Microsoft (R) FORTRAN PowerStation Optimizing Compiler Version 1.0Ĭopyright (c) Microsoft Corp 1984-1993. Seeing that Visual C++ 1.0 just calls through I just made a ‘stub’ program to call link. On the Visual C++ 2.0 & 4.0 CD’s there is no link32.exe. Now on my Visual C++ 1.0 cd there is a link32.exe that just calls link.exe. Googling around, the issue lies with the linker, link32.exe. Or just run it in a MS-DOS/Windows 3.1 VM and be happy for emulation.īut I figured what the hell, perhaps it’s possible to replace some of the key parts with old versions of Visual C++ and use HX DOS as an extender instead of an ancient Phar Lap TNT. is impossible to find, or track down Compaq fortran, or even Intel fortran. Naturally the ‘fix’ is to upgrade to 4.0 which. Nothing like a ‘solution’ that took missing references into exe’s that just crash. Which sounds fun, except the resulting exe’s DONT WORK. It renamed the references to ntdll.dll into beta2.dll. I’m sure others may find themselves down the path with failed exe’s that crash with: So I loaded it up on a VM with Windows 3.1 and quickly found out why: While it produces win32 exe’s they are built with pre-release tools, and will *NOT* work under any released version of Windows NT, (Yes, including Windows NT 3.1!!). While going through my stuff, I did manage to find some diskettes for Microsoft FORTRAN PowerStation 1.0 … I recall using this under Windows 3.1 but there was some reason we never really used it under Windows 95 & NT ( Found it 9 years later!) … I think it’s an interesting example of how to use the ancient MS-DOS to bootstrap yourself into protected mode… And the source seem somewhat straight forward… The ‘best’ way to shut it down I’ve found is to type in ‘reboot’ then press escape like wild, and you’ll interrupt the boot loader. Then you can type in ‘exit’ and you’ll get dumped back into MS-DOS. Then you’ll get greeted by the boot loader. For me hitting any key doesn’t do anything, so I just press escape, then type in boot.Īnd in NO time you’ll be up and running MINIX! Start it up is simple you just run the boot program and point it to a diskfile: Installation is SUPER simply, just download the file DOSMINIX.ZIP unzip it somewhere then either use the great DOSBox, or any other pc emulation etc that you could want to use… The NTVDM from Windows NT is not good enough as you’ll get an error message about not being able to load the 386 kernel on an 8086. This again probably stems from dosminix not using DPMI calls, but the old fashioned raw XMS calls. Im just assuming that a proper disassembly can be done to work out the differences once the interpretor has been found because of an old message I have from Kirben.I was looking around for some old compilers as a side project of mine has stalled looking for some TS-11 Fortran compiler with overlays…Īnyways I found mention of this DOS-Minix. It does NOT comply with things like DPMI, VCPI as it will not run in nice things like emm386 & other v86 switchers. However it will run in DOSBox.ĭigging through the kernel & the boot program, you’ll find the basics of a DOS Extender. The boot program will allocate as much memory as it can from the XMS driver, and then switch to protected mode & transfer control to the kernel. Likewise the kernel then uses MS-DOS & BIOS calls for video, disk access etc as you can find it’s int86 calls that switch from protect to real mode, (doshead.s) or even in the disk driver dosfile.c Ive just done a quick test on the 'S' and the breakpoint halts the execution right after the run button has been pressed. Ive noticed that the PC engine loads a screen which asks the user to press run, I assume this is its OS, now when run is pressed the game is booted, would it be sensible to assume that a breakpoint could be set to acknowledge when the run button has been pressed? thus leading to the start location of the interpretor? or maybe a breakpoint on some of the characters(tiles) on Loom's difficulty selection screen? such as the first character printed 'S', Its easy enough to view the contents of the graphics memory at the time as well which conveniently gives addresses for the tiles. Now im just playing around with this, and dont really have a massive insight into what I should be doing but It seems to me that this debugger could be used to find the interpretor More interesting than my previous post Ive just found out about an emulator called Mednafen which contains support for PCE games, it runs loom with a few glitches, however it contains a debugger, with the ability to set breakpoints,
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