Hi, On Fri, Mar 9, 2018 at 8:00 AM, Patrick <patr...@spellingbeewinnars.org> wrote: > > 1)I want to program on FreeDos, I want to use GCC ad I want to port over > GnuCOBOL. Are there any books or resources you could recommend, I haven't > found much on the wiki.
* news://comp.os.msdos.djgpp * https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/comp.os.msdos.djgpp Definitely check and ask there (also available as mailing list) and read the FAQ. It's not nearly as popular as the old days, but there are still a few gurus there. After all, we have latest stable GCC 7.3.0 + BinUtils 2.30 and DJGPP 2.05 (2015) as well as various ports of GNU software (e.g. GAWK 4.2.1). > 2)I love and hate old PCs. ... is there another modern SBC or small > inexpensive PC that you could recommend for use with FreeDos ? Just use an emulator like QEMU (KVM) or VirtualBox atop modern hardware. Or feel free to test DOSEMU2 pre-releases. > 3)I use vim on Linux, has anyone ported this over? It looks like there is > FreeMacs, is this my best bet for a Unix like editor ? VIM dropped 32-bit DOS support years ago, but there's still 7.3 or whatever. (I think 7.1 was last, limited, 16-bit version.) But, as mentioned, there are various others, e.g. VILE or (old or new) XVI or (old) Elvis or (old) Stevie. Even GNU Emacs (2015) should still support Viper mode, probably. I prefer VILE, even if I don't use every advanced feature. > 4)Does FreeDos have a fixed limit in terms of resolution? Last I heard, VESA limits you to roughly 130x60. But I typically stick to 80x43. You might be able to get other (even higher?) resolutions with that old DOS port of SVGAtextmode, dunno. But normally you just want something slightly better than 80x25. Also, Japheth's SETMXX tools are fairly good. I don't remember ever other tool offhand (EDIT: setlines / atilines), but you can search about it. > 5)Rather then develop right on FreeDos, do you guys cross compile from Linux > ? Do you have any examples of this? Besides inside DOSEMU? * http://na.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/djgpp/rpms/ * https://github.com/andrewwutw/build-djgpp/releases * https://sourceforge.net/projects/uhexen2/files/HoT%20-%20Support%20Files/cross%20compilers/ > 6)Can I confirm that FreeDos is in real mode and that the user logged in can > do anything? If I want to write to a parallel port can I just assign a > pointer to it's address and write to it? There is no protection correct? No protection overall, but anything using pmode (esp. ring 3, e.g. CWSDPMI) has partial protection. BTW, Turbo Pascal had good "port" and "mem" support, not to mention (later) inline assembly. Speaking of cross compilers, I would heartily recommend FreePascal's i8086-msdos target (since 2015). It supports (modes) "tp" and "delphi" and a few other nice bits. While this is usually cross-compiled from either Linux or Windows, you can usually run it under DOS with HX, too. Of course, the output is native DOS MZ, and it supports all memory models (except Huge, which is still trunk 3.1.1 only). Of course, Go32v2 (32-bit DPMI) also exists. > 7)Similar to above, can I confirm that FreeDos has no threading. If I write > a program and it's running, it has 100% of the CPU correct? No threading except (barely) green threads or cooperative or coroutines (e.g. Ruby or Lua). For instance, there's a DJGPP port of FSU Pthreads that can be used (e.g. p7zip), but it's still only one core (as mentioned elsewhere). Though if you're lucky enough to have APM support in your BIOS, you'll normally want to enable that via FDAPM (akin to MS' POWER.EXE). ACPI support is very limited, though, but it "might" still help even then (barely?). I know that's not threading, but you typically want to limit power, not use 100% all the time, if possible (unless you need exact timing). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
