Just tried compiling Wari, a game written in #Psion OO C. The project uses #Borland Make 3.6.
Got it to compile first time with my SIBO SDK setup - all good!
However... Borland Make uses 16-bit DPMI, and its extender won't load 32-bit DPMI binaries. If I pre-load the 32-bit extender, it won't load 16-bit DPMI binaries, so Make won't run!
TL;DR: I can't use the new #ctran with Borland Make 3.6.
Looks like I'll be converting that Makefile to GNU Make or a #TopSpeed project.
Why can't I recompile #ctran for 16-bit #DOS? Because many of #FreePascal's libraries are too big to fit into 64 KiB data blocks, and won't compile no matter which memory model I use.
There is a chance I'll rewrite ctran in the future. #FreeVision (the #Borland#TurboVision "clone") with #ObjectPascal is certainly an option. I could also rewrite the lot in C or C++.
But today is not that day. For now, I'd rather just rewrite a Makefile.
All Unix & Linux packagers of @DOSBox_Staging 0.81 do pay attention that zlib-ng is configured properly at build time so that the binary package only requires SSSE3 feature level on the CPU:
We finished Bureau 13! The most anti-climatic ending I've seen so far. But, oh well. It was a cool game. Lots of replay-ability in it, as you can choose different character combinations. We slayed demons, removed chips off of people's necks, and killed a virtual reality AI monster. Our 13th game completed live! Farewell Bureau 13!
this may not impact a whole lot of people, but if you're a macOS and Boxer (dosbox for mac) user, this may be worthwhile:
a few years ago when the original Boxer developer (alun bestor) halted work on the project, there was a subtle but very painful bug left in the project: Boxer would store all savegames and file changes to ~/Library/Application Support/Boxer/Game States/. Not only does this bloat up your user folder over time, but it also means that your savegame (and config data, characters, anything that changes game files, etc) are no longer stored in the game box. So, if you copy the game box to another computer, your savegames aren't included.
I submitted a patch to the current Boxer maintainer (maddthesane), but who knows if this will ever get approved. in the mean time, i've compiled a new version of Boxer with the gamestate patch applied. it is compiled for Intel 64-bit, ARM64/Silicon support on macOS 10.14 and newer. feel free to download here:
@sub_ Yep, I'm using #Exult. I find it easier than regular #DOSBox. I used the files installed by GOG for Exult Linux. And true, I like the QoL features they added!
Update: Grug is dead. When I'm playing Nethack, sometimes I like to do random weird things to see what they do. Ran across this crazy shop with all this wild stuff and I just decided to attack the shopkeeper. Why not? He killed me with a magic missile, of course, but I dug this list of creatures I vanquished.
Extremely annoying: The #DOSBox-X package in #vcpkg has been broken for a while, and someone suggested a fix in the #GitHub issue - but it's been ignored by moderators, so I keep getting blasted with threats from bots who desperately want to close it.
Two can play at this game: In retaliation for this user-hostile passive aggressive behavior, I'm starting to tag other reviewers to see if I can get them to actually pay some attention to it.
dosbox-staging Release 0.81.0 (github.com)
DOSBox Staging is a modern continuation of DOSBox with advanced features and current development practices....