from other thread:

> never really used it, dunno. DOS386 claims it doesn't
> work (well, if at all) under FreeDOS

again, RTFB :hungry:

Japheth wrote:

> Recently I experimented a bit more seriously with WD. The results of this
> experiment so far are:
> 1) the DOS version of WD works with (more recent?) FreeDOS kernels

COOL :-)

> Btw, apparently there exists a book about the hx dos extender:
> http://www.amazon.com/HX-DOS-Extender-Othniel-Hermes/dp/6200954720

COOL :-)

> "the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from
> Wikipedia or other free sources online" ... "52 pages"

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