Subj : Learning to code for MS-D
To   : Arelor
From : Dennisk
Date : Thu Jul 02 2020 20:42:00

-=> Arelor wrote to Dennisk <=-

 Ar>   Re: Learning to code for MS-D
 Ar>   By: Dennisk to Arelor on Tue Jun 30 2020 10:51 pm

 De> Depends on the language you want to use. You will probably want to use C,
 Ar> and De> maybe Assembler if you want to write low level code, in which
 Ar> case, you
 Ar>  need a De> C compiler and an assember. I would recommend for DOS Open
 Ar> Watcom available at De> http://openwatcom.org. There are other free
 Ar> compilers, DJGPP which is for 32 De> bit development and there is a
 Ar> freeware version of Turbo C.
 De> I installed Open Watcom on a 486 just last week. It also has an assembler,
 Ar>  but De> I would probably use NASM or FASM. Microsoft Assembler was
 Ar> used back in the De> day, and I think there is a free version you can
 Ar> use, albeit stripped from the De> full featured suite it was then, but
 Ar> NASM or FASM is better to use now. De> As to documentation, you can
 Ar> either pick up a good second hand book for De> programming from the DOS
 Ar> era (if you can find one), or
 Ar>  look online. If writing De> in C or C++, then its not that different
 Ar> to writing code for Linux, except for De> the different toolchain and
 Ar> libraries. I
 Ar>  learned C using Turbo C, and just De> going through the help files
 Ar> included and piecing together how the language De> worked from that.
 De> If you want to try assembly, look for the online book "The Art of
Assembly".
  De> Not only
 Ar> does it cover assembly language, but also MS-DOS, PC Graphics, the De>
 Ar> BIOS, etc. Quite comprehensive. De> ... MultiMail, the new
 Ar> multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!Thanks for the tips.
 Ar> Knowing which compiler to choose among is a good first step.I have
 Ar> noticed a lot of DOS stuff was done in
 Ar>  assembly, which is a bit stricking since you mostly see high-level
 Ar> languages these days, heh.I will have a look at The Art of Assembly. It
 Ar> looks like a good
 Ar>  thing to have around. I am a bit more of a C dude ad that is not
 Ar> saying much, though.

 
The Art of Assembler is good, but the version I've seen uses the HLA assembly
language, a high level layer on top of assembly which I haven't seen used much.
 There are many other guides.  Assembler was mostly used due to the limitations
of the CPU, and the fact that compilers didn't optimise as well back then as
they can now.

Watcom was a popular compiler back in the 90s.  It is the compiler that iD
software used for Doom, so you know it must be pretty decent!  Open Watcom is a
current version, and it produces reasonable quality executables, so you
shouldn't need to use assembler for speed unless you are targetting some really
old machines, or really are streching what the CPU can do.

But as I mentioned, DJGPP is another good one, and it comes with an IDE too,
RHIDE.  DJGPP is more up to date than Watcom with regards to the C++ standards
it supports, but it also takes up more disk space, and needs more RAM and CPU
to compile.  I couldn't run it on my 486 with 16M of RAM, as it ran out of RAM.


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