How do you get FreeBASIC for DOS on a real retro PC?

[keenmaster486]

Put it in a zip file and use one of the following:

FTP
CD-R
USB (look up DOS USB drivers, yes they exist)
If your DOS PC also has Windows 9x installed, you can log on to a Windows workgroup and access network shares

[exagonx]

Put it in a zip file and use one of the following:

FTP
CD-R
USB (look up DOS USB drivers, yes they exist)
If your DOS PC also has Windows 9x installed, you can log on to a Windows workgroup and access network shares

All of those are good I done in different way:

1) Burn in CDROM with PC CDROM Reader ,rewritable cdrom aree a good choice for upade

2) If you have a USB exist a driver can read the USB key for MSDOS ( available only from MMX system like Pentium and AMD K6 )

3) LapLink with Serial(COMx port) with a crossed cable using software like terminal(for Windows 3.x) or kermit for DOS ( the speed are to slow)

4) Network LAN with FTP Command line ( Sharing folder you can do it only with old os windows 2000 pro after Its not available sharing with old os)

5) If you have Floppy drive you can put it inside floppy with archiver like ZIP or RAR who can split the archive in multiple file .

6) USB IDE adapter and a old Hard disk drive where you can connect like secondary HDD and copy what you need.

I dont know what pc you have then Im not able to say what is the best way

[Dinosaur]

Hi All

Initially I got SD to IDE adapters made and used them on Industrial CPU boards as a HDD.
A few years later the boards came out with SD socket and I stopped using them.

However I still have a few adapters if you can't get them. (They will take forever to get to Germany from Australia these days).
Also have hundreds of .img files (backup copies of machines) that I write to the SD's on a Linux machine.

My last and only DOS pc is set up with the latest FB and boots of a SD card.
Also have many 48 bit 8255 / 8254 isa I/O boards (some with plugin chips , others with Xilinx FPGA emulation that are very fast).

Regards

[GeoffB17]

I'd not thought of doing this, as I've got a version of MS QuickBASIC on my old 'retro' PCs that works fine for me.

But, now the idea has been raised...

I've just checked, and I note that the d/l for FreeBASIC for DOS is 7.8 Mb, which is a bit much for floppy disks. The machine I could put FB onto does not have a CD ROM even.

However, I certainly HAVE used this machine (a pretty old 386sx full tower still running fine) with a parallel port ZIP drive, 100Mb disks, and I still have the drive that could be attached easily, just plug it in. Drivers already there (GUEST.EXE).

My main machine (connected to the web, for download) is an XP desktop, this has an IDE version of the ZIP drive, and this reads/writes the same 100Mb disks.

I might not bother though, prob easier to create/compile etc any prog I need on the XP machine, put the result (.EXE file) onto a floppy disk and transfer that to the 386. Save some messing about. I think that the 386 still has the heavy duty DMPI stuff on it that I needed way back for running my C7 compiler. QB didn't need that, but the FB could well?

I'll look further into this, might be worth doing.

Geoff

[Dinosaur]

Hi All

Just realised I misspelled.
The adapters are CF (Compact Flash) to IDE (40 way ribbon)

[rugxulo]

I've just checked, and I note that the d/l for FreeBASIC for DOS is 7.8 Mb, which is a bit much for floppy disks. The machine I could put FB onto does not have a CD ROM even.

I might not bother though, prob easier to create/compile etc any prog I need on the XP machine, put the result (.EXE file) onto a floppy disk and transfer that to the 386. Save some messing about.

I realize I'm years late, but ....

The latest FBC for DOS is an 8 MB .ZIP. Quite honestly, "a bit much" isn't true since that's only, what, 6 (1.44 MB 3.5") floppies? If you recompress it with "7z a -mx9" it's half that (4 MB), so only 3 floppies. Hardly burdensome. (There's a very small 7zdec.exe on FreeDOS' ibiblio mirror.)

However, 386 SX? IIRC, FreeBASIC doesn't come with the needed (WM)EMU387.DXE FPU emulation library. I forget exacty: "set 387=n" and "set EMU387=c:\mypath\wmemu387.dxe" or whatever. (WMEMU is more accurate than bog standard EMU387, IIRC.) FreeBASIC always assumes an FPU in the runtime of all compiled binaries. (You also need a DPMI host like CWSDPMI r7.)

But maybe it'll need to swap to hard disk (due to lack of RAM), so it might be too slow anyways.