Lazarus
Announcements => Lazarus => Topic started by: mattias on December 09, 2015, 05:24:53 pm
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The Lazarus team has decided to finally phase out support for the Windows 9x platform.
Reasons for doing so are:
- The platform is not supported anymore by Microsoft.
- The platform is hardly in use anymore.
- The new 3.0 series compiler does not support this platform anymore.
- There is only 1 maintainer of the Windows 9x code base.
- Cleaning up the Win32 widgetset code will make it easier to maintain and less prone to bugs.
The phasing out will take place in 2 stages:
Stage 1.
Starting with the upcoming Lazarus 1.6 there will be no more active development in the code that was specifically written for dealing with the Window 9x platform.
However, patches (when supplied in the bugtracker) for bugs in this code can still be applied to the 1.6 fixes branch.
It may (or may not) be necessary to build your application using the 2.6.4 compiler in order to get a functional Windows 9x application.
Stage 2.
Starting with the 1.7 development branch (AKA trunk) all code that was specifically written for the Windows 9x platform will be removed from our codebase. From that point on software written with this version (or later) of Lazarus will most likely either not run at all, or not run as expected
on the Windows 9x platform.
If you need to develop Win98/ME software you can still use the Lazarus 1.6 branch with FPC 2.6.4.
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:(
Windows 98 was my favorite OS
The sound recorder and explorer were far ahead of what they have in Linux/GNOME nowadays
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That's what mean that the win9x is not supported as host? or that the binary files compiling with 1.7 is not work in win9x?
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That's what mean that the win9x is not supported as host? or that the binary files compiling with 1.7 is not work in win9x?
It means both.
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It is not easy to understand, why FPC 3.0 introduces support for MS-DOS 16 bit but drops compatibility with Windows 9x.
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It is not easy to understand, why FPC 3.0 introduces support for MS-DOS 16 bit but drops compatibility with Windows 9x.
lol
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It is not easy to understand, why FPC 3.0 introduces support for MS-DOS 16 bit but drops compatibility with Windows 9x.
I think that's because msdos and its various clones are used in embedded systems while win95/98 where never used for embedded systems and are never used outisde the desktop although there are a couple of use cases today they are by no means anything more than support cases with out any development or even bug fixes.
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It is not easy to understand, why FPC 3.0 introduces support for MS-DOS 16 bit but drops compatibility with Windows 9x.
About fpc and win9x: the 3.0 series compiler itself does not run on win9x. A simple "hello world" compiled with 3.0 runs perfectly OK on win9x.
I have no idea wether or not a Lazarus (1.4 or 1.6) compiled program with fpc 3.0 will run on that platform. It may or it may not. I did not test, because this would not have affected the decision we made.
About DOS: well somebody added a new target (as in: wrote all the code for it and maintains it, which is a hell of a lot of work) and it was accepted by fpc.
Lazarus OTOH has never supported, nor ever intended to support DOS (or Win 3.1).
We target a different set of users compared to fpc.
To be honest, I suspect I may be the only Lazarus user running Lazarus on a Win9x system (Win98 in a VM under Win7 and a 15 year old WinME machine (with failing hardware)).
Bart
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To be honest, I suspect I may be the only Lazarus user running Lazarus on a Win9x system (Win98 in a VM under Win7 and a 15 year old WinME machine (with failing hardware)).
no, you are not alone. I am running Lazarus (0.9.24 and 1.0.8 ) on a native Windows 98 machine. I use this machine to control and test hardware via the lpt port.
Regards, Bernd.
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It is not easy to understand, why FPC 3.0 introduces support for MS-DOS 16 bit but drops compatibility with Windows 9x.
It was not the plan to deprecate win9x, but to remove the win9x limitations from the win32/win64 target for unicode purposes. IOW separate winNT (effectively XP+ since w2k support is also officially dead)
and win9x targets.
But finding win9x maintainers for such target turned out to be impossible, but if there are volunteers and they have something initial to show for, I don't see why a solution could
not be found.
So in short: msdos and amiga (even older) have target maintainers, and win9x not.
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Maybe some additional application it can be work:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kernelex/files/KernelEx/4.5.2/ (http://sourceforge.net/projects/kernelex/files/KernelEx/4.5.2/)
I found in comments of this blog
http://blog.oldversion.com/why-use-windows-98/ (http://blog.oldversion.com/why-use-windows-98/)
Who wants to try?
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It is not easy to understand, why FPC 3.0 introduces support for MS-DOS 16 bit but drops compatibility with Windows 9x.
The MS-DOS compiler can be used for developing (second stage) bootloader, which is useful for baremetal in case you want to write your own OS kernel. Win9x target has no such advantage IMHO.
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You are wrong. FPC 3.0 does not drop Win9x compatibility.
Correct. Formally, 2.6.0 already did, though in practice people kept submitting patches.
As said the main reason was to release win32/64 platform maintainers from having to duplicate an RTL in and RTL for the unicode support of 3.x. A separate target could have been created, but there were no maintainers willing to commit to anything.
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Maybe some additional application it can be work:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kernelex/files/KernelEx/4.5.2/ (http://sourceforge.net/projects/kernelex/files/KernelEx/4.5.2/)
I found in comments of this blog
http://blog.oldversion.com/why-use-windows-98/ (http://blog.oldversion.com/why-use-windows-98/)
Who wants to try?
Ok...
I tried myself but in VirtualPC 2007 with Windows 98 SE TR.
First you have to be patient about windows 98's slowness.
- You have to install KernelEx as mentioned first message of mine in this topic.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kernelex/files/KernelEx/4.5.2/ (http://sourceforge.net/projects/kernelex/files/KernelEx/4.5.2/)
- Install Lazarus 1.6RC1 for windows 32 bits.
- If you need winzip you may found in oldapps site...
And Lazarus can compile but can't debug because of some dll files.
But I am not sure about to develop on Win98...
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And Lazarus can compile but can't debug because of some dll files.
Have you tried the alternative gdb (sourceforge / lazarus win32) 7.2.1?
Or better http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/MinGW/Extension/gdb/Technology%20Preview_%20GDB%206.7.5.20071127/
(Yes its old, but lazarus should still work with it)
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Hello Martin_fr,
I tried with this gdb and worked also it is working with debugging info.
Thanks for this trick...
And Lazarus can compile but can't debug because of some dll files.
Have you tried the alternative gdb (sourceforge / lazarus win32) 7.2.1?
Or better http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/MinGW/Extension/gdb/Technology%20Preview_%20GDB%206.7.5.20071127/
(Yes its old, but lazarus should still work with it)
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So I have another news about Delphi XE3 users (I am not sure before versions) like as me, Delphi XE3's exe files not working because of GetSystemTimes function by using Classes unit of TThread.
KernelEx not supporting this function or there is another problem.
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It is not easy to understand, why FPC 3.0 introduces support for MS-DOS 16 bit but drops compatibility with Windows 9x.
Very good point! :-D
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It was not the plan to deprecate win9x, but to remove the win9x limitations from the win32/win64 target for unicode purposes. IOW separate winNT (effectively XP+ since w2k support is also officially dead)
Umm, I better test FPC 3.0 under Win2k, because Windows 2000 is my primary Windows development environment.
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FPC itself won't be a problem: it's happily running here in a vm.
Lazarus is a different story.
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Thanks Thaddy - good to know FPC 3.0 still works under Win2k.
As for Lazarus, that's not a problem. I'm not bound to Lazarus IDE, and often switch to MSEgui or EditPad Pro for coding. Also I don't upgrade or recompile Lazarus IDE much. So I could always continue using my Lazarus IDE v1.3 executable and just change the compiler setting to point to FPC 3.0
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So I could always continue using my Lazarus IDE v1.3 executable and just change the compiler setting to point to FPC 3.0
To be precise, version 1.6 of Lazarus IDE and LCL still supports Win9x and Win2k and "fixes_1_6" branch will always support them.
The last release will be 1.6.x (maybe 1.6.4 or 1.6.6) somewhere in late 2016 or early 2017. That version can be used forever by people who need it.
However FPC 3.0 dropped the support from its libraries. The compiler itself may work on Win2k but not all user code. That's what I understood anyway.
It means you may have to use FPC 2.6.4 together with the mentioned Lazarus versions.
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Thanks Thaddy - good to know FPC 3.0 still works under Win2k.
Generally yes, because nobody plans to break it. It simply means that when some -EX function that was introduced later is needed, it will be used without alternative code.
So the incompatibilities can be in the details. Maybe FPK remembers why this was done.
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Note I was referring to win2000 with all service packs. The subject is about win95/98/me.
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Note I was referring to win2000 with all service packs.
Yes, the situation that is unsupported by MS since july 2010 (http://blogs.technet.com/b/education/archive/2009/11/10/windows-2000-end-of-life.aspx), and FPC since december 2015.
I tried to explain that means that we simply use windows calls if they exist on XP and not on w2000 without fallback. But there are not that many. (maybe a few in unicode related places, since XP introduced cleartype)
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(maybe a few in unicode related places, since XP introduced cleartype)
I think you are confused... Unicode has nothing to do with Cleartype. The latter is simply a sub-pixel algorithm developed by Microsoft for displaying smooth text glyphs on a LCD screen.
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To be honest, I suspect I may be the only Lazarus user running Lazarus on a Win9x system (Win98 in a VM under Win7 and a 15 year old WinME machine (with failing hardware)).
Oh god why? :o
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To be honest, I suspect I may be the only Lazarus user running Lazarus on a Win9x system (Win98 in a VM under Win7 and a 15 year old WinME machine (with failing hardware)).
Oh god why? :o
Same reason there is CP/M machines (virtually propably though) still running and in active use, legacy systems?
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Same reason there is CP/M machines (virtually propably though) still running and in active use, legacy systems?
Nobody hit their harddisks with a rubber mallet (http://www.amazon.com/TEKTON-3169-32-oz-Rubber-Mallet/dp/B000NPZ3HC)?
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date=1452696751]
Same reason there is CP/M machines (virtually propably though) still running and in active use, legacy systems?
Nobody hit their harddisks with a rubber mallet (http://www.amazon.com/TEKTON-3169-32-oz-Rubber-Mallet/dp/B000NPZ3HC)?
http://www.z80.eu/c64.html (http://www.z80.eu/c64.html)
Harddisks?
Way back there was TurboPascal for CP/M and I guess it is still there: http://www.retroarchive.org/cpm/lang/TP_301A.ZIP (http://www.retroarchive.org/cpm/lang/TP_301A.ZIP)
Moderator note: accidentally edited by moderator, restored as good as I could.
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Hard disk?
If you want to then yes (http://www.ide64.org/).
But unfortunately there are some obscure setups out there that still run on very old hardware/software combinations, even in this day and age.
- Window 3.x glitch causes issues on french airport (http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/11/13/1540248/windows-31-glitch-causes-problems-at-french-airport----wait-31)
- central heating system controlled by Amiga's (http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/14/amiga-controls-school-district-hvac/)
never mind what we might think of that :D
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http://www.z80.eu/c64.html (http://www.z80.eu/c64.html)
Harddisks?
I'm sorry for accidentally editing your post (modify and quote are next to eachother), I restored your post as good as I could (finding the original by hitting back with the browser), please check.
Anyway:
Yeah, possible via the userport (http://www.ide64.org/) (various initiatives exist)
p.s. I really wonder what the c=64 has to do with win95 support.
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Clarification for cp/m:
CP/M is still in use with Siemens Simatic S5 contol logics, since the original programming and debugging computers were build with CP/M and more modern ones are virtualising the CP/M. There is ofcourse 3rd party software, but it doesn't have "Siemens" tag in it so nogo for some. :P
PS. Rubber Mallet technique doesn't work if your system is running from bubble memory, SSD isn't a new innovation. :D
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In case anyone needs a real Win98 machine for some legacy systems, I am using with success for more then a year an industrial pc based on Advantech PCA-6743 board with ethernet, ISA slots and LPT port. It is not fast by today's standards, based on Vortex86DX, and actually not even a pentium but 486. BIOS is a little pain, but it works well for light tasks.
http://www.advantech.com/products/1-2jkn7b/pca-6743/mod_6898c477-fbb5-4e07-a118-d5cca41d4ff5
List of supported operating systems:
Windows XP Pro SP3 x86 (32 bit), Windows2000, Windows98, DOS 6.22, WinCE 5.0, WinCE 6.0, WES2009.