Subject: Re:[Free]DOS port?
From: Kenneth J.Davis (jeremyd@computer.org)
Date: Tue Nov 06 2001 - 12:31:52 CST
"Michael Kallas" <michael.kallas@web.de> wrote on 11/6/2001 11:14:41 AM:
>
>Hi,
>
>I'm new on this list and wanted to know whether anybody tried yet
>to port AbiWord to plain DOS or whether this seems to be plainly
>impossible.
>I'm quite interested in FreeDOS activity and, well, this would certainly be
>a "killer application".
>
>Best regards
>Michael
>
>-- michael.kallas@web.de
I think it is possible and probably not too difficult (not to be
confused with easy or possible to do quickly) if you limit yourself to
more modern computers (386+, VGA+, 4/8/32/? MB ram). The hardest
part is supporting printers. Of course since DOS has no native support
for windows, multithreading, or printing (ok sorta) then all that would
have to be written (or use existing libraries). I believe DJGPP, Allegro,
etc could be used. One of my initial reasons for following abiword developement,
is that I would like to port it to DOS. If (a big IF) I ever get time,
I will determine if it is actually feasible and if so possibly do it
(though I don't plan on supporting printing initially - I rarely print).
I am also not so sure about supporting plugins, but perhaps some of the
code from seal would be helpful there. I have considered using seal,
but I think it would require too much changing of the abiword tree to
fit into its model (I could be wrong) and if done, I think it should
follow all the other ports so changes to the XP code are easily integrated.
And perhaps if done well, the DOS port could make it into the official
abiword tree.
I have played with abiword's code some, but I am still relatively
new to it, and simply haven't had time do thorough research into the matter.
Regardless, do not expect a DOS port anytime soon (unless there are
others out there that I am unaware of - in which case please send me
some email off list).
Jeremy Davis
jeremyd@computer.org
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