Hi again,
On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 4:13 PM, Rugxulo <rugx...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 12:06 PM, Martin T <m4rtn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> How compatible is FreeDOS with applications written to other DOS
>> operating systems(for example MS-DOS and Windows 95/98/ME, PC-DOS,
>> DR-DOS)? Are there any known specific utilities or more complex DOS
>> applications which do not work under FreeDOS? Or is FreeDOS fully
>> compatible with (all other) DOS variations?
>
> IIRC, we don't have an app compatibility database a la WINE, so it's
> hard to say. I'd blindly guess FreeDOS works with 90% of DOS software,
> but it's impossible to tell with thousands of apps, esp. since I
> obviously can't test them all.
Just for perspective ...
Many apps that used to run on Win16 or Win9x don't run anymore on
modern Windows. And obviously the reverse is true: most people don't
target older than Win2k anymore, if even. I think latest MSVC 2k10 or
whatever won't target older than XP SP3 [sic]. Also, I heard Vista
originally didn't itself run MSVC 2k5, but I don't know if they ever
fixed it. And of course Win7's optional XP Mode wouldn't be necessary
if there were no regressions (sad, really).
Linux (esp. Android) is also slightly problematic, but maybe moreso
due to drivers than otherwise. kernel.org shows ten (!) different
versions, though two are EOL'd, with oldest being 2.6.27.62 and newest
being 3.5-rc5. It's hard to get people to make drastic upgrades, esp.
without heavy testing.
Even Mac OS X isn't immune, and (IMO) is probably one of the worst
regarding broken compatibility. Latest versions (10.6 on up?) don't
support PPC, and I'm not sure 68k emulation works anymore either. Not
to mention that Chrome (web browser) is dropping 10.5 support soon,
maybe Firefox too. Annoying (to me personally, and I don't even have a
Mac).
So nothing's perfect. I imagine this is why source code portability
("standards") and things like Java / JVM are still popular.
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