Hi,
On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 11:14 AM Jim Hall via Freedos-user
<freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>
> On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 4:02 AM Sabina Zelená. <sabina.zel...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > If it is 32bit,since which version?
> >
> > Which is the last 16bit version & which is the 1st 32bit version?
> >
> > I do not c DOS4GW like extender in it...
I don't know what it uses offhand, but DOS4GW (and DOS32A) use LE
internal format for whatever reason. (LC is DOS32A's compressed
variation.)
> > & I wish to sort my SW collection properly,i have separate folders
> > Programs.D16 ,Programs.D32 ,Programs.W16 & Programs.W32
> > & I try to have programs sorted this way by architecture,it is also
> > relevant,when for example I am building a 286 system,in which
> > case it is good to have 16bit programs sorted away from 32bit
> > ones to avoid wasting storage with incompatible ones.
(N.B. The biggest waste of space is cluster slack, so, for example, I
don't recommend making your main FAT16 partition larger than 510 MB,
if possible.)
This is not a bad idea, but it's still imperfect, especially since
.EXEs can be "bound" to run in more than one mode (or even have
embedded stubs). So it's possible to have a 386 Win32 PE with an 8086
DOS MZ inside it where they will both be called as needed on their
respective OSes.
286 or 16-bit pmode (or DPMI) stuff is pretty rare, though (outside of
a few Borland Pascal programs, using NE format). Some people naively
(and incorrectly) call 186 code "286", too.
Keep in mind that you can also determine at runtime (CPUID) what cpu
and branch to alternate (faster??) code paths. So an .EXE can have
"optional" 386 (real mode!) code while still being 100% faithful to
8086.
> Correct, DOS Navigator 2 ("DN2") is a 32-bit DOS program. It uses
> DOS/32A as its extender.
Usually (but not always) a pmode .EXE uses a "stub" that calls an
external extender or DPMI host. Sometimes you can manually call a
different extender on the image itself, e.g. "cwstub myapp.exe arg1".
> I haven't followed the history of this app, but I think DN2 has always
> been 32-bit.
DOS Navigator 1.51 was compiled by Borland Pascal, so 16-bit. Then
they open-sourced it, so several people forked it to create their own
variations (e.g. NDN or DNOSP). NDN was for a while only using Virtual
Pascal, but I think some builds of it (Win64?) use FPC nowadays.
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