Announcement

**Paul Dixon** · 12 Apr 2002, 02:22 PM

Otto,
I'd like to be able to run PBDOS or PBCC on a unix machine as my webserver is Unix based and I'm struggling with writing 1 PERL script each year (about all I need to write so it's not worth learning properly). If I could just upload some small, simple, DOS or Windows emulator to the server and then run PB exe's it would be a big improvement.

You don't know if this is possible, do you?

Paul.

**Michael Torrie** · 12 Apr 2002, 10:01 PM

Paul, you'll want to check out php (http://php.net). It's got the power of perl, but is very much easier to use. It's a lot like C in syntax. The result is very good. Not difficult, easy to read, unlike perl. I can't do perl without the two big perl books on my desk.

We do web applications (small ones, anyway) exclusively in PHP. It's available on windows, unix, etc. Works well with Apache, and even Microsoft IIS. For bigger things maybe Java. We'll see about c# and .net. (Hmm. PB will have to target the .NET CLR sometime, won't it. That should be good. PB#!)

As far as web stuff and CGI stuff, scripted languages (interpreted -- I'll include .NET and JAVA in this, since they run in-process with the web server) are the only way to go. Why? Because they are actually faster under heavy loads than compiled CGIs when integrated properly into the server. For instance, the PHP interpreter is imbedded using a plugin into Apache. This means that php code can be interpreting using an already running thread within the web server. Using straight CGIs, a very expensive fork (process creation) is done for every single call to the CGI. This is very expensive as it involves creating a new process control block, setting up and populating the environment (variables), and loading the executable (or it's interpeter for perl). So I doubt that PB/CC for linux would give that much advantage to web developers, speed-wise or even ease-of-use wise, in a Unix market. However I'd like PB/CC for straight application development! That said, a fast interpreter that could be loaded into Apache as a module that handled pb code would be great. Don't get me wrong -- pb/cc compiler for linux would be awesome, but we could use a mod_pb for apache too.

Otto,
I run PB/DOS all the time under dosemu in linux using the now unavailable DR DOS 7 as the OS (it also runs MS-DOS 6.2.1, etc). It works well, except that the pqsyntax tsr bombs the whole virtual machine. But I have no idea how you could make it do CGI stuff. Given the scores of brilliant hackers out there, I'm sure it could be done. But it wouldn't be that efficient.

On the other hand, I'd wager that PB/CC-compiled apps would run rather well under wine (www.winehq.com) on linux and you could use it to do CGI stuff, but it wouldn't be efficient at all either. Starting wine is kind of heavy.

Two projects to keep an eye on are:

gnome-basic http://www.gnome.org/gb - a vba-type language

and kbasic at www.kbasic.org.

Gnome-basic is already doing basic (no pun intended) interpreting (it's not a compiler). Kbasic is at the point where I think it's doing basic interpreting too. Neither project aims to be a complete compiler, but be scripting languages, which are ideal for cgi.

I am excited thinking about PB for linux coming out... But in the meantime there are some great languages out there including python, ruby and php.

Michael

------------------

[This message has been edited by Michael Torrie (edited April 12, 2002).]

**OTTO WIPFEL** · 13 Apr 2002, 02:54 AM

Michael

Is anybody still promoting DOSEMU ? The dosemu.org site seems to have a problem
and the guy's E-Mail address mentioned on it no longer exists ?

I am only a plain Text and Numbers only Accounting Software programmer, although
I know a fair bit about the rest of Computing, for my own use and not to make a
living from.

As long as my OEM partner can produce cheap machines for use with DOS 6.22 and a
DOS version of NOVELL Netware and BTRIEVE, I have nothing to worry about.

It would be a hell of a job trying to port existing installations to another
Operating system other than DOS under Windows up to 98SE. Hundreds of existing
apps to be re-written, BTRIEVE for DOS would not work in them. Change to another
File Manager like PB's POWER TREE, more re-writes ?

I think not

So I am looking for a way to prolong the usefulness of my Software, just in case

------------------

**OTTO WIPFEL** · 13 Apr 2002, 08:50 AM

DR-DOS

Found the answer to my previous message myself:

DR-DOS and DOSEMU are still very much alive !

DR-DOS is the Boot O/S for NOVELL 6, their latest version of NETWARE.

www.drdos.com
www.lineo.com/sales

Quote from the latter: "DOSEMU HDIMAGE for DR-DOS lets you run Dos
Applications from any LINUX system".

Have contacted LINEO Sales U.K. for information about purchasing a copy.

------------------

[This message has been edited by OTTO WIPFEL (edited April 13, 2002).]

**Michael Torrie** · 13 Apr 2002, 09:17 AM

Otto,

dosemu is very much alive indeed. It has moved to a new web site, though dosemu.sourceforge.net. latest versio is at 1.1.1 or something. I always just download the RPM binary package for my distro from www.rpmfind.net. Contact me privately at torriem at cs dot byu dot edu and I'll answer any questions regarding dosemu.

Something else that may save you money on DOS is the freedos project. I'm not sure it the web site is up or not, but try www.freedos.org . Freedos is a very good free implementation of DOS. It has been used frequently in embedded applications. But it is a fullflown MS-DOS -compatible system. Should run PB/DOS very well.

Contact me for more information (I'm not involved in the projects -- I've just got it all working). I think dosemu and either freedos or dr-dos will work well for you.

Michael

------------------

[This message has been edited by Michael Torrie (edited April 13, 2002).]

Announcement

PB-DOS 3.5 in LINUX ?

PB-DOS 3.5 in LINUX ?

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment