Programming Tools under Dos

[hungerTom]

Are there any good & free tools out there anybody would want to recommend for programming in and for dos.
To be more specific, I'm used to writing code in editors such as SciTE or any other 'modern' editor with syntax highlighting and all the bells and whistles.

Now I've been looking around for something which at least resembles this kind of work-environment under dos, but so far have not been successful.

Please tell me there are good alternatives to EDIT, which is just really painful to my 'young' mind ...

[FORTRANS]

Hello,

Please tell me there are good alternatives to EDIT, which is just really painful to my 'young' mind ...

   Yes, that rates an ouch.  I like the WordPerfect programmer's editor ED.EXE.
No syntax highlighting, but allows for macros, up to nine files, and a lot of other
features.

http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/shell.html

   Unfortunately an editor is a personal taste.  So, it  may take some getting
used to.

Regards,

Steve N.

   Based on feedback, I will mention that the F3 key is the help key, it brings
up a help topics page.  Hit F3 twice and you get a function key summary.
One feature that is not immediately evident is the command line "ED /L filename"
will allow the next command "ED /L" to resume editing at your last position in
that file.  Another is that F6 does a kind of indent or line copy.

[hungerTom]

Unfortunately an editor is a personal taste.

That is so true...I just asked because I'm not all that familiar with programs and utilities that were popular and in use at the time dos was mainly in use.

I tried what you suggested, and it doesn't really fit. I need something simple, and EDIT would be fine for me, had it some form of syntax highlighting (read, more colours) and a few other enhancements that would make it suck not quite as hard (to me)...
I've also tried a program called pedit, which was fine(felt very much like edit), again just missing maybe a few colours...

The problem I'm having when searching for something fitting is that very few of these programs seem to have a website, and even less tend so supply screen-shots of their interfaces, making it very a tedious affair finding the right one, because it basically means testing every single one...

I'm depending on your help here, great dinosaurs of the dos-age!!  :wink

Any more suggestions??

[MichaelW]

Try the Edit link here:

http://www.freedos.org/freedos/software/

[hungerTom]

The link was very helpful, thanks.

I have a slight problem though.
The editors I chose to try out all require csdpmi.
I downloaded csdpmi*b.zip, extracted the archive to c:\csdpmi and added that dir to my path.
The Editors(setedit,fed) now seem to start, but I just get a blank screen with nothing happening.
Is it not enough to add csdpmi's dir to path, do I need to do more to install it?

[MichaelW]

Try extracting the files to the current directory (i.e. the directory where the editor is).

[Wannabe]

I used Boxer back in the DOS age, a very configurable editor with syntax highlighting and compile support.
It was shareware then, with a nag screen on exit, and is now retired by Boxer Software (www.boxersoftware.com), so
I dont know about it's license status. You could mail them and ask.
It can be found at ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/simtelnet/msdos/editor/boxer75a.zip

[hungerTom]

I moved the files to the editors respective directories, which didn't seem to change anything.
I then noticed that I'd been to impatient. After maybe 1min the editor loads. fed is quite usable then. setedit on the other hand is barely usable, really bad performance.
I imagine this has something to do with qemu (with which I'm running msdos), but I'm not sure and haven't found anything on the topic either.

Boxer seems very neat, maybe a bit fullblown, but definetly something to look into further...now about that license....

[Wannabe]

Nope, Boxer/DOS is still shareware. Just mailed them. They sell it for US $55...  :(

[hungerTom]

They sell it for US $55

:lol
That's ridiculous. So now I'm stuck at square one again...

[Mark Jones]

Perhaps there is something in this thread that may help? (There's a file inside called ED.ASM, but I don't know any more about it.)

http://www.masm32.com/board/index.php?topic=10213.0

[MichaelW]

If the editor will be used under DOS, wouldn't it make more sense to evaluate the candidates under DOS?

[japheth]

FTE is worth a try. Free, Open Source, Syntax Highlighting.

See:

http://www.bttr-software.de/forum/forum_entry.php?id=5355

[hungerTom]

FTE is worth a try.

I sadly cannot get it to work.
I get an error when calling

Code Select Expand

cfte config/main.fte fte.cnf
Something about a missing include.  :(

[japheth]

FTE is worth a try.

I sadly cannot get it to work.
I get an error when calling

Code Select Expand

cfte config/main.fte fte.cnf
Something about a missing include.  :(

Well, yes, there must exist a "config/main.fte" file for the cfte command. Since you didn't reveal the exact error msg I can only guess: perhaps you did unpack the package without restoring the full path names, so the subdirectory "config" get lost?

FTE is highly configurable, there should exist a bunch of readable text files *.fte files in the config subdir. CFTE.EXE reads them and is to create a binary file, FTE.CNF, which then serves as configuration file for the editor itself (FTE.EXE).