Monthly Archives: July 2016

EMX GCC 2.5.8 for Windows

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Continuing in my quest of useless stuff, here is GCC 2.5.8 for EMX as a native Win32 executable set.

With some weirdness of inline not being recognized, I just commented that out.  The GCC driver program does have some issues though, and Im just not in the mood to fully figure out why either the EMX or MS-DOS versions can’t correctly  capture return codes, or if it was better to just use -pipe and _pipe with _O_TEXT mode set, but again how to figure out if the pipe closed cleanly or with errors?  So for now it’ll always assume everything worked, but it will still print errors.  Sigh.

With that said, the CC1, CC1OBJ, CC1PLUS drivers all built, so you can use C, ObjectiveC, and C++. yay.

The functional version of this is EMX 0.8H, with the gcc 2.5.8 update.  Maybe I’ll put this all on sourceforge so people don’t have to deal with my crappy download system, but for now it’s on my site.

Here is my build, along with binaries:

emx_gcc_258_phase1_xgcc_cccp_cc1_cc1obj_cc1plus.7z

And the un touched source code, as provided in the 0.8H update

emx_gcc_258_virgin.7z

I’ve only tested it with MS-DOS, and PDOS.  I’m also using the ancient binutils from my GCC 1.40 on Windows experiment.

MS-DOS player can now embed executables

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So what this means is that now you can make fully standalone Win32/Win64 executables out of CLI based MS-DOS applications.

D:\tcc>msdos\binary\i486_x64\msdos.exe tcc -Iinclude -Llib hi.c
Turbo C++ Version 3.00 Copyright (c) 1992 Borland International
hi.c:
Turbo Link Version 5.0 Copyright (c) 1992 Borland International

Available memory 4215648

D:\tcc>c:msdos\binary\i486_x64\msdos.exe hi
hi!

D:\tcc>c:msdos\binary\i486_x64\msdos.exe -c hi.exe
‘new_exec_file.exe’ is successfully created

D:\tcc>new_exec_file.exe
hi!

Isn’t that great?

I’ve had one issue with Turbo C++ 3.00 and that is the embedded executable will run out of memory while linking, but invoking it by calling msdos.exe let’s it run fine. If you compile and link separately it’ll run just fine.

As always you can find the project page here:

http://takeda-toshiya.my.coocan.jp/msdos/index.html

 

 

 

URL shortners & short domains

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I needed to get some business cards, and the usual thing is to use QR codes that have a tiny URL name, that then redirect to your real web site.  Easy, right?

Well, most people use ‘public’ servers like bit.ly & friends.  In china many people I do business with use 1688.com .  But this got me thinking, 1688 is a FOUR-letter domain, unlike any of the three letter ones that seem to be more common. Â I know all the one, two and three letter domains are all gone, but are there any four-letter domains?

Turns, out YES there are.

I used this site:

Domain Name Soup .com

And I was able to hammer though their UI, and find one, and register it with my usual registrar.

*This isn’t an AD, I’m not being paid to say any of this.  I was more so surprised that I could not only find a four letter domain, but it’s the initials of my wife’s business.

The best part is that I could use YOURLS, a free PHP+Mysql app to quickly and easily manage the redirects.

Moving hosts again!

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Well, ChicagoVPS was bought out, and then they kind of downgraded me from a Xeon to an Atom.. And now they are creeping up the rates.  So I saw a special on lowendbox.com for Joe’s Datacentre.  I’ll be moving onto a dual proc Xeon L5420 CPU. Â Maybe not the highest end of boxes, but better than some atom.

I don’t think it’ll mean anything for anyone, other than a blip of an outage when I shut down KVM, and transfer over the blog VM, and update DNS.

I’ve already moved over my BBS and it’s running just fine.  Not that it matters but I moved out the ‘vpsland‘ share to another low end cheapo dedicated box at Joe’s for well over a month now, making my decision to move justified.

The new hosting is in Kansas City MO, which is still geographically central in the United States of America. Id love to host it in Hong Kong, but I’ve only received absolutely insane prices out here.  And even though I do have a commercial grade internet connection, getting more IP addresses has been an impossibility.

Oh well, it’s just me rambling.

CDC 1700 emulator added to SIMH

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For those of us, who have never heard of the CD 1700, there is a brief page on wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_1700

And from the announcement on the SIMH mailing list:

For the past couple of years or so, I have been working on a SIMH-based
simulator for the CDC1700 series, a 16-bit system from the mid-1960’s, using
the documentation and software available at bitsavers. It has now sufficiently
stable to allow others to make use ot the software. The base system implements:

  • a 1714 CPU with:
    • 1705 multi-level interrupts and direct storage access bus
    • up to 32KW of memory
    • memory protect system
    • Optional 64KW support
  • 1711-A teletypewriter
  • 1721-A paper tape reader
  • 1723-A paper tape punch
  • 1740 or 1742-30 line printer
  • 1738-B disk pack controller with up to 2 disk packs:
    (853 disk pack – 1.5MW)
    (854 disk pack – 3.0MW)
  • 1733-2 cartridge disk controller with up to 4 drives:
    Each drive has 1 fixed disk and 1 removeable disk:
    (856-2 CDD – 1.13MW per disk)
    (856-4 CDD – 2.25MW per disk)
  • 1732-A or 1732-3 magtape controller with 4 transports

The simulator is able to boot the diagnostic tape (SYSTEM17_SMM_DIAGS.TAP at
bitsavers.org) and successfully execute tests for each of the above
components. Some test sections fail due to various reasons; lack of
documentation, timing issues, feature not implemented etc.

The simulator is also able to boot and install MSOS 5 from an installation
tape (MSOS5_SL136.tap at bitsavers.org) onto a 1733-2 cartridge drive. This
is a copy of a distribution tape provided by CDC to run on a 64KW system at
Exxon.

I would like to thank Doug Gwyn for answering questions about the system
architecture and providing details about specific diagnostics tests and
Al Kossow for for peripheral documentation so that I could get MSOS 5
installed.

Spent some more time messing with NetHack 1.3d revived

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1.3d revived and reloaded

1.3d revived and reloaded

And now it runs on Windows 10 (probably lots of Windows NT as well) thanks to EMX+RSXNT.

I put a Windows binary build on sourceforge, with the needed termcap and rsxnt.dll to run.  It works best if installed into the root of a drive, but it doesn’t matter which drive letter (I suppose you could even use subst).  I was patching around the stock NetHack 1.3d, but considering the weird issues I was having with it ‘mostly’ working, it was easier to just lean on the NetHack 1.3d revived project.  I should also say this is what I also used to get NetHack 1.3d running on the x68000.

I’ve been able to save, restore and go up, down and even die without it crashing so it seems OK to me.

It’s kind of cool to build it with GCC 1.40 on Windows 10, and get a native executable.  Maybe pointless in the golden age of emulation / virtualization as you could just as easily build stock 1.3d on a 4.2 BSD VAX, or even 386BSD 0.1 system.

Maybe I’ll finish the work to see if I can get it running on OS/2 or MS-DOS via EMX, but for now the project stuff is on sourceforge.net

Nintendo Classic Mini

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11/11/2016

11/11/2016

Just saw mention of this, the Nintendo Classic Mini

It includes a USB controller, HDMI, and you have to bring your own USB +5v power supply. It’ll come with 30 pack in games, but no mention of any additional games.

The only thing that stuck out to me is that Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!,  is reverted back to the original Japanese Mr Dream.  Kind of lame, but I guess that is licensing for you.

There is more information at the Nintendo page, with a shipping date of November 11th, 2016 for the UK.

Microsoft starting to reduce One Drive storage

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5GB..?

5GB..?

I suppose I should have managed it better.  I don’t even know what is there, but I shelled out the $18 HKD to at least keep it for now.

I know Microsoft has long dreamed of being SaaS, instead of being a traditional software vendor.  Is there hope for buy it and own it software as we approach 2020’s?

Either way, if you have onedrive, migrate, fix it, or pay for it.