DOS ain't dead

Rugxulo

Usono,
21.11.2007, 13:16

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet) (Announce)

Unlike the experimental, alpha patch that DJ Delorie semi-baked up a while back, this is a newer attempt by Rask Ingemann Lambertsen to utilize GCC for 16-bit cpus (targeting ELF only??). It isn't accepted into the GCC tree yet (if ever?), but it seems interesting enough to mention here (for the curious):

http://www.opensubscriber.com/message/linux-8086@vger.kernel.org/7342861.html

Personally, I think Dev86DOS, OpenWatcom, Turbo C, Micro-C, etc. are good enough for me for now. (At least, I ain't messing with no stinkin' patches for something so complex, ugh.)

RayeR

CZ,
21.11.2007, 17:31

@ Rugxulo

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

Post reply

> Personally, I think Dev86DOS, OpenWatcom, Turbo C, Micro-C, etc. are good
> enough for me for now. (At least, I ain't messing with no stinkin' patches
> for something so complex, ugh.)

I don't see any advantage of GCC for this CPUs except better code and makefile compatability with big GCC. I guess code will be slower/bigger compared to old good borland compilers. But it may helps porting some *nix apps.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Rugxulo

Usono,
22.11.2007, 09:56

@ RayeR

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

Post reply

> I don't see any advantage of GCC for this CPUs except better code and
> makefile compatability with big GCC. I guess code will be slower/bigger
> compared to old good borland compilers. But it may helps porting some *nix
> apps.

Well, Rask is an embedded developer (AFAICT), so he has a use for it. Besides, some talk was about resurrecting the "dead" (??) ELKS project. They use BCC (aka, Dev86), last I heard, which isn't as good as GCC.

Whatever. Anything like this is of interest to me (assuming it gets to a workable state). "Build it and they will come." (Field of Dreams) :-D

Laaca

Czech republic,
22.11.2007, 11:48

@ RayeR

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

Post reply

But old borland compilers don't support new CPU instructions - DJGPP does.

---
DOS-u-akbar!

Rugxulo Usono, 22.11.2007, 13:14 @ Laaca	GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet) Post reply
	> But old borland compilers don't support new CPU instructions - DJGPP does. As does OpenWatcom. But does its -6 mean the same as GCC's -mtune or -march? P.S. Yes, Causeway supports SSE now (and already supported .DLLs and virtual memory). Still, I have yet to see anybody take advantage of that. Oh well.

RayeR

CZ,
22.11.2007, 15:38

@ Laaca

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

Post reply

> But old borland compilers don't support new CPU instructions - DJGPP does.

Then if I need new instructions I'll use DJGPP not some poor 16bit GCC-try compiler.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Laaca

Czech republic,
23.11.2007, 07:36

@ RayeR

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

Post reply

> Then if I need new instructions I'll use DJGPP not some poor 16bit GCC-try
> compiler.

But it can happen you need to write a realmode application which uses MMX,SSE...
You can't do it with normal DJGPP.

---
DOS-u-akbar!

RayeR

CZ,
23.11.2007, 10:31

@ Laaca

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

Post reply

> But it can happen you need to write a realmode application which uses
> MMX,SSE...
> You can't do it with normal DJGPP.

I can't just imagine the case when need such advanced instruction and have forbidden pmode, but of course it may happen...

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Rugxulo

Usono,
26.11.2007, 16:42
(edited by Rugxulo, 26.11.2007, 16:54)

@ Laaca

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

Post reply

> But it can happen you need to write a realmode application which uses
> MMX,SSE...
> You can't do it with normal DJGPP.

I don't do SSE, but you have to enable it before using it (unlike MMX). OpenWatcom's Causeway build supposedly does this now. BTW, if you really want control of your hardware, you're probably going to have to get past the compiler and go to assembly (e.g. FASM supports all documented and undocumented x86-64 instructions for Intel and AMD chips). And yes, you probably knew all this (and more). ;-)

But, like I said, OpenWatcom can output 16-bit code. The potential problem is that it needs a 386+ host. I dunno what this GCC will support (host, target, file format) but it's probably only a cross compiler (386+ host OS like GNU/Linux).

roytam

27.12.2017, 10:36

@ Rugxulo

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

Post reply

> Unlike the experimental, alpha
> patch that DJ Delorie semi-baked up a while back, this is a newer
> attempt by Rask Ingemann Lambertsen to utilize GCC for 16-bit cpus
> (targeting ELF only??). It isn't accepted into the GCC tree yet (if ever?),
> but it seems interesting enough to mention here (for the curious):
>
> http://www.opensubscriber.com/message/linux-8086@vger.kernel.org/7342861.html
>
> Personally, I think Dev86DOS, OpenWatcom, Turbo C, Micro-C, etc. are good
> enough for me for now. (At least, I ain't messing with no stinkin' patches
> for something so complex, ugh.)

There is gcc 16bit output with FreeDOS.
https://github.com/PerditionC/fdkernel/pull/25
https://github.com/tkchia/gcc-ia16
https://github.com/tkchia/build-ia16

Rugxulo

Usono,
28.12.2017, 06:20

@ roytam

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

Post reply

> > this is a newer attempt by Rask Ingemann Lambertsen to utilize GCC
> > for 16-bit cpus (targeting ELF only??). It isn't accepted into
>> the GCC tree yet (if ever?), but it seems interesting enough to
> > mention here (for the curious):

I don't even remember mentioning this. It was far from finished, apparently.

> There is gcc 16bit output with FreeDOS.
> https://github.com/PerditionC/fdkernel/pull/25
> https://github.com/tkchia/gcc-ia16
> https://github.com/tkchia/build-ia16

Okay, this I do know about (barely). But it's not finished either, so getting your hopes up is a bit premature. And yes, this is also based upon Lambertsen's incomplete work.

Jenner did release his improved GCC IA-16 in April of this year (Windows or Linux cross-compilers). One guy mentioned it on FASM's forum, and Jenner even found his way there. So we had a brief discussion about it. That is only for .COM, Tiny or Small model. He also made a brief video about it for GNU Cauldron 2017.

Another person (T.K. Chia) has been hacking it since then to add partial support of far pointers. But I was unaware of that until Bart Oldeman mentioned it on the FreeDOS mailing lists (here and here). So yes, Bart has apparently been working on adapting the kernel to support being compiled by this, but he said it's not quite ready for primetime yet. Not sure how much of this will be mentioned in his FOSDEM 2018 talk next February.

So there is some limited hope, but don't get too excited yet. :-P

Rugxulo Usono, 31.12.2017, 09:18 @ Rugxulo	GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet) Post reply
	> So there is some limited hope, but don't get too excited yet. Anyone also remember a few years ago when Alan Cox announced FUZIX? Well, it's not really implemented (for 8086) yet, but he has recently started a tiny bit, now using GCC IA-16. Just FYI.

roytam 14.01.2018, 15:44 (edited by Rugxulo, 14.01.2018, 23:05) @ Rugxulo	GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet) Post reply
	> So there is some limited hope, but don't get too excited yet. Oh, FreeDOS merged gcc-ia16 compilation support.

Rugxulo Usono, 14.01.2018, 23:11 @ roytam	GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet) Post reply
	> Oh, FreeDOS merged gcc-ia16 compilation support. Bart committed some initial patches, but I don't know if it fully builds and works yet. He said this (Jan. 7) on freedos-user: > My [FOSDEM] talk was accepted so I'll be presenting in 4 weeks: > https://fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/dosemu_and_freedos_past_present_future/ So now we wait.

Oso2k 23.01.2018, 20:37 (edited by Rugxulo, 12.02.2018, 21:21) @ Rugxulo	GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet) Post reply
	> > Oh, FreeDOS merged gcc-ia16 compilation support. They got merged! Woohoo!

Rugxulo Usono, 05.02.2018, 03:51 @ Oso2k	GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet) Post reply
	The FOSDEM video and slides are already available online (relatively short but gets to the point). Also, yesterday on freedos-devel, he announced another prerelease of FreeCOM 0.84-pre3, if anybody wants to test it.

Rugxulo Usono, 23.02.2018, 02:54 @ Rugxulo	FreeCOM 0.84-pre prerelease Post reply
	FreeCOM 0.84-pre4 prerelease (GitHub)

Rugxulo Usono, 07.05.2018, 18:56 (edited by Rugxulo, 07.05.2018, 20:26) @ Rugxulo	targeting DOS with GCC Post reply
	You can simply write DOS programs on Linux w/ GCC! (video, 26:25, YouTube, RenéRebe) N.B. This is not using IA16-GCC, but it's still interesting anyways.

Rugxulo Usono, 20.08.2018, 17:08 @ Rugxulo	FreeCOM 0.84-pre5 prerelease Post reply
	FreeCOM 0.84-pre5 prerelease (GitHub)

Rugxulo Usono, 05.09.2018, 00:56 @ Rugxulo	FreeCOM 0.84-pre6 prerelease Post reply
	FreeCOM 0.84-pre6 prerelease (GitHub)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet) (Announce)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

GCC port for Intel 8086, 80186 and 80286 (not included yet)

FreeCOM 0.84-pre prerelease

targeting DOS with GCC

FreeCOM 0.84-pre5 prerelease

FreeCOM 0.84-pre6 prerelease