Is DJGPP not an option? I prefer MinGW32 GCC 4.7 (win32) and DJGPP (DOS32)

OzzFan wrote on Yesterday, 22:58:

MSVC Cons:

• Cannot target Win32s or Win32

I may be misunderstanding what you're referring to here but isn't MSVC what comes with every visual/developer studio? Those can target win32 just fine.

OzzFan wrote on Yesterday, 22:58:

Are there any good reasons to care about ensuring if other people can compile using the same compiler, or should I let them worry about that?

What compiler do you use for your retro coding and why?

I do retro programing for fun. So I use the tools I want to use and where I am comfortable with (mostly good old Borland stuff) and don't worry about other people.

If I would be creating a huge project and want others to collaborate than it's another story and in your case I would choose Open Watcom. But than again it's retro. So most projects aren't that big and most probably wouldn't attract a huge number of people who want to participate anyway.

My advice: use the one you like the most. 😀

I used djgpp for my last project ( BIOSDUMP - extract the BIOS without a hardware programmer )

Pros:
The editor is good, as well as the documentation
It compiles to 32 bits and comes with a dos extender which you can embed into the program you're writing
Cons:
It's a bit slow to compile programs with
Not sure about code density, speed, etc as I have not ran any comparisons

I did not try to link with asm code but the documentation shows how to do it. GAS is the assembler and it should be possible to use either intel or at&t syntax.
I'm just a hobbyist with little experience but I hope this helps.

leileilol wrote on Today, 00:03:

Is DJGPP not an option? I prefer MinGW32 GCC 4.7 (win32) and DJGPP (DOS32)

I should have specified I'm mostly writing for real mode DOS or Win16 applications, but I've been developing Win32s versions of my Windows programs on the side.

Fish3r wrote on Today, 00:07:

OzzFan wrote on Yesterday, 22:58:

MSVC Cons:

• Cannot target Win32s or Win32

I may be misunderstanding what you're referring to here but isn't MSVC what comes with every visual/developer studio? Those can target win32 just fine.

MSVC 1.52c is DOS/Win16 only. I have to use MSVC 2.2 or higher to get Win32, which isn't a huge problem for me.

The newer compilers for MSVC that support targeting Win32 are going to have much better compilers and give you better optimized code.

Visual Studio 2019 seems to be the last version that supports targeting Win32 without any shenanigans.

I don't much like GCC as I have had issues with it in the past where turning full optimization on creates code that crashes, while the same code with full optimization works perfectly fine when compiled with MSVC.

Have you looked at Digital Mars? It's the evolution of the Zortech compiler, and still maintained (maybe?) like OpenWatcom.

jakethompson1 wrote on Today, 03:08:

Have you looked at Digital Mars? It's the evolution of the Zortech compiler, and still maintained (maybe?) like OpenWatcom.

I have, and I even bought a copy of it. It pretty much has the same pros and cons of the Symantec compiler, except it has an extra oddity in that to compile projects I have to go into the settings and either check or uncheck "Ignore capitalization." This happens regardless of what project I make, which tells me something is broken within the source headers/includes and no one has bothered to fix it. Maybe I'm being too cautious, but I have concerns about using a compiler whose headers/includes are broken. I don't really think it is being maintained anymore.

For simple Winblows tools, I tend to use LCC, for more complex stuff I sometimes resort to MVSC

To crank out capabable & SMALL tools for DOS (and Winblows with my DVM virtual machine), I pretty much only use my own Micro-C/PC toolset,
there's an amazing extra understanding of a toolset when you've written it yourself!