[fpc-pascal] MS DOS 8086 compiler?

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Bart wrote:
> On 4/27/13, Reinier Olislagers <reinierolislagers at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Noticed that an 8086 branch was merged to fpc trunk. Is it time to get
>> out some 5.25" diskettes[1]?
>>
>> [1] Shame I dumped all the accompanying hardware long ago ;) Perhaps
>> break out DOSBOX ;)
> 
> I still have a portable (ahum, > 5 kg) IBM XT with 5.25" floppy disk.
> HD is appr. 10 MB (decaying...)
> Problem of course wil be to get the compiler on the floppy disks, and
> then hope my HD is large enough.
> 
> (It cost about 10,000 Dfl (appr 4,500 € / $ 5000) at the time of purgase.)

I've definitely got at least one system around older than a '386, but if 
it really is supposed to be an 8086 target it would have to be tested on 
an 8086/8088 because of extra opcodes that were added to the 186/286. I 
think I've got a system with 8086 or possibly V20, but it's non-PC and I 
don't know where its copy of DOS is (it usually ran CCP/M).

I don't know how reliable a test something like Dosbox or Bochs would 
be, some of them vitualise the underlying hardware while others are 
sloppy about what opcodes they actually implement.

So in practical terms, a strict 8086 port is probably untestable. But 
why would anybody want to when even embedded processors are based on a 
newer architecture?

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]