http://www.os2museum.com/wp/pc-mos386-source-code/
I missed this when it was initially announced. The source code for PC-MOS/386 version 5.01 is now available on github under the GPLv3 license. It requires the user to supply Borland C++ 3.1 in order to build, but there are binaries checked in as well, including a bootable floppy image.
PC-MOS is a multi-tasking/multi-user DOS clone. It was one of the first commercial products which used the 386's virtual-8086 mode when it was released in early 1987 (but not the first, that was almost certainly CEMM in 1986).
Are there any [gray|grey|white]-beards here who remember using this old version? What is the oldest version you used?
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday October 07 2022, @07:05PM (7 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Friday October 07 2022, @07:34PM (5 children)
Yeah, I probably do too. I got into "Turbo C" because I could afford it, and somehow got Borland 3.1 (probably at a job) then 4.5 (and Watcom and gcc and MS and OS/2...). I should have copies on floppies and some older CDs and hard disks (not sure if they'll still read though...)
Regardless of the compiler used, I love the IDE / 3.1 editor- really good syntax highlighting, really good contextual help and code examples.
BTW, I discovered a serious bug in the 3.1 compiler. I was writing some "background" network communication modules to be added into someone else's project. The idea was to grab data and send it through network to be viewed on another computer. It all worked, but the main project's programmer complained of glitches in the data with my module linked in.
This was in the days of 16 and 32-bit stuff (mid 90s). Main code was all 32-bit, doing math on the data and displaying it in live real-time graphs. I knew that and made sure to use the 32-bit compiler directive and 32-bit variables.
So I looked at the .asm compiler output and saw the problem. Compiler was pushing AX (etc.), _not_ EAX (etc.). Disappointed. I forget what I did to fix it. Maybe fixed the .asm, or maybe used the MS compiler / linker. And maybe Borland 4.5 had fixed it. I don't think I used Watcom on that stuff. Fun times!
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Saturday October 08 2022, @12:17AM (4 children)
Likely not fixed. I used Borland C++ 4.5, and it had some really bad bugs. Basically, you couldn't have more than 64k of data. With more than 64k, the compiler screwed up the segmented memory, and would assign different variables to the same location. They should have been in different segments, but, they weren't.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday October 08 2022, @01:59AM (3 children)
Yikes! Sad, really. They had a lot of good things going. Again, I mostly used it for the IDE.
I guess some people had difficulty with segment math. It never bothered me, but it is pretty easy to have overlapping segment ranges.
I always thought the OS should handle more of that stuff. I'm not an OS / data scientist, so I'm not sure how it's done in all cases, including x86 in full VM mode. My concept would be that userland can't mess with segment registers- only request memory and get a pointer, which could be segment:offset. Only ring 0 OS messes with segment registers (and the rule is we don't write protected-mode stuff with Borland.)
Any experience with the Watcom compiler?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday October 08 2022, @02:21AM (2 children)
You've made my brain hurt. :)
Have you looked at OpenWatcom?
[I R not a coder, just an interested bystander.]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Saturday October 08 2022, @03:59AM (1 child)
Sorry to be a pain in the brain! Oh, what, that hurts too? Sorry sorry.
I've heard of Open Watcom but never tried it. Haven't been writing much C/asm code lately, but hoping to at some point. Watcom was used to write .nlm modules for Novell Netware servers. I didn't do as much as I had planned at the time. Typical poorly managed company.
I don't remember a lot about Watcom, but I still have the books, and code, somewhere... I figured it had to be pretty good if the Novell people chose it for SDK. Thanks for the reminder- I might see what kind of trouble I can get into with it. I like its cross-platform capability. I wonder how it would do compiling a Linux kernel rather than gcc... Someday I might try it, when I get some time. (Compiling the kernel is pretty easy. Configuring it first is not.)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Saturday October 08 2022, @04:43AM
From an observer's standpoint, I always liked Watcom... back in its day, it seemed to make relatively stable programs.
There was one guy who pretty much saved Watcom from the final bit bucket when the product line was killed... wonder what became of him? (Couldn't remember his name when I was talking to him, let alone now.)
I don't know gcc, but I've been exposed to djgpp... please, let's use anything else... compiling the kernel in OpenWatcom is an interesting notion!! Let us know how it works. :D
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: -1, Spam) by aristarchus 2 on Saturday October 08 2022, @02:45AM
Too bad you lost the floppies within your massive collection of illegal porn, you creep.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2022, @07:43PM
When I wasn't on a VAX, I was using whatever that model of Macintosh was in the mid-80s.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday October 07 2022, @08:29PM
Though I must admit seeing ~140 commits from 2017 to 2020 is pretty interesting.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Informative) by drussell on Saturday October 08 2022, @12:48AM (1 child)
I never used PC-MOS, but it probably would have been a good candidate to run my BBS on to have 2 or more lines on the one PC. I still have disk and box for DoubleDos which I used on the 286 so the BBS could run in the "background" while still doing other maintenance things or load WordPerfect or whatever on the second console and even had it set up to be able to run a second line of the BBS when the aux console wasn't being used for maintenance or other local use.
By the time 386es became affordable you could run multiple DOS programs beside each other even in Windows/386. (For you younglings, that was a variant of Windows 2.1 with some enhancements to run on the 386 whereas regular windows 2.01 and windows 2.1 and 2.11 were Windows/286. It had some enhancements like being able to use multiple DOS command prompts in parallel using Virtual86 mode on the 386 whereas Windows/286 could not.)
I tried booting a 5ΒΌ" install floppy of Windows/286 2.11 on an AMD 486DX4/120 recently and it just blue screens... The boot floppy won't even boot, the 486 is too new and omits something that must be necessary. Does Windows/286 run the 80286 in protected mode? I can't remember... I think perhaps the Microsoft Xenix for 386 probably ran in protected mode, but did Windows/286, maybe it did also?
Geez, it's been too long since I knew all this stuff off the top of my head 🤔 hmmm...
(Score: 4, Informative) by SomeGuy on Saturday October 08 2022, @02:08AM
Windows 2.1 "286" was just a simple renaming of regular "Windows 2.0", in theory to cause less confusion with Windows 2.x/386 (which BTW had 2.01, 2.03, 2.1, and 2.11 versions). Windows 2.1 "286" ran in regular 8088 real mode, with the only difference from 2.0x being the addition of himem.sys and a slight hack to use some of the 64k HMA area - which you will already be using under DOS 5 or later.
Even though Windows 2.x/386 ran in protected mode, it basically just took the real mode Windows session and stuffed in a VDM. This let it emulate EMS for applications that used it, and DOS sessions could actually multi task in their own VDMs. Other than that, very little advantage. It didn't otherwise let Windows applications use more memory like Windows 3.0 did.
If Windows 2 crashes at startup under DOS 5.0 or later, then SETVER.EXE is probably not loaded and reporting as DOS 3.X to WIN200.BIN. Windows 2.x 386 has some other hoops you may have to jump through, but I can't remember what they were, perhaps using an older HIMEM.SYS or not letting DOS use HMA. As always, make sure FILES= is set to a good value in the config.sys.
Anyway, BBSes I worked with back then ether used DeskView 386 or later OS/2 2.x. Desqview seemed very popular.
(Score: -1, Spam) by aristarchus 2 on Saturday October 08 2022, @03:13AM
It is official; Netcraft now confirms: SN is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered SN community when IDC confirmed that SN posting has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of Slashdot. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that SN has lost more users, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. SN is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in a recent survey of news aggregators.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict SN's future. The hand writing is on the wall: SN faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for SN because SN is dying. Things are looking very bad for SN. As many of us are already aware, SN continues to lose users and subscribers. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
SN is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its users. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time SN admins c0lo and The Mighty Buzzard only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: SN is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Slashdot leader whipslash states that there are 7000 users of Slashdot. How many users of Pipedot are there? Let's see. The number of Slashdot versus Pipedot posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Pipedot users. SN posts on Usenet are about one hundredth of the volume of Pipedot posts. Therefore there are about 14 users of SN. A recent article put Hacker News at about 80 percent of the news aggregator market. Therefore there are (7000+1400)*4 = 33600 Hacker News users. This is consistent with the number of Hacker News Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of NCommander, abysmal management and so on, SN was taken over by martyb who is another troubled admin. Now martyb is also gone, and SN's corpse was turned over to Janrinok the Censor.
All major surveys show that SN has steadily declined in users and comments. SN is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If SN is to survive at all it will be among gun nuts like Runaway and khallow. SN continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save SN from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, SN is dead.
Fact: SN is dying