Is there a desktop environment written in lazarus? lazarus / 39-Graphics ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nomad · 2024-10-19 07:02 I was wondering is there is a desktop environment written in lazarus (free pascal). Is there once that can run on freedos with the lazarus ide installed. These question might sound crazy but I will still just ask. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TRon · 2024-10-19 07:27 Quote from: nomad on October 19, 2024, 09:02:49 amI was wondering is there is a desktop environment written in lazarus (free pascal). That is a trick question because any Free Pascal program can be written in Lazarus and Free Pascal is able to be used in order to create a desktop environment (hell, even a complete operating system is a possibility see wiki). Free Vision being one of them (although perhaps not a DE in the strict sense). QuoteIs there once that can run on freedos with the lazarus ide installed. No. afaik the best you could do is cross-compile a win16 program with Lazarus and run windows 3 on top of freedos. The question itself is not crazy but why on earth you would even want to punish yourself in such a way kinda is ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2024-10-19 07:53 I have used TurboVision in the very, very distant past (1985-1986ish?) to write a TSR that, when called, presented a menu with some common dos commands. That would have run in FreeDos. Those sources were at the university, since I did not own a PC back then, only zx and commodores. I don't think they survided, but was based on some TSR examples that came with TurboPascal. It was basically a partial clone of Borland's SideKick, which comes close to what you described. Then we have the likes of GEOS, GEM, DESQView but I have no clue in what languages these are written. There is OpenGEM and you might be able to interface with that. There are still rudiments of very old windows versions in the dingbats fonts, which you can use to build something like windows 1 or 2. Have look here: https://github.com/shanecoughlan/OpenGEM/tree/master/source/opengem- sdk-release- 3/OpenGEM%20SDK%20Release%203/PROGRAMMING%20BINDINGS%20AND%20COMPILERS Which looks very interesting. Since fpc now supports 16 bit compilation, that may be a great option. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bobby100 · 2024-10-19 11:49 As I saw "desktop environment" in the title, my first though was Linux. There was a DE for Linux written in Kylix - XPde (if this topic isn't exclusively about DOS). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2024-10-19 12:31 The question is specifically about FreeDos, which is a 16 bit 8086 emulator for use with DOS as OS.(can also run some 32 bit extensions, though) It also runs on Linux. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MarkMLl · 2024-10-19 19:46 Quote from: Thaddy on October 19, 2024, 02:31:11 pmThe question is specifically about FreeDos, which is a 16 bit 8086 emulator for use with DOS as OS.(can also run some 32 bit extensions, though) It also runs on Linux. OK, that's a good point... and I'd note that I've also seen FreeDOS used on e.g. server configuration CDs from HP so it might be that OP wants to do something like that. It goes without saying that Lazarus itself won't run on FreeDOS ** so we're talking about cross-development tooling here. So if this mandates FreeVision etc. as an underlying API, it really boils down to what design tools are available for it. Frankly, I feel that unix (hence obviously Linux etc.) missed out badly by not having something roughly equivalent to MS Visual BASIC for DOS targeting Curses or VT-100. ** Lazarus won't run on FreeDOS, the nearest possible host environment was a port of 16-bit Win-OS/2 that somebody managed on DosEmu which might /possibly/ have been up to running Delphi v1. MarkMLl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2024-10-19 20:28 Quote from: MarkMLl on October 19, 2024, 09:46:25 pm** Lazarus won't run on FreeDOS, the nearest possible host environment was a port of 16-bit Win-OS/2 that somebody managed on DosEmu which might /possibly/ But the cross compiler works. Just build ppcross8086 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MarkMLl · 2024-10-19 20:46 Quote from: Thaddy on October 19, 2024, 10:28:15 pmQuote from: MarkMLl on October 19, 2024, 09:46:25 pm** Lazarus won't run on FreeDOS, the nearest possible host environment was a port of 16-bit Win-OS/2 that somebody managed on DosEmu which might /possibly/ But the cross compiler works. Just build ppcross8086 But does Lazarus work with that target? I suggest that at present the best we can do is use it to build Dialedit etc. which can then generate source for FreeVision. A Lazarus plugin to generate FreeVision code would be great, particularly if it also solved the WINCH problem. MarkMLl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2024-10-19 20:52 Yes, it works. I made the cross compiler this morning because of the subject and did some tests. Note the 8086 support is in fpc terms fairly recent... Generates better code than its 40 year old predecessor Turbo. But of course has an unrealistic amount of resources compared  to the original compiler and platform. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MarkMLl · 2024-10-19 21:04 Are you explicitly saying that Lazarus works in 640K? MarkMLl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2024-10-19 21:24 The opposite, but the compiler makes good use of modern resources to outperform daddy in code generation. And I am talking fpc, not lazarus. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- benohb · 2024-10-19 23:56 https://wiki.freepascal.org/Free_Pascal_Window_Manager ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2024-10-20 06:08 That is not for freedos/dosbox/dos ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PascalDragon · 2024-10-20 09:07 Quote from: nomad on October 19, 2024, 09:02:49 amIs there once that can run on freedos with the lazarus ide installed. Lazarus does not support running on i8086-msdos or i386-go32v2, so asking for a desktop environment is irrelevant anyway (FPC itself would run on i386-go32v2 however). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2024-10-20 10:17 Cross compiling to msdos is fully supported, but as I wrote, you can not use Lazarus for that, only fpc. I suggested OpenGEM and that would work and comes with a TP interface. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MarkMLl · 2024-10-20 10:35 Quote from: Thaddy on October 20, 2024, 12:17:44 pmCross compiling to msdos is fully supported, but as I wrote, you can not use Lazarus for that, only fpc. I suggested OpenGEM and that would work and comes with a TP interface. OP is specifically asking about Lazarus on FreeDOS. Quote from: nomad on October 19, 2024, 09:02:49 amI was wondering is there is a desktop environment written in lazarus (free pascal). Is there once that can run on freedos with the lazarus ide installed. These question might sound crazy but I will still just ask. It would be interesting if he'd consider some alternative, but for the moment we have to assume that he is not asking about cross- development. MarkMLl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2024-10-20 13:30 Quote from: MarkMLl on October 20, 2024, 12:35:04 pmOP is specifically asking about Lazarus on FreeDOS. Where? My interpretation is he just wants to use the Lazarus IDE, not the Lazarus component model. And then the way to go is use a cross-compiler. That works, btw. When you run FreeDos or Dosbox, you are probably running it on another platform anyway. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MarkMLl · 2024-10-20 13:40 Quote from: Thaddy on October 20, 2024, 03:30:18 pmWhere? My interpretation is he just wants to use the Lazarus IDE, not the Lazarus component model. And then the way to go is use a cross-compiler. That works, btw. When you run FreeDos or Dosbox, you are probably running it on another platform anyway. See his posting, which I quoted: "...Is there once that can run on freedos with the lazarus ide installed..." MarkMLl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2024-10-20 16:27 That is unrealistic and why I subconsciencely dismissed it. My scenario as proposed, otoh, works. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nomad · 2024-10-22 04:27 Thanks for the replies. I find the discussion interesting. Freedos has come a far way and having something like this would be nice. As I said. It was just a crazy idea. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MarkMLl · 2024-10-22 06:59 Quote from: nomad on October 22, 2024, 06:27:53 amThanks for the replies. I find the discussion interesting. Freedos has come a far way and having something like this would be nice. As I said. It was just a crazy idea. It's not a crazy idea, but too many pieces are missing: in particular adequate display drivers (in particular for some sort of graphics mode) and the equivalent of a widget set. MarkMLl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2024-10-22 07:06 Indeed, it is not a crazy idea.There are designers for TurboVision and these happily run onder DOS. But to use the behemoth Lazarus natively under DOS is a bridge too far. Cross-compiling is the way to go. OpenGEM works fine, btw. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MarkMLl · 2024-10-22 07:25 Quote from: Thaddy on October 22, 2024, 09:06:32 amIndeed, it is not a crazy idea.There are designers for TurboVision and these happily run onder DOS. But to use the behemoth Lazarus natively under DOS is a bridge too far. Cross-compiling is the way to go. OpenGEM works fine, btw. fpGUI is another obvious possibility... possibly a bit more realistic than GEM. A TUI based on TurboVision/FreeVision would be more realistic... Thaddy, I'm aware of Dialedit for that but what other designers do you know of for the record? MarkMLl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2024-10-22 07:39 fpGUI predates the fpc 8086 support, will need a cross compiler too...GEM widgets will run under DOS, any DOS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nomad · 2024-10-28 03:46 Quote from: Thaddy on October 22, 2024, 09:39:22 amfpGUI predates the fpc 8086 support, will need a cross compiler too...GEM widgets will run under DOS, any DOS. I was playing with the fantasy idea of compiling a linux lazarus app and compiling in on freedos with an desktop environment even if it is dos based like this msdos gui apps. That could be cool.