Re: Looking for a free basic compiler for DOS

On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:54:41 GMT, erewhon@xxxxxxxxxx (J French) wrote:

On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 03:30:11 -0500,
ArarghMail703NOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

<snip>

Curious - I never used it in the IDE
- always used SideKick Plus for coding

I have almost always used the IDE for editing and debugging. Final
compile is with a batch file, or a makefile.

I/we used libraries and batch files

While I used SideKick others used the M editor
Somewhere, I have a very old copy of SideKick. I did use it, back
around the dos 3.20 days. But, IIRC, it used the Ctrl-K, Ctrl-Q type
of commands, which I never got used to. WordStar type commands?

and compiled speed is as fast or faster than compiled C.

Can't be. Compiled basic consistes of a large number of far calls to
the runtime. About the only inline code are operations on integers,
and longs. Most everything else results in a runtime call. Just look
at a /A listing.

I suppose it depends on the type of App, compiled C also uses a load
of Far Calls

Yes, but mostly for I/O related things. Most math and other
processing is inline. Not so with PDS. (or any other MS basic)

We could beat PDS7 with our own Assembler

Not exactly difficult.

<G>

<snip>

And, at version 7.1, it was practically bug-free!
The only bug I ever ran across with 7.1, MS refused to acknowledge as
thiers. But they did send a fix. Said fix applied to a lot of 16 bit
apps from MS. But, they didn't tell me that. I found out on my own.

I would be very interested to know what the bug was

If you use a Novell network, with VLMs, PDS (and the other 16-bit
apps) did something to the PSP, at displacement 0x2E, IIRC, that
caused the VLM to crash the system. I probably still have the
original patch disk somewhere. The patch changed the app to not
modify the PSP.
Maybe it wasn't the VLMs, but the eariler NET.EXE, or NETX.EXE.


Hmm PSP: 2E-31 Reserved for DOS
Well an old description that I have (dated 1993) shows:
seg_psp:002E dd,equ psp_ss_sp_last_i21

The bug was incrementing the location, where ever it was. If it was
2E, then that trashes the stack on return from an Int 21 call. Not
good. :-)

I tried to google for the bug info, but since it was about 20 years
ago, ie, pre internet, I didn't have much luck. Maybe only 15 years
ago. That was when I went thru and did a dissassembly of all of the
versions of NET that I had.

Hmm, found this in RBIL under int 21 ah=26:

Novell NetWare updates the fields at offsets 3Eh and 3Fh without
checking that a legal PSP segment is current; see AH=50h for further
discussion

This sounds about right. I don't really remember, it's been too long.
It was something of this ilk.


Interesting we used Novell (I still have a small Novell network) and
never ran into that one

IIRC, it was fairly version specific.

I can't locate both a modified and an unmodified version of any of the
programs, so I can't identify the bugs' location.

I used Novell file servers for many years, until it became clear that
Novell had no clue on how to write requesters (or whatever they are
called) for windows. The last versions that I tried were actually
NLMs with a stupid little loader for use under windows. And they
infected my system with all those nastly little red "N"s all over the
)(&*)(*& place. I gave up around 3.11. For 4 & 5, having to install
Directory Services to control ONE server seemed really stupid to me.
The Bindery worked just fine. Microsoft made the same mistake with
Active Directory in Win2000. That is why my file server is still NT4.
And will probably stay NT4, forever.

<snip>
--
ArarghMail703 at [drop the 'http://www.' from ->] http://www.arargh.com
BCET Basic Compiler Page: http://www.arargh.com/basic/index.html

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