Hi All, Logger is coming along great and I’m currently working on the final ALPHA-8 version. Once that is done, it will be time for a BETA or two. Then finally version 1.0.
For fun, I decided to implement a single binary compiler directive. When enabled, it generates a single COM that acts as both the driver and interface program. But, I am unsure if I will use that or the dual (SYS+COM) build for the 1.0 release. Mostly, it comes down to the size of the binary. At present, both the driver and interface programs are UPX compressible. Their uncompressed size are about 3k & 6k respectively. So, when space may be tight on a boot floppy, the driver will only need about 2.5k (UPX’d) of diskette space. Also if the interface program is used in batch files to append debugging comment messages (not shown to the user) directly to the log, it requires loading just the 4k (UPX'ed) interface program . When compiled as a single COM for both the driver and interface, UPX compression cannot be used and the binary is about 9k at present. Because there is some common (or at least similar code) shared between the driver and interface, this could most likely be reduced by 1 or 2k in some future version. But that level of optimization will not happen anytime soon. I have other things of much higher priorities that need doing. So, the single COM will require almost 4 times the space of the dual binary format. While it may not matter much for Hard Drives, CD-ROMs and USB sticks, it could matter a lot for a floppy. I guess for version 1.0, it could include the SYS and the single binary COM. But, that could be confusing. Probably better to go with either the dual binaries or just the single binary. And, I am leaning towards the dual binaries for version 1.0. IDK. On a side note… I was playing with the single binary version and noticed some interesting things. Under VirtualBox, I could even wait to load it post boot using DEVLOAD (high or low). Which reported "1 char device installed. Driver Loaded.” and everything worked fine. But under DOSBox, DEVLOAD reports an “ERROR: free drive letter not found, increase LASTDRIVE”. I get that it is DOSBox and did not expect it to work. But, the driver is a char device and doesn’t use a drive letter. And, DOSBox uses drive Z: for it’s pseudo-commands. So, it was not the error I was expecting. Too be fair, I was expecting just a crash and not an error. :-) Jerome _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
