36
votes
Why did DOS-based Windows require HIMEM.SYS to boot?
Windows in protected mode requires an XMS driver — HIMEM.SYS is the one provided by Microsoft, but others can be used¹ (and the Windows Me kernel includes its own XMS driver). The role of the XMS ...
- 113k
22
votes
Accepted
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
There were many editors available for DOS, both standalone and included in development environments. I suspect that most developers using IDEs used their IDE’s built-in editor; those were perhaps the ...
- 113k
22
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
WordStar was one of the earliest and most popular word processing programs for CP/M and MS-DOS. One of the key features for a lot of people was the non-document mode. This did a few important things:
...
21
votes
Using Clang to compile MS-DOS executables
There’s more to it than the linker, especially if you want to support real mode. You need a DOS C library, and a compiler which can output 16-bit code. If you want to produce binaries in anything ...
- 113k
15
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
My favorite editor as a professional programmer in the DOS enthronement was E. The OP is mistaken in saying that E was not available until the 90s. True, it was not included with PC DOS until 1993, ...
- 8,429
12
votes
Did x86 CPU vendors like Intel, NEC, AMD, and Cyrix provide their own debugger for DOS with better CPU support and was it free?
No. While DOS competitors did improve on various DOS commands to try and differentiate their products from Microsoft's there was no equivalent motivation for CPU manufacturers whose products were used ...
- 391
10
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
I remember that in the late 1980s Multi-Edit for MS-DOS was quite popular.
- 17.8k
9
votes
Accepted
How do I stop the Flickering on Mode 13h?
Yes, you need to synchronize framebuffer updates to happen so that the framebuffer area is not updated by your code while that area of framebuffer is being drawn on screen.
Port 03DAh has bit 3 ...
- 25.2k
8
votes
How do I stop the Flickering on Mode 13h?
It depends on the details of the graphics card simulation on VBox, which in turn depends on which graphics mode you have chosen, but assuming you are interested in how it worked on legacy VGA, you ...
- 24.9k
8
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
If you came from CP/M then you were familiar with Wordstar.
Turbo Pascal used the same keys as Wordstar, so it was also a popular editor (as you can already see from the comments) for everything that ...
- 24.9k
7
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
Lexicon
Lexicon was a text editor / word processor MS-DOS program that was extremely popular in the Soviet Union and Russia at the end of 1980s and in 1990s. Some estimate that Lexicon was illegally ...
- 79
6
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
My favorite text editor, until Windows 7 rendered it unusable, was PC-Write 3.01, a shareware program for which I purchased the manual.
I don't know how many other people used it, but it ran quickly ...
- 32.8k
6
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
WordPerfect was the leading word processor from roughly 1986 to 1993, with 60% market share at its peak. (The previous leading word processor was WordStar.) It was available for many other operating ...
- 7,857
5
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
I have always preferred the Norton Editor. Over the years I have investigated many other text editors and I have always returned to the Norton Editor.
╔═══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ...
- 851
4
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
Many have already mentioned WordStar but no one has mentioned Galaxy, which I used extensively in the late 80s (87-89). I found it better than WordStar, as (to me) it seemed easier to use and more ...
- 2,937
3
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
I started on PC-DOS in 1985.
The word processor first used was MultiMate and then Word - the DOS version. I was a programmer so not really writing letters etc. Then I used Windows 1 Write
Most of my ...
- 164
3
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
Personally, I used Turbo Pascal and Wordstar. Using the same keystrokes saved a lot of time when context switching. Turbo Pascal was one of my first serious programming languages. I Wrote a custom ...
3
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
The text editor within Borland Sidekick was great. At the end of the 80s, I was developing a Lisp-based add-in for AutoCAD (around 500 kloc of Lisp) and having a TSR editor at my fingertips was a ...
- 611
3
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
As a young teen I was using XTree and later XTree Gold on my 286 from 1989 onward.
It was a file commander but had an Editor as well, which was very handy. I spend many hours "shortening" ...
- 390
3
votes
What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s?
I used to use edit.com that came with MS-DOS 6.22 and looked a lot like Q-Basic. I also used WordStar for MS-DOS a little bit but mainly edit.com because it was easily accessible.
2
votes
Using Clang to compile MS-DOS executables
Digital Mars claims to compile for MS-DOS. I have used it for Windows and it is quite good and generate small and fast executables.
This page might help too.
- 1,615
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible