Re: Do we still need MSDOS support?

[Hans-Bernhard B. <HBB...@t-...>]

Am 04.04.2018 um 22:47 schrieb Ethan A Merritt via gnuplot-beta:
> 
> I thought that MSDOS referred to 16-bit legacy code that we
> no longer support.  Maybe I am mistaken.

You are, kinda.  MSDOS refers to the operating system, but not 
necessarily in its original 16-bit incarnation.  We still do carry 
support for DJGPP, which is a 32-bit target working on top of MSDOS.  It 
has suffered some bit-rot since I last tried to build it, but it should 
still be viable.

Building and testing the executables built by/for that target is getting 
ever more tricky these days, what with all the usual desktop platforms 
being 64-bit, so they can no longer executabe any 16-bit code (down to 
and including the 16-bit "stub" that starts the 32-bit DJGPP runtime 
environment).  So you need a VirtualBox setup or similar to run it.  But 
OTOH, DJGPP on FREEDOS may well be the only version of gnuplot that 
would still work on truly old boxes that won't support any "modern" 
Linux any more...

> Should the test be replaced by a test for _WIN32 instead?

No.

> Can we get rid of the macros HUGE  and GPFAR?

GPFAR: almost certainly yes.  We've long since dropped support for all 
platforms that needed it (segmented architectures like Win16 and 16-bit 
DOS).

HUGE is a different issue, as that's about quirky floating point 
support, not the target OS.  Or was it GPHUGE you were thinking of? 
That one can actually go, too, if GPFAR does.  Those are two parts of 
the same technique.

> Can we get rid of GP_FARMALLOC?

That would go wherever GPFAR does.