[fpc-pascal] DOS compiler wiki page: please review

greim greim at schleibinger.com
Sat Oct 5 14:07:50 CEST 2013


Hi,

writing a 8086 version of fpc is not so strange as some may think!
There are still some 80186 processors around running in embedded 
systems! These architecture is certified for some applications in 
industrial and avionik controll.

A good survey over most  #186 derivates you may find at:

http://www.cpushack.com/2013/01/12/the-intel-80186-gets-turbocharged-vautomation-turbo186/


For example

http://www.lantronix.com/device-networking/embedded-device-servers/dstni-lx_dstni-ex.html

or

http://www.lantronix.com/device-networking/embedded-device-servers/xchip.html

and used for example in this embedded computer:

http://www.beck-ipc.com/en/products/sc2x/index.asp

This processors are using an own OS called RTOS which is quite nice.


BUT
most of these prcessors are using an extended addressing for using more 
then 640 kByte, with more address lines. So "old " 8086 programms can 
only run if they are using only a "small memory" option. With RTOS also 
the header of the EXE files is slightly modified.
So Borland Pacal 7.01 programs can only runn after some ugly patching.
Frank v. Münchow-Pohl has written a small patch program which is 
decribed here:
http://forum.beck-ipc.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=824

Until 3 years ago the AMD 186 was still available, which have been real 
80186, but this processor is not produced anymore as far as i know.

So running Pascal programs on these kind of systems is not realy 
possible anymore. The only option afaik is using teh Paradigm C++
compiler:
http://www.devtools.com/pcpp/compiler.htm
which is quite expensive, an as i was told not so reliable.


Here you will see a list of processirs they are supporting, so i think 
there is is still a market for the 80(1)86

http://www.devtools.com/pcpp/processors.htm

So my wish list:
fpc for 80186, supporting the new extended addressing and writing the 
header files for RTOS (see 
http://www.beck-ipc.com/en/products/rtos/index.asp) incl. a FPU emulation !

Anny comment welcome.

Markus





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