Going back to dos - ya hoo!

[jwzumwalt]

I am a retired IS manager and have set up a dedicated dos box for fun.
I have been having trouble finding a good copy of Boreland Pascal and
became interested in "FreePascal".

1) Does FreePascal support Boreland's BGI's?
2) Is it realtivbly syntax compatable?
3) Will closly support TASM?
4) Is there anything else I should know if I decide to use it instead of TP?

Thanks for the help

[PascalDragon]

1) Does FreePascal support Boreland's BGI's?

It does not. FPC has platform specific code for the Graph unit.

2) Is it realtivbly syntax compatable?

If you use {$mode tp} it is.

3) Will closly support TASM?

FPC can use TASM if you pass the -Atasm option, however it's not really required as on the x86 family FPC uses its internal assembler.

4) Is there anything else I should know if I decide to use it instead of TP?

Some points:

• While you can cross compile for 16-bit DOS the compiler itself requires the Go32V2 DOS extender to run.
• You can also set up a cross compiler from a non-DOS platform for DOS
• FPC has features vastly beyond what TP supported (object orientation, operator overloading, exception handling, generics, etc.); you can get an overview here and there's also FPC's language reference guide
• More information about FPC and DOS is available here