Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FreeDOS's Linux Roots

linuxjournal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 58 posts

Re: FreeDOS's Linux Roots

#2

Post by Endy »

You know, the fact that their tools were originally Linux explains why the tools are so bloated and slow compared to the MS-DOS utilities I still use like EDIT, TREE, and MORE. It also explains why FreeDOS won't install on PCs I have which install and run DR-DOS and MS-DOS just fine.

Re: FreeDOS's Linux Roots

#5

Post by jpernst »

Newtonip wrote: post #4
i_feel_great wrote: post #3

Curious. How exactly does one build embedded applications for FreeDOS? What languages/compiles can I use?

One can use the free Open Watcom or DJGPP to code in C or C++.

Is DJGPP still maintained? All I could seem to find are very old versions, unless the project has moved somewhere that I couldn't find.

Re: FreeDOS's Linux Roots

#6

Post by chungy »

jpernst wrote: post #5
Newtonip wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can use the free Open Watcom or DJGPP to code in C or C++.

Is DJGPP still maintained? All I could seem to find are very old versions, unless the project has moved somewhere that I couldn't find.

http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/

Considering it has GCC 9.1.0, I'd say it's still maintained.

Re: FreeDOS's Linux Roots

#7

Post by ggm »

Endy wrote: post #2

You know, the fact that their tools were originally Linux explains why the tools are so bloated and slow compared to the MS-DOS utilities I still use like EDIT, TREE, and MORE. It also explains why FreeDOS won't install on PCs I have which install and run DR-DOS and MS-DOS just fine.

Thats linux. Not UNIX. I think tool suites from companies now dead made tiny-c and the like, and had tractably small memory model, split i+d stuff in the c compiler toolchain. Not much work on them. Why not?

Well.. targeting 8086, 80286 was somehow off the radar for a bunch of people. I think because a lot of flight ready milspec stuff ran on 6502 or 6800, and especially the latter was a classic gordon-moore model simple register==memory model, a lot more ports went into 6800(x)

Interesting to think if IBM had selected a motorola CPU like this instead of an Intel, or if Intel had been in a mood to adopt a PDP11 instruction set... what the world would be like.

As a DEC-10 and PDP11 and Vax person, I used CP/M, it was ok. I could survive. MS-DOS blind-sided me. I had no idea what was coming down the pipe. talk about walking into a room of razors with closed eyes.

Re: FreeDOS's Linux Roots

#9

Post by jpernst »

chungy wrote: post #6
jpernst wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is DJGPP still maintained? All I could seem to find are very old versions, unless the project has moved somewhere that I couldn't find.

http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ Considering it has GCC 9.1.0, I'd say it's still maintained.

This website is such a blast from the past. I remember using DJGPP in highschool in 1998 and it still looks just the same. Glad to hear that it's still being used and updated; maybe I'll give it another try for old time's sake.
Post reply on HN