Subj : Learning to code for MS-D
To   : Arelor
From : Dennisk
Date : Tue Jun 30 2020 22:51:00

-=> Arelor wrote to All <=-

 Ar> Hello!I recenlty ran into an article about FreeDOS in Linux Magazine. I
 Ar> already
 Ar>  knew of FreeDOS's existence but the article made me curious so I did
 Ar> some research.I wonder if there is any recommended starting point if
 Ar> you want to get
 Ar>  started developping programs or incorporating device drivers to
 Ar> FreeDOS. Most of my coding experience is with interpretated languages,
 Ar> but I have done some C/Cpp. I have also done some toy Hellow-Wordlesque
 Ar> programs in "Wintel" Assembly.Any good resource for getting started
 Ar> coding simple stuff in order to get a grasp of what developing for
 Ar> MS-DOS was like back in the day?

Depends on the language you want to use.  You will probably want to use C, and
maybe Assembler if you want to write low level code, in which case, you need a
C compiler and an assember. I would recommend for DOS Open Watcom available at
http://openwatcom.org.  There are other free compilers, DJGPP which is for 32
bit development and there is a freeware version of Turbo C.

I installed Open Watcom on a 486 just last week.  It also has an assembler, but
I would probably use NASM or FASM.  Microsoft Assembler was used back in the
day, and I think there is a free version you can use, albeit stripped from the
full featured suite it was then, but NASM or FASM is better to use now.

As to documentation, you can either pick up a good second hand book for
programming from the DOS era (if you can find one), or look online.  If writing
in C or C++, then its not that different to writing code for Linux, except for
the different toolchain and libraries.  I learned C using Turbo C, and just
going through the help files included and piecing together how the language
worked from that.

If you want to try assembly, look for the online book "The Art of Assembly". 
Not only does it cover assembly language, but also MS-DOS, PC Graphics, the
BIOS, etc.  Quite comprehensive.

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