4 ms·

I programmed in Delphi for 8 years, then I switched to FreePascal. Yes, the grass is greener on the other side, and it's also free.

non-entity 7y ago
Going to start a project in in FreePascal soon because it seems to be the only [not abandonware] compiler for a high level language that still supports targeting 8086.
- kragen 7y ago
  Huh, I'm surprised to find that you're right, unless you count NASM. Randall Hyde last updated HLA in 2015 (and it didn't support the 8086 anyway), WalterBright last updated DMC in 2013, and SDCC doesn't support the 8086. But I remember the 8086 as being a lot of needless effort that we had to cope with because it had a large installed base: near, far, and huge pointers, EMS bank switching, shitty TSRs that would stomp your registers, and so on. MS-DOS made it worse. What are you up to? Something like https://trixter.oldskool.org/2015/04/07/8088-mph-we-break-all-your-emulators/ https://trixter.oldskool.org/2015/04/07/8088-mph-we-break-al... where the needless effort is the whole point?
  - non-entity 7y ago
    Yep, my goal is to write a kernel for an old IBM 5155 I picked up a while back. Mostly for fun
    - kragen 7y ago
      Are you familiar with Project Oberon and Liedtke's Eumel?
      - non-entity 7y ago
        I'm superficially familiar with Project Oberon, but have not heard of the latter.
        kragen 7y ago
        What do you think of them?
- my123 7y ago
  GCC is a good choice too for those still. Also, you can get a version with support even from Mentor at https://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/sourcery-tools/sourcery-codebench/editions/lite-edition/ https://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/sourcery-tools/sour... Look at the: > These releases provide cutting edge support for 8088, 8086, 80186 and 80286 processors from the year 1984. section.
  - non-entity 7y ago
    Oh I did find this one, albeit I couldnt find much information regarding ot outside of a short reddit thread. Sadly it looks like support expires this year (although I'm sure it will still be stable enough to use in most cases)
    - my123 7y ago
      The included documentation PDFs on the site were quite useful tbh.
- badsectoracula 7y ago
  FWIW OpenWatcom v2 (a fork by one of the original developers who, at least according to the perforce logs, was the most active pre-fork anyway) https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2 https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2 should also support 8086.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

non-entity 7y ago

Going to start a project in in FreePascal soon because it seems to be the only [not abandonware] compiler for a high level language that still supports targeting 8086.

kragen 7y ago
Huh, I'm surprised to find that you're right, unless you count NASM. Randall Hyde last updated HLA in 2015 (and it didn't support the 8086 anyway), WalterBright last updated DMC in 2013, and SDCC doesn't support the 8086. But I remember the 8086 as being a lot of needless effort that we had to cope with because it had a large installed base: near, far, and huge pointers, EMS bank switching, shitty TSRs that would stomp your registers, and so on. MS-DOS made it worse. What are you up to? Something like https://trixter.oldskool.org/2015/04/07/8088-mph-we-break-all-your-emulators/ https://trixter.oldskool.org/2015/04/07/8088-mph-we-break-al... where the needless effort is the whole point?
- non-entity 7y ago
  Yep, my goal is to write a kernel for an old IBM 5155 I picked up a while back. Mostly for fun
  - kragen 7y ago
    Are you familiar with Project Oberon and Liedtke's Eumel?
    - non-entity 7y ago
      I'm superficially familiar with Project Oberon, but have not heard of the latter.
      - kragen 7y ago
        What do you think of them?
my123 7y ago
GCC is a good choice too for those still. Also, you can get a version with support even from Mentor at https://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/sourcery-tools/sourcery-codebench/editions/lite-edition/ https://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/sourcery-tools/sour... Look at the: > These releases provide cutting edge support for 8088, 8086, 80186 and 80286 processors from the year 1984. section.
- non-entity 7y ago
  Oh I did find this one, albeit I couldnt find much information regarding ot outside of a short reddit thread. Sadly it looks like support expires this year (although I'm sure it will still be stable enough to use in most cases)
  - my123 7y ago
    The included documentation PDFs on the site were quite useful tbh.
badsectoracula 7y ago
FWIW OpenWatcom v2 (a fork by one of the original developers who, at least according to the perforce logs, was the most active pre-fork anyway) https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2 https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2 should also support 8086.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]