open-watcom-v2

Well, if you're fine with not being up to date in terms of C++ standards there is also the OpenWatcom C/C++ compiler[0]. Jiří Malák (the main v2 dev) is doing a herculean job maintaining and improving it. [0] https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2

I guess it made a lot of sense to implement compilers in 32-bit protected mode to get more space to work with easier? Free Pascal's compiler also requires 32-bit even if it can generate 16-bit DOS code as well (at least when cross-compiling from some other OS; I have not tried to cross-compile from DOS 32-bit compiler to DOS 16-bit executable). Some people (and by that I mean Debian people; not sure about anyone else) disagree about OpenWatcom being free software. The license has some unusual requirement(s). There has been talk for a long time about possibly fixing that, but I do not know how on track that is (or how much it matters, in practice): https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2/discussions/27...

There is still some controversy around the OpenWatcom license, preventing it from being included in Debian and possibly other places. https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2/discussions/27...

I have 3 envs on my Windows work laptop 1. PellesC => small C+win32 hobby 2. Msys2+mingw64 => main env for rust too 3. Clang-LLVM + Windows SDK + Cmake + jom (and Windows CRT from C3 install) => Works fine https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/releases/download/llvmo... (I use 3 for D too) 4. I would like to add to your guide compiling with OpenWatcom V2 (https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2) 5. Cygwin they have latest GCC 15 in testing 6. Winlibs or equation.com mingw distros

I do some light hacking in iDOS for fun as well. Might as well go straight to Borland C++ 3.1 [0] (the "professional" version) over Turbo C++ these days. When you eventually hit the Great Wall of 16-bit real mode, I recommend switching to OpenWatcom [1], aka "the compiler that built Doom," which comes with something closer (relatively speaking) to a modern toolchain. DJGPP [2] has been recommended as well, although I found it more trouble to set up. [0] https://winworldpc.com/product/borland-c/30 [1] https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2 [2] https://www.delorie.com/djgpp/

You may want give OpenWatcom a try. Some folks are still working on it. https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2 In terms of ISO-complianceness, perhaps don't expect much. It basically C89 (the C99 support is still incomplete), and for C++... most likely not even C++98 - compliant.

> You will also want to start with a 16-bit C compiler like Borland Turbo C or Microsoft C The parent post mentioned they're going to use OpenWatcom which is an actively developed[0] C and C++ compiler that targets 16bit DOS (among others). [0] https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2

I should note, that OpenWatcom 2.0[1] is far better for supporting more recent C and C++ code, modern hosts and tooling, but still able to compile into 16 bit code. It is also actively maintained. Instead of MASM I recommend JWasm[2] + Jwlink[3]. Back in time I did a fork[4] of JWasm that has cleaner build system (CMake). [1] https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2 [2] https://github.com/Baron-von-Riedesel/JWasm [3] https://github.com/JWasm/JWlink [4] https://github.com/JWasm/JWasm

OpenWatcom is under a license that isn't considered free enough under the FSD/OSD/DFSG. https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2/blob/master/li...

The most recent commit for OpenWatcom, which is what I originally asked about, was 4 hours ago[1] at time of writing. [1]: https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2/commit/ac10ed3... (FWIW: I'm in agreement with you that DMC++ is likely superior, I'm more curious about what OpenWatcom's deficiencies in relation to it are, and I reckon there are probably only a few people as familiar and qualified than yourself to comment)

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 should also support 8086.

> I would like something that works uniformly across Windows, Linux desktop (such as XFCE, GNOME, KDE), and macOS. Löve [0] has a great approach to cross-platform deployment [1]. It's not exactly constrained when you compare it to QBasic, but of course using only a subset of its modules is no problem :) Of course the closest equivalent is … DosBox! Runs on basically every system, does graphics and sound and not much else :) Btw., Watcom in Open Source now [2]. IIRC Retro City Rampage 486 was made with that. [0] https://love2d.org/ [1] https://love2d.org/wiki/Game_Distribution [2] https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2

You could also use OpenWatcom, I think. https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2

Check Open Watcom v2[1], which is still actively developed. Also the JWasm[2] - FOSS alternative to MASM. [1] https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2 [2] https://GitHub.com/JWasm/JWasm

I had an issue about the problems: https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2/issues/271