Watcom 1.9 for DOS

[T. Ment]

Until now I've avoided Watcom because of its large size, but now I need
some of its features so I installed it (Open Watcom 1.9 for DOS). Took
about 100 meg of space. It also required a mouse driver to get past the
license acceptance screen (on MS-DOS 6.22).

It uses DOS/4GW Protected Mode Run-time Version 1.97, (W) indicating the
Watcom limited version of DOS/4G

DOS/4G 2.60 is the latest full version I know of. Anyone using that with
Watcom?

[Sjouke Burry]

I use the one shown below.
The watcom one was limited, the one shown was 64MB
DOS32A.EXE (renamed to dos4gw.exe)
C:\01-sjouke\test>dos4gw
DOS/32A -- Protected Mode Run-time Version 7.2
Copyright (C) Supernar Systems, Ltd. 1996-2002

[Rod Pemberton]

On Sat, 16 Mar 2019 16:00:16 +0000
T. Ment <t.m...@protocol.invalid> wrote:

> Until now I've avoided Watcom because of its large size, but now I
> need some of its features so I installed it (Open Watcom 1.9 for
> DOS). Took about 100 meg of space. It also required a mouse driver to
> get past the license acceptance screen (on MS-DOS 6.22).

http://cutemouse.sourceforge.net/

> It uses DOS/4GW Protected Mode Run-time Version 1.97, (W) indicating
> the Watcom limited version of DOS/4G
>
> DOS/4G 2.60 is the latest full version I know of. Anyone using that
> with Watcom?
>

No.

I use whatever version of DOS/4GW that came with OpenWatcom version 1.3.

DOS/4GW doesn't seem to want to give up the version number. Perhaps,
1.95 or earlier? ...

You should be able to use DOS/4GW, PMODEW, and Causeway. DOS/4GW works
fine, but PMODEW works better.


Some years ago I looked for a DPMI host that would work in place of
DOS/4GW and CWSDPMI for both the OpenWatcom and DJGPP C compilers, but I
never found one. There are plenty of excellent DPMI hosts available,
but apparently, DOS/4GW includes a DOS extender as well. This means
that a pure DPMI host won't work for OpenWatcom. About the only
solution would be to combine PMODEDJ for DJGPP with PMODEW for
OpenWatcom. Unfortunately, the reason that CWSDPMI was created for
DJGPP was that PMODEDJ wasn't fully functional with DJGPP. Also, there
is no public source code for Watcom's modified version, i.e., PMODEW,
since a license was required, maybe still is or maybe not anymore.
Back when I checked about a decade ago, only the source code for Tran's
original PMODE and DJGPP's modified version, i.e., PMODEDJ, were
available. It's possible that could've changed by now.


Rod Pemberton
--
Apple opposes "glorifying violence" and "dehumanizing language". Yet,
it manufactures products in China which commits crimes against humanity.

[rug...@gmail.com]

Hi,

On Saturday, March 16, 2019 at 11:00:17 AM UTC-5, T. Ment wrote:
>
> Until now I've avoided Watcom because of its large size, but now I need
> some of its features so I installed it (Open Watcom 1.9 for DOS). Took
> about 100 meg of space. It also required a mouse driver to get past the
> license acceptance screen (on MS-DOS 6.22).

Years ago I made a small "DOS only" (but full) .7z archive for FreeDOS that included everything from OW 1.9. It was like 7 MB packed and only 45 MB unpacked (not counting filesystem cluster waste). You could use the small 7zdec.exe to unpack it. Granted, it has a lot of fluff (help files, C++), so if you don't need all of that, a fresh install is probably better.

* http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/c/openwatcom/1.9/open-watcom-c-dos-1.9.7z

* http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/7zdec.html

Just FYI.

[rug...@gmail.com]

Hi,

On Sunday, March 17, 2019 at 8:46:49 AM UTC-5, Rod Pemberton wrote:
>
> You should be able to use DOS/4GW, PMODEW, and Causeway. DOS/4GW works
> fine, but PMODEW works better.

Causeway has full sources, is p.d., supports SSE, and swapping (but only "full" amount, not partial only if needed like CWSDPMI). But it's a little bigger than PMODE/W. I wouldn't say PMODE/W works "better", but it's small. But it's also limited to only 64 MB (IIRC) unlike Causeway. UHarc (2005?) used it, for instance.

> This means that a pure DPMI host won't work for OpenWatcom.

OpenWatcom relies on the "extender" to do extra stuff. Also, they use LE format instead of COFF.

> Also, there is no public source code for Watcom's modified version,
> i.e., PMODEW, since a license was required, maybe still is or maybe
> not anymore.

PMODE/W used to be non-commercial only, but they relaxed that rule in recent years. Still no sources available, though.

I think the DOSBox devs always recommended DOS/32A for old games that
didn't work well with DOS/4GW. (But it has its own quirks regarding
DPMI availability, I forget offhand, not that I ever knew much ....)

There's also WDOSX, which supports DJGPP and OpenWatcom binaries.
Oh, and D3X (non-commercial only, meh, but it rebuilds with NASM).

[T. Ment]

On Mon, 18 Mar 2019 00:34:06 -0700 (PDT), rug...@gmail.com wrote:

> I think the DOSBox devs always recommended DOS/32A for old games that
> didn't work well with DOS/4GW.

DOS/32A claims to be a drop in replacement for DOS/4G or (W)


> DOS/32 Advanced DOS Extender - General Information
> 1.0 - DOS/32 Advanced - About
> Compatibility with "Clean" (also known as "Raw" or INT 15h), XMS, VCPI
> and DPMI system softwares allows DOS/32 Advanced DOS Extender to run on
> different machines with various operating systems installed

Clean or XMS sounds easy enough.

> But it has its own quirks regarding DPMI availability

You mean an external DPMI host? DOS/32A says it has a built in DPMI host
if one is not present.


> FAQ Answer #7:
> Yes. DOS/32 Advanced built-in DPMI server

[T. Ment]

On Sun, 17 Mar 2019 09:49:24 -0400, Rod Pemberton wrote:

>Also, there
>is no public source code for Watcom's modified version, i.e., PMODEW,
>since a license was required, maybe still is or maybe not anymore.
>Back when I checked about a decade ago, only the source code for Tran's
>original PMODE and DJGPP's modified version, i.e., PMODEDJ, were
>available. It's possible that could've changed by now.

I found this:

> http://www.sid6581.net/pmodew/

> Last updated Wednesday, September 19, 2018