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Open Watcom 1.2 Released
An anonymous reader writes "Open Watcom 1.2 has been released and is now available
for download from
the Open Watcom website. This release contains a large number of new
features, product enhancements and several fixs designed to bring Open Watcom
to a higher level of quality and compatibility. SciTech software Inc, the official
maintainers of the Open Watcom project, have also announced the availability
of an updated Open
Watcom CD, complete with SciTechs installer for DOS,
OS/2, and windows. Support for the update will be handled exclusively through
the Open Watcom website. Read More." According to the web site, "the Watcom C/C++ and Fortran products will be the first mass market, proprietary compilers to be Open Sourced."
The Watcom compiler was a very popular DOS C/C++ compiler. Combined with DOS4GW from Tenberry (formerly Rational Systems), it was used to create many DOS games such as Doom. Traditional DOS compilers were only 16-bit tools whereas Watcom was 32-bit
SciTech scooped up Watcom's goods. They're also behind MGL, wxWindows, SNAP for Linux, Display Doctor, and GLDirect.
>> Most importantly, does it support Expanded and Extended memory?
> I *believe* it comes with a free DOS extender, so yes. It certainly has support for several (once-)common ones.
From the Open Watcom site:
"Free DOS extenders included!
Open Watcom C/C++ and FORTRAN includes a number of royalty free and Open Source DOS extenders right out of the box. Thanks to Tenberry Software's gracious donation, the original DOS/4GW DOS extender from Watcom C/C++ and FORTRAN is included royalty free with the Open Watcom compilers. Also included is the now free CauseWay DOS extender developed by Michael Devore. Both binaries are included as well as complete source code in the source archives. Finally we have also included the free PMODE/W and DOS/32A DOS extenders as part of the package."
--
Paul
Any chance of the DB going Open Source? Or is Sybase holding that too close?
There's zero chance.
RDBMS is the core business at Sybase. They'd have to completely redefine the company and its businss model. Watcom C++ is something they ended up with by pure accident, and were wise to unload.
Watcom was acquired by PowerBuilder as part of the deal which got them Sql Anywhere (pretty much comparable and competitive with Interbase that begat Firebird). PowerBuilder needed a fairly robust database for the same reason Borland coupled Interbase with Delphi. PowerBuilder at one point threw Watcom SQL into some of their PowerBuilder configurations, and may have used parts of it in their native code generation. However, it wasn't really very key to their product strategy, it's just something they got with SQL Anywhere.
Sybase, during one of its more feckless management period, puchased PowerBuilder. I don't know why, probably so they'd have a RAD platform to compete with Oracles forms products. In the process the obtained SQL Anywhere (nee Watcom SQL) and Watcom C++.
SQL Anywhere was a secondary acquisition they got with PowerBuilder, but it actually (in some twisted way) made sense, since its low footprint allowed it to be deployed on mobile devices, giving Sybase a "small" database engine to compete with Oracle's "Personal" database, the way Adaptive Server Enterprise competes with Oracle's flagship database. They rechristened it Adaptive Server Anywhere (although they may have re-rechristened it yet again, since they seem to be very schizo about what they call this product). They also spun off a separate company to promote ASA in mobile apps.
Watcom C++ was not only not a primary consideration in the PowerBuilder acquisition, it wasn't even secondary. It doesn't fit in with what Sybase does, even in a wild flight of imagination. Furthermore, by that time even they had no illusions that they might compete with Microsoft in Win32 compilers.
So, in a rare fit of enlightenment, they opened the source rather than abandoning the users. One of the few product management decisions they've made that I agree with. It makes perfect, selfish sense: there's no value in maintaining the product, but they don't want to alienate customers. So just pass the buck to somebody who wants to maintain it, provide a little engineering help to extricate pieces with license problems, and write the expense off as PR.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
OpenWatcom is there for Linux too, you just need to compile it from source code.
....
It's already 100% functional as a cross-compiler
(from Linux too DOS/Windows/OS/2 but still not there yet as a native compiler: it has to use it's own libc and cannot output ELF objects (only ELF executables). The debugger works too, but
symbolic debugging only works with OW compiled
executables.
That means it's fine for statically linked plain ANSI C executables on Linux but does not integrate very well with the GNU toolchain, X libraries,
Fact is, gcc uses more memory -- a LOT more memory -- than most other compilers, especially when optimizing. That makes it much more likely that you'll have to hit the swap file, which of course, kills your speed.
Another problem is GNU make, while more flexible and powerful than the make systems for borland, msvc, etc, is also much slower. If you use something like jam instead, you'll see build times drop significantly.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Compared to current gcc's it's ... gcc on Windows has a ported feel, some people don't like that, some others don't mind or like it) :)
* a very fast compiler (compile-time speed)
* that produces very compact code (in terms of size)
* so the generated code *may* even be faster than gcc's (if a loop just fits in the cache), despite the fact that gcc has quite a few more years of optimization improvements now.
* it also feels more native on non-UNIX platforms
(whatever that means
* can generate 16-bit code, useful for bootloaders (and FreeDOS
* even supports "far" (48-bit) pointers in protected mode
* all in all very good for embedded and driver work IMHO
on the other hand GCC is much better now in terms of standard compliance (in particularly C++); OW is slowly catching up a bit, has a more extensive warning system, supports SSE(2), custom Athlon and p4 optimizations, profile guided optimization, supports many other CPUs,
etc etc.