i want to work on my DOS thing more but i don't want to type code in through dosbox but vscode c++ intellisense is too new to work with the borland headers and therefore just redsquiggles all of my code
i'm sure there's better ways to develop for DOS with modern tools and forego borland turbo c++ entirely but also i want to use it because it's easier to find period documentation for it
ohhhh there's a GCC fork that can produce IA-16 binaries.... 👀 👀 👀 https://github.com/tkchia/build-ia16/releases
@mavica_again For my own recent DOS work, I've used OpenWatcom. The Windows IDE is really old but it's 32-bit and can run on a modern desktop. That way I can work and compile in Windows, and then test with DOSBox/PCem.
I tried a few times but I could never get DJGPP to work with DOSBox.
@rainwarrior does openwatcom produce IA-16 binaries? the goal here is that i can support XT-class machines, which is why i'm straying away from modern DJGPP toolchains
@mavica_again I don't know the term IA-16 very well... looking up it seems to be a modern name for the old 16-bit intel processors?
It definitely can target 16-bit x86 CPUs. It has DOS, Windows, and OS/2 16-bit targets options.
There's some other compiler settings about code generation for specific CPU variations (e.g. if you wanna target 286 + math coprocessor it can do that).
@rainwarrior yeah basically 8088
djgpp can only do 32-bit protected mode so it can only make binaries that run on 386 and up, and i would like to target older machines than that so it's not a viable option
i might look into it but for now i think turbo C++ is going to work for me
@mavica_again Yeah it definitely has a compiler option for 8086 (/0). I presume that should also work for 8088.
BTW one of the things I like about OpenWatcom is it has some pretty extensive Windows CHM file documentation. Basically everything it had when it used to be a commercial compiler, before it became "open", is still there.
@mavica_again Though, I mostly used the IDE for changing compiler settings, or diagnosing build errors. Most of the code editing I did with something external. (Probably Notepad++... I still don't quite have the hang of VSCode.) The Watcom editor works but it's old.
Could also just use it command-line if wanted. (Though it also comes with a DOS compiler which you could use in the same way.)
another reason why i don't want to use modern tools is that, say, the easy path of using DJGPP with GDB et al which you can already get an extension for is that DJGPP requires 386SX minimum because it doesn't make true DOS executables, but rather 32-bit protected mode binaries and i want to support XT-class machines