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mateuszvis |
1 |
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| 446 |
mateuszvis |
2 |
=== SVARCOM vs FREECOM ===
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mateuszvis |
3 |
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4 |
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The FreeCOM project is an impressive piece of software, but there are a few
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things that I do not like about it. SvarCOM is my attempt at addressing these
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things.
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mateuszvis |
10 |
=== MEMORY FOOTPRINT =========================================================
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mateuszvis |
11 |
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12 |
FreeCOM is not suitable for low-memory machines. It takes about 55K of
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conventional memory when XMS is unavailable. XMS being a 386+ thing, FreeCOM
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is a poor fit for pre-386 machines. There is the KSSF hack, but it is a kludge
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with many limitations. As pointed out by one of the FreeCOM authors, FreeCOM
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is designed with 21'st century machines in mind and not IBM PC compatibles.
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SvarDOS does not rely on XMS and performs runtime swapping that works on any
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IBM PC compatible machine.
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mateuszvis |
22 |
=== NLS RESSOURCES ===========================================================
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mateuszvis |
23 |
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mateuszvis |
24 |
FreeCOM requires custom NLS ressources. While the vast majority of FreeDOS
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programs use a single "standard" (CATS), FreeCOM uses a different approach
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with NLS strings built into the binary. This makes it necessary to distribute
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as many binary blobs as there are supported languages. Another consequence is
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that FreeCOM is unable to switch its language dynamically (ie. following
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changes made to the LANG environment variable). It also makes the translation
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more difficult.
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mateuszvis |
31 |
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mateuszvis |
32 |
SvarDOS uses CATS-style translations in a precompiled form and loads the
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strings that match the LANG variable.
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| 395 |
mateuszvis |
34 |
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35 |
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| 446 |
mateuszvis |
36 |
=== CODE COMPLEXITY ==========================================================
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mateuszvis |
37 |
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FreeCOM is a complex beast: it aims for compatibility with multiple compilers
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and supports many embedded features. This makes the code uneasy to follow and
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changes require careful testing on all supported compilers and all possible
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build variants.
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mateuszvis |
43 |
SvarDOS, on the other hand, is meant to be simple and universal. It is
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compiled with OpenWatcom only, which makes a ton of IFDEF's go away. It also
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does not integrate extra features that can be reasonably implemented through
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external tools (typically: DOSKEY). It strives to reimplement the baseline
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47 |
functionality of MS-DOS 5/6.
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| 395 |
mateuszvis |
48 |
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49 |
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| 446 |
mateuszvis |
50 |
=== NON-FREE LICENSE =========================================================
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mateuszvis |
51 |
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52 |
FreeCOM code is released under the terms of a license that restrains the
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freedom of its users due to its virality (GPL).
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SvarCOM is released under the terms of a liberal and permissive (MIT) license
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that does not impose limitations on how users may or may not use it.
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57 |
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mateuszvis |
59 |
====================================================================== EOF ===
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