Hi!

On 05/05/2013 08:16 AM, Rugxulo wrote:
> Yes, apparently you use SDL (1.2, I presume?) for "modern" platforms,
> so DOS is out. Though I halfway (naively) wonder why you didn't
> instead use Allegro 4.x or something that does work natively on DOS
> (and others).

You're right - I use SDL 1.2, and that's indeed the only reason why 
Atomiks won't compile on DJGPP. Why SDL? Dunno... It was probably the 
first one I tried, and noticed that cool kids in town are using it, so I 
though 'why not me'. Then, years passing made it difficult (due to 
laziness) to switch to something else.

> (BTW, just vaguely curious, why Linux IA-32 and x64 but only Win32 and
> no Win64? LLP64 incompatibility bite you? So much for portability!)

Here as well the reason is much more trivial than what you'd imagine :) 
I don't have any Windows PC, only an old virtual machine with Windows XP 
that I used for presentation needs in one of my past jobs. Now I use 
this virtual machine only 2 or 3 times a year, to compile stuff with 
mingw. This VM being 32 bit, I simply don't have the possibility to 
compile 64 bit code on it.

I guess Atomiks should compile just fine on a 64bit Windows, using the 
mingw64 suite.. but I've never had the occasion to try it, so I can't 
tell for sure (I don't see however why it would be subject to llp64 
problems).

> Honestly, I really wish there was SDL for DOS. They brag about so many
> supported OSes on their official site but have never had a DOS port at
> all.

I can't agree more. A DOS version of SDL would be amazing indeed. It 
would open a wide gate to porting so much software!
But doing a DOS version of SDL is a tremendous amount of work, so I 
don't really expect it to happen. On the other hand, a library that 
simulates SDL in its most basic functions (video init, drawing pixels on 
a mapped memory area, blitting sprites...) might be sufficient to port 
most SDL-based software.

> Yes, I've noticed you're in love with GPLv3 (such a long text!)

Love is maybe a big word for this :) It's a bit like for SDL.. I read 
the text of the GNU GPL v2 many years ago, and it sounded fair enough, 
so I used it since then in all my opensource projects without looking 
back. I honestly never read v3, just assumed (naively maybe) it's a 
'step up' of the v2.

> Though my
> perception of you, for whatever reason, was always of BASIC and
> Pascal, not C. I'm not sure why you prefer C these days, there are
> apparently SDL bindings to other languages. You're not wrong to use
> it, but I just find it oddly arbitrary how most people choose their
> programming languages / dialects.

In fact, I started with BASIC 15 years ago, because it was integrated 
into the ROM of an old Atari 800XL I was playing with, and later I had a 
QBASIC interpreter shipped with some MSDOS version (6.20, IIRC). Some 
time later I discovered FreeBASIC, and instantly switched to it, because 
there was no learning curve for me, and it allowed to create really nice 
and multiplatform stuff. But since I learned C for my actual job (~2 
years ago), it made more sense to just stick to it for everything. So 
yeah, I 'abandoned' FreeBASIC, although I still strongly believe it's an 
astonishing language & compiler.

> Yes, maybe I
> should've mentioned this before all my other ranting, but "it does
> work!" (at least through level one)!  (I just blindly did "set
> HDPMI=32" and "set DPMILDR=136" before "dpmild32 -g atomiks.exe" with
> DOSLFN loaded, IIRC.) No sound, of course, but even trying on Win64,
> it seems oddly silent. (Not that I mind, honestly.)

That's really cool! Although it sounds like some kind of emulation more 
than a natively running program, but it's still nice that FreeDOS allows 
to run some Windows apps these days, thanks to Japheth and his excellent 
HX extender :)

Some times ago I wondered about trying to port some stuff to DOS using 
HX. Then I figured that it would require to include some 
Microsoft-licensed bits along with programs, which would be a no go for 
any possible legal distribution.. But now that you mentioned ReactOS, 
the idea seems doable again, without getting in any legal troubles with 
MS! If memory serves me well, I believe there are even some tricks 
possible to compile 'native' HX binaries using DJGPP, though the whole 
thing is still unclear to me, and I got a bit confused the last time I 
tried to understand how it works exactly, and the 'MS will track you 
down' argument made me simply drop the whole thing. I will give it 
another try one of these days, using the ReactOS stuff.

About sound in Atomiks: there is none. I don't felt the need to do any 
sound in a logic game (personally I always prefer to have my own tunes 
playing in background anyway), and besides, the original Atomix didn't 
had any sound either (not the DOS version at least, which is the only 
one I ever knew, but I was told recently that the Amiga version had some 
sound effects).

cheers,
Mateusz

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