Reading the replies here to this thread makes me feel like the real odd-ball. 😜 I absolutely refuse to code for DOS or Win3.1/Win9x on a modern computer. I always aim to use era-appropriate tools. Which for DOS means I'm writing code either in the Turbo Pascal 7 IDE or writing C code with Watcom in the Aurora Text Editor. Both running in 80x50 text mode of course.

This could be handy Wikipedia list of compilers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compilers // There is not Dos filter / collumn (its just in other OS), but just search for "Dos" on page.

Im completely fine with 386+ code, i read articles linked above and i have lot of questions:
1) What is exactly code and data size in table 7-1? Its code size in plain text or size after compilation, or size reported by mem when program is running or what? Data is size of all data structures together or structure? If for all data structure how to easily get overall Data size without manual calcualtions?
2) We already have some disscussion about real mode.. Im confused, i dont get its limitation, i got that realmode is just himem and no EMS manager, when i run here mem is much more than 640 KB/ 1024 of memory.. and games which are requiring more memor are often running fine, if im not wrong?
3) DOSX 386 DOS extender need at least by Digital Mars C++ for 32-bit protected mode. Its its included is some development packages? Its hard to setup it?
4) Turbo C++ is also only 16 bit only? Or has 32bit possiblity?
5) Otherwise MS-Dos is not multitasking, what is best way to get current used memory info, within application? You can run dos command for it inside application, but i guess there are some better fuctions to get ammount of freemme, mem used by your app etc?
6) BTW if not work games (Quake for example reports it at the start) are usually lock some memory size at the start use it.. its such way best, its recommended for all application which are using lot of mem? How to do it?
7) How someone where experience with managing big assets within DOS (pictures, sounds, models, even texts for some games where huge)? To make it working with resonable performance could be tricky, i will probably not do that ever, because its too late for developing Dos games again, but its interesting topic.
😎 Flat data model - what it is exactly? In understand from name that is there is just 1 memory area, but i dont understand implementation. Does it just means only one way how to alocate memory and much less hassle with it?
Its this big victory - simple coding, without too much care about memory heaps?
9) What about memory cleanning calls performance in MS-DOS, its big performance hit to clean big assets, or its their "streaming" viable solution? Because is streaming is not possible, you have to add some loadings and load all needed object for at once that application, game, level start.

Back to general programming stuff.
What about Basic and memory management and performance is this way how to avoid memory management and use of pointers?

Otherwise more and more, i thinking about Dos programming, i realize that its not for me, unless there is real way to use Python or something more user friendly than C/C++ for small fun coding stuff..

I was thinking long time what i would interested to develop for DOS (see bellow) if i would really have a skill.. what i most missing on DOS.., but all these stuff seems to be way too complicated for some starting projects. Its not some easi console app to parse some files and make report or basic form /web application, which are typical coding tasks, for these things you need lots of research and knowledge.

• Hack MS-DOS 6.22+/ start menu for more than 9 items, not is using only half of screen for them and my config have lots of items, which has to be commented and uncommented..
• There is some basic ALS 4000 abandoned (2002) open source driver its able to play FM even on Z97 chipset (as only one sound card), so it would be nice to continue to develop it.
• Realtek Gigabit intergrated Dos packet driver, half of PC user has these Nics and native packet drivers doesnt exist, there drivers only fro some Broadcom and Intels GB controllers. or new Intel GB Lan onboard controllers. ODI and NDIS drivers sucks for dos.
• CD music virtual drive - because SHSUCD virtual drive emulator its working only with ISO - it means no audio track, it would be nice to create some utility for audio cd emulation, which should work by same style like physical cd rom - to enable switch games track on request.. Because i can play game audio from some cd player and use some mixer board for mix it into game, but its pointless because game music are triggered by game events.. Its not possible to do it no SW level, some device on USB or COM, LPT with connected cd audio cable - would be solution.
• Graphical Frontend for mTCP fpt client - write commands sucks.. so some graphical frontend would really enhance Dos network experience
• Dos Console with output history and scrolling as Linux terminal.
• Dos boot messages output logger - initialized in config all write all boot process text to file. - I think that such TSR is feasible to develod.
• Realtek HD - Dos / Win98 sound driver for SB compatibility

Other thing is could be interesting if you have a skill would games porting someone ported Quake etc.. to Dos someone ported Diablo to Switch, so why not port Diablo to DOS.. and there are lots of such games.

ruthan wrote:

2) We already have some disscussion about real mode.. Im confused, i dont get its limitation, i got that realmode is just himem and no EMS manager, when i run here mem is much more than 640 KB/ 1024 of memory.. and games which are requiring more memor are often running fine, if im not wrong?

real mode has many memory limitations depending on memory model of say C compiler. but basically, you have "640kb". there is ways around it that are super hacky (ems/xms).

ruthan wrote:

3) DOSX 386 DOS extender need at least by Digital Mars C++ for 32-bit protected mode. Its its included is some development packages? Its hard to setup it?

wdosx comes with open watcom. no setting up. its an extender tacked onto front of your executable. it just works.

ruthan wrote:

4) Turbo C++ is also only 16 bit only? Or has 32bit possiblity?

old free versions of turbo c + turbo c++ were dos 16bit only.

ruthan wrote:

5) Otherwise MS-Dos is not multitasking, what is best way to get current used memory info, within application? You can run dos command for it inside application, but i guess there are some better fuctions to get ammount of freemme, mem used by your app etc?

in real mode you can call the dos memory alloc api with 0xFFFF and get largetst free memory block size but no garuntees about it (your app might allocate all and use it as heap/stack and well it can get complicated. real mode apps can walk the MCB chain manually, thats as good as it gets for 'used'. protected mode apps, it depends on many things and the easiest answer is 'no'.

ruthan wrote:

6) BTW if not work games (Quake for example reports it at the start) are usually lock some memory size at the start use it.. its such way best, its recommended for all application which are using lot of mem? How to do it?

these are protected mode things and dpmi + vcpi have memory locking functions.

ruthan wrote:

😎 Flat data model - what it is exactly? In understand from name that is there is just 1 memory area, but i dont understand implementation. Does it just means only one way how to alocate memory and much less hassle with it?

flat means no segmentation. in protected mode your memory model is 4gb/32bit. in real mode, flat no segments memory model is 64kb/16bit (often called small or tiny memory model).

ruthan wrote:

• Hack MS-DOS 6.22+/ start menu for more than 9 items, not is using only half of screen for them and my config have lots of items, which has to be commented and uncommented..

good luck with that one...

ruthan wrote:

• Graphical Frontend for mTCP fpt client - write commands sucks.. so some graphical frontend would really enhance Dos network experience

better off using wattcp library and just writing an ftp client. I dont think you grasp what it would take to write a tsr gui to sit on top of ftp.exe while its running.

ruthan wrote:

• Dos Console with output history and scrolling as Linux terminal.

doskey will give history of commands. scrolling terminal wouldnt capture anything directly written to text mode memory.

ruthan wrote:

so why not port Diablo to DOS.. and there are lots of such games.

with out source, GLWTS.

BloodyCactus wrote:

ruthan wrote:

• Graphical Frontend for mTCP fpt client - write commands sucks.. so some graphical frontend would really enhance Dos network experience

better off using wattcp library and just writing an ftp client. I dont think you grasp what it would take to write a tsr gui to sit on top of ftp.exe while its running.

I think you underestimate what it takes to write an FTP client.

There are one or two keyboard reading routines and a bunch of printfs scattered around to print out status messages as things happen. Refactoring those to generate output into a GUI window is not on the same scale as writing an FTP client from scratch. The code gives you primitives for sending and receiving files and performing the other FTP commands. They can be driven from a console, GUI, or whatever ...

Source is available. Writing a GUI TSR to drive a text mode application is definitely not the way to do it.

Look, maybe what you really want is FreeBASIC.

32-bit, easy to use and program, good IDE (FBIde), cross-compiles or compiles directly in DOS, very user friendly.

What it lacks is a stable graphics library. The graphics lib (fbgfxlib) works cross-platform, but on DOS it can crash badly and has a nasty habit of throwing segmentation faults.

Gered wrote:

Reading the replies here to this thread makes me feel like the real odd-ball. 😜 I absolutely refuse to code for DOS or Win3.1/Win9x on a modern computer. I always aim to use era-appropriate tools. Which for DOS means I'm writing code either in the Turbo Pascal 7 IDE or writing C code with Watcom in the Aurora Text Editor. Both running in 80x50 text mode of course.

I've done this too (when I was working in Turbo Pascal), but modern editors definitely make the experience nicer, if not so period-correct.

As an aside, does anyone have a copy of the 5.9 ANSI version of Notepad++ (the one that's supposed to be the last version that runs on Windows 98)? The Notepad++ website got redesigned recently and most of the older releases are long gone, and the various 'old software' sites (oldversions, etc.) only host the Unicode installers.

Thanks for responses..

wdosx comes with open watcom. no setting up. its an extender tacked onto front of your executable. it just works.

Lots of People are saying that Watcom is outdated that DJGPP is better is there same thing?

flat means no segmentation. in protected mode your memory model is 4gb/32bit. in real mode, flat no segments memory model is 64kb/16bit (often called small or tiny memory model).

Thanks, Its still a bit abstract, i completely forgot how it was working, i remember something about malloc, free and heaps and that i didnt like it. If someone can compare it with languages running within VM with automatic memory management are needed, what additional steps to memory management in comparison with it are needed, except necessity of use pointers on coding level? Ideal would be comparision of modern VM solution, flat mode and not flat mode.
Arrays array are big data structures is flat modemy model clever enough to handle memory size of array from its definition or i need some additional code for memory area for array too? What if i need load some asset (lets same some Title screen) from disc to memory to use it in code, how i do it?

MS-DOS boot menu more items

- good luck with that one...

I wrote that it would be hard, but who know maybe someone can hack just replace number 9(8) with something bigger and it will work. its not use full screen area, so only real problem is add few other options, you dont need implement any scrolling etc. Someone thought that 9 options is enough for everyone..

Graphical Frontend for mTCP fpt client

better off using wattcp library and just writing an ftp client. I dont think you grasp what it would take to write a tsr gui to sit on top of ftp.exe while its running.

Again, i wrote that is task for someone skilled. I spend quite time to analyze DOS networking - details are here: Dos / Dosbox / Dos VMs ethernet / filesharing /network Dos to Win98-Win10 -WIP, help needed especially from Win admins..
In my opinion is that anything outside mTCP (runs even on 8088 and take ~10KB) and Nowell (allmost dead for New OSes) networking is quite bloatware, MS stack is worst (it eats at least 150 KB of conventional memory for filesharing..). mTCP would be best if there would be NC like GUI klient and support for long filenames conversion to 8.3 format and back, how it works on FAT32, i forgot name of this feature, because todays mTCP text klient is stuck on long files names.

Dos Console with output history and scrolling as Linux terminal.

doskey will give history of commands. scrolling terminal wouldnt capture anything directly written to text mode memory.

I know Doskey, im not Unix/Linux guy, but i would really like to have something better with auto command output history.. maybe doskey or something else could be somewhat hacked to add automatically after every not external binary execution command MS-DOS command something like ">LogOutput.txt" and manage log size to specific max by deleting oldest messages.

so why not port Diablo to DOS.. and there are lots of such games.

Im not sure about details, but on Japase Playstation disc or something like that some found some debug output files (Sym file) and from was possible reconstruct source code
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tADL_fmsHQ
Source is here:
https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX

Otherwise i played with Python on Windows, are there nice IDEs, syntax looks fine.. Who is good that its possible compile *.py script to one *.exe to be standalone and run on machines where python is not installed. Today dont need to care i dont care that Hello World within *.exe has 5MB.. probably because of integrated Python runtimes.
Big question is if this some Windows hack or its Python feature and its possible to make standalone Python packages for too DOS? I dont mind make them fro Linux, MacOS too. It would be even better than C# or Java, which need to install some packages on target OS to run, even MS C++ need some redistribut.. packages too.

Python for DOS is somehow made for DJGPP too:
http://www.caddit.net/pythond/

ruthan wrote:

Thanks for responses..

wdosx comes with open watcom. no setting up. its an extender tacked onto front of your executable. it just works.

Lots of People are saying that Watcom is outdated that DJGPP is better is there same thing?

It's not really that Watcom is outdated (if anything, it's probably the better choice for DOS overall since it was designed with DOS in mind, at least in the original versions, and can also target real mode if you want that). In my case it's due to DJGPP being what I had access to when I wrote my first DOS apps 20+ years ago, combined with a selection of useful packages (especially Allegro for graphics development). I don't even know what resources there are for a current Watcom DOS developer in terms of libraries - I'd definitely give it a shot if there were some decent graphics libraries out there so I wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel.

Gered wrote:

Reading the replies here to this thread makes me feel like the real odd-ball. 😜 I absolutely refuse to code for DOS or Win3.1/Win9x on a modern computer. I always aim to use era-appropriate tools. Which for DOS means I'm writing code either in the Turbo Pascal 7 IDE or writing C code with Watcom in the Aurora Text Editor. Both running in 80x50 text mode of course.

Nah you're not an odd-ball. I do this myself with small projects, and have been again on the 286 I just received with a larger project. It was just that game engine I was working on at the time turned into quite a bit of source files that became a bit frustrating to follow.. Having geany up on a monitor in portrait mode on my linux machine (which is right next to my dos machine) just made things feel much easier to follow for me. No need to confine yourself if you're getting too cluttered and stressed, so I cheated a bit 😜

I do the same thing with modern hardware too.. JOE (joes own editor) for small projects / edits, notepad++ / geany minimum for larger projects.

So lots of C/C++ i would say old school guy here. So what about time efektivity, because when i speaking about low level and high level language with people i know and are able to use both.
Arguments are usually:

1. If you want code something fast and not need some speed (=core game engine), use C# or Java., C# more often because its still in MS .NET ecosystem as there Visual C++ work.
2. Next argument is your even can use for non Core things and prototyping something even more high level and easier to use and getting cheaper people(aka scripters) as Lua, Python.. and if discover that something has to be faster you can every time reimplement it in C.
3. There is more and more raw HW performance every day (even phones which are inferior to pc are fast even for Java based Android apps), profiling tools are better and better and there are ways how to squeeze quite good performance from C#.
4. You can get especially for game already good completed and proven core engine.. and with few low level coders majority can code in something more user friendly (even good old Quake had QuakeC what was something like virtual machine and its code was much slower than native code).
5. Even Unity3D known for its bad performance has no Burst Compiler (https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.b … nual/index.html) low level performance optimalization possibility - i thing that you can go even on ASM level, some really multithread systems and jobs scheduling management.

I dont found reason why dont agree with all of these arguments, maybe except scripters from my experience, its almost often better get proper coder even for high level scripting and pay him more, or at least have few such guys between standard scripters.

I think that is natural that more and people are moving to more high level languages or starting with them and not want to go deeper. Yes C is used for some microchip programming etc.. but even ther new chips i thing getting so fast and cheap that you can use there something slower and it would be more and more fine. Even in C centric Linux is lots of packages and apps and tools now based on Python what is one of slowest languages from some comparisons what is saw..but its still good enough. Next use of C is OS programming and drivers.. but its really for specific sort of coders and even there is more and more standard, already existing libraries, more compatible drivers etc.

And yeah there is old machines coding as for Dos corner case.. there are not new languages available and OS is not ready to work with need HW and use most of its capabilities and lots of people want because of compatibility use old slow machines.. So there is not really choice.. and you can argue that almost all program what you could possibility want were already written. Because ok, someone wrote some nice new shiny music / video player or text editor, but using them on OS without multitasking is usually awkward.. Here people really want more, some better hardware compatibility (drivers, slowdowners, virtual cd drivers etc). If you look at games, there some indie games with retro Commodore or other old school look coded for newest OSes and in newest lang.

BTW Its possible write C++ code with Visual Studio and use it with GCC for Dos? I know that VS is able to use some alternative compilers like GCC or Clang, but i dunno which version and if easy or complex and what feature you will lots.. On VS i really like automatically code checking - that some hard errors are immediately writed in Error window.. and its debugger, if i would lots both of it.. i can use any good text editor with Intellisense with similar result.

Other interesting thing there is DOS port of Lua Love for making games:
https://github.com/rxi/lovedos

Update:
Other question is can be DJGPP run on Windows 7 / 10 64 bit without virtual machine or Dosbox?

I would suggest not worrying about language holy wars. It's a huge waste of time and a dead end argument. Use the tool that suits you. At its core programming is programming. A horrible algorithm in assembly is going to run slower than a great one in java. There is a pro and a con to any language, there is no best language. Only the best for you. For me that's C++ or just plain C on older machines. If you want to learn dos programming, I find that the vast majority of tutorials are written using C, so I'd suggest C. You can spend months here deliberating over which tools to use or just grab a random book and have something running in a couple of days.

One minor note: C is not just used for "microchip programming". Look over the source code to linux if you want to see C in the modern world. C is also the language i still recommend to beginners due to it being short and easy to learn. You can go on to learn as many languages as you like, its not like you have to confine yourself to your starting choice.

Djgpp software will not run outside of dosbox on windows 7.

Re visual studio. Djgpp is compliant with c99 but you're also going to be using bios and dos calls. This is just going to create a mess. I would advise just using a plain old text editor and learning how to use djgpp and a debugger native to DOS.

I not care about prog. lang.. but i worry about annoying stuff during coding.

BTW today i found this C graphical programming tutorial:
http://www.brackeen.com/vga/

It virtually returned me right into years when i ended with it.. because of Quake /Hexen2 source codes, where much more interesting. Its from 1996 and, i could be say that i was more advanced that this, because made some things for SVGA, i now nothing fancy, but i was 13,14 years old . but it pointed out all bad stuff, just find somewhere in documentation etc.. magic values fill registers with them and hope and debug.. That was annoying without books, internet and only with some local program (AThelp) about interrupts, file formats and other stuff which i had.
BTW there is good site is all about that stuff http://qzx.com/pc-gpe/

Such programming wasnt really enough fun for me, in comparison with Quake, when i could really change gameplay stuff... yeah there was downside too, i tried to push boundaries and messed with huge code base written by someone else.. without good enough skill to do it.

You cant say that i didnt C stuff a try again, yersterday / today i downloaded DJGPP installed it into Dosbox and Vmware DOS 7.1 virtual machine (twice to try mitigate some error, in total 4 times).
But im not able to compile Hello World, im getting some compiler error - Internal compiler error, my guess is that i could be with some not enough enough cwsdpmi.exe in path i have one with size 21325 because of other programs, or its problem with memory settings.. but i wouldnt probably crash in Dosbox.. but only within virtual machine.. I dunno where to search for some error log, in temp ae some RHAAAA directory and files, but all are zero size. Its annoying too lowlevel world.

So one more argument for Python, but there is other problem, no Dos community o dont even know other user of it. Here world is working, but im getting when i start it strange message (Could not find platform dependent libraries: <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PythonHome to <prefix>[<exec_prefix>] and i dunno, if limitation of port.. or something with my setting, but i double checked settings and i have all variables as recommended by installation guide. When i google this error, im getting so info only for MacOS and Linux.:
It should somehow working with DJGPP but i dunno there should be benefics of that.. maybe, maybe it would be able to create exe from .pyscript.

Maybe when i would be full time coder, but im not i more like design stuff than coding it especially at low level.. This is over of my head, i learned something and my XY return of period about lets finally learn C for Dos is probably again at the end.. I have better fishes to fry, like lets hope Python..

ruthan wrote:

Other question is can be DJGPP run on Windows 7 / 10 64 bit without virtual machine or Dosbox?

BeginnerGuy wrote:

Djgpp software will not run outside of dosbox on windows 7.

DJGPP compiled codes/software are 32-bit DOS protected-mode binaries. They run in DOS w/32-bit DPMI server or Windows console with VDM support (all 32-bit Windows as of today including Windows 10).

However for the tools, especially the GNU compilers/binutils, they can be made into cross tools, ie. they run as native binaries on Linux/Windows but produce codes for DOS. This is the preferred development model, writing and compiling codes on native environment then checking out the results on emulators.

Here's an example of software compile with djgpp
eduke32 for DOS
Eduke16 - Eduke32 for DOS

With help of Rayer i fixed it. There were 2 problems:
1) Zip picker recommend to download v2gnu/gcc920b.zip - what is newest gcc from 2019, but on DJGPP ftp - ftp://ftp.delorie.com/pub/djgpp/current/v2gnu/ are older when i used 3.46, i no more have internal error, but missing "as" file error
2) as file is part of v2gnu/bnu2331b.zip - link in zip picker is broken, but there its also on ftp..

Now its working with both, which version of GCC do you recommend to use?

A few of my favorite BASIC versions for DOS:
GWBasic 3.23
Qbasic 1.0/1.1
Quick Basic 4.5/7.1
Visual Basic for DOS 1.0

An easy (IMHO) to use assembler for DOS:
Netwide Assembler.

You might want to get Help PC along with these. It's pretty useful for referencing info on low level stuff.

Ok and how memory allocation works with New Basic? All its automatic (compiler manager) and working as Flat memory models, no pointers etc?

Peter Swinkels wrote:

GWBasic 3.23 Qbasic 1.0/1.1 Quick Basic 4.5/7.1 Visual Basic for DOS 1.0 […]
Show full quote

GWBasic 3.23
Qbasic 1.0/1.1
Quick Basic 4.5/7.1
Visual Basic for DOS 1.0

Run all of them and you can summon creatures from the Outer Darkness.

gdjacobs wrote:

Peter Swinkels wrote:

GWBasic 3.23 Qbasic 1.0/1.1 Quick Basic 4.5/7.1 Visual Basic for DOS 1.0 […]
Show full quote

GWBasic 3.23
Qbasic 1.0/1.1
Quick Basic 4.5/7.1
Visual Basic for DOS 1.0

Run all of them and you can summon creatures from the Outer Darkness.

Don't forget about PowerBasic! Which is the successor to TurboBasic. I used PowerBasic A LOT as a teenager, because it was cheap and came with the PowerTools, which allowed you to do TurboVision style Text UIs with mouse support. Very powerful Basic dialect that had a real compiler.