OW 2.0

[T. Ment]

I've settled on DOS32A for a DOS extender. Since Watcom is the only
linker I know that creates compatible executable (os2 le), it would be
easiest to use the Watcom compiler too.

I tried Open Watcom v2.0 on win32, but it won't even remake the target
when told to. Ugh. Buggy.

What's the least buggy version of Watcom? I heard bad reports about Open
Watcom.

One link recommends Borland 4.5 with the Watcom linker. I guess I could
do that, but then everything doesn't integrate in either IDE. Have to go
command line instead.

http://qlibdos32.sourceforge.net/tutor/tutor-compile-link.php

[T. Ment]

Post by T. Ment
What's the least buggy version of Watcom?

The commerical 10.6 or 11.0B seem OK.

I like the debugger, it's better than I expected. The inline assembly
seemed strange at first, but I'm starting to like that too.

Here's one to clear a buffer (32 bit code only), optimized for speed.

void clear (char *, int);
# pragma aux clear = \
"mov ebx, ecx" \
"shr ecx, 2" \
"xor eax, eax" \
"cld" \
"rep stosd" \
"and ebx, 3" \
"jz done" \
"mov ecx, ebx" \
"rep stosb" \
"done:" \
parm [edi] [ecx] \
modify [ebx];

[Johann Klammer]

Post by T. Ment

Post by T. Ment
What's the least buggy version of Watcom?

The commerical 10.6 or 11.0B seem OK.

Here's the bugs I ran into:

I believe those versions had broken code browser and broken profiler.
(AFAIK those two were never fixed)
The dos version VIM had a tendency to crash.
The debugger aswell.
no Idea if that improved..
The compiler itself would do funny things when
assigning between signed/unsigned vars. I believe it was
not standards conformant. This prolly got fixed.. unsure.

Some of the early /open/watcom versions had compiler
crashes(ICE) for certain preprocessor constructs.
(I don't recall what exactly)
They fixed that.

[T. Ment]

Post by Johann Klammer
The compiler itself would do funny things when
assigning between signed/unsigned vars. I believe it was
not standards conformant. This prolly got fixed.. unsure.
C Fixed compiler so that expression
unsigned char uc;
int i;
i = !(unsigned char)uc;
is correct
======================

The 11.0c binary patch is here:

ftp://ftp.openwatcom.org/archive/11.0c/


And the full 11.0 and 11.0b are available at Winworldpc.

[Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson]

Post by T. Ment
What's the least buggy version of Watcom? I heard bad reports about Open
Watcom.

I have personally not run into bugs with the 1.9 release. It is still
my go-to version. But that doesn't mean there aren't bugs, of course.