Win3x.Org

Hello anyone know where I can find Windows 3.11 Technical Specs and
Programmer Guides. I am considering making a "compatable"
open source version for FreeDos. But I need to know that the information
is available. Like Reactos is for 95/98

Thank you in advance.
usulthemouse

This url might be usefull : http://www.gaby.de/ftp/pub/win3x/archive/index.htm

your considering recreating somthing you know nothing about?
I recomend you study up on the subject before you consider it
else you will end up with junk like wine or Reactos

you'll have to fix the problems freedos has first
after that you might start looking for win3x info

http://www.ecma-international.org/publi ... MA-234.HTM
http://www.jankie.net/soedesh/20.htm
http://www.winehq.org/

have you even made any win3x apps yet?

Thank you for your response.
I think I know quite a bit more than you give me credit for.
I have been programing for 15 years, and at the beginning I did programming
for applications that ran on windows 3.x. But that was along time ago.
Since the tech changes, and I have been programming in dot net for so long
I have forgotten much of what I once knew.

I have been doing the research on this and this is what my orig post about.
Gathering all the information, some of the things I have looked at and have
including in my tool/code set are HX Dos Extender, Wine, Reactos.
I do not consider Wine or Reactos junk myself, I have used Wine to run programs
on Linux. And although it takes considerable time and expertise to setup and use,
it is effective. I will only use a small subset of it and should be able to minimize the
setup issues and time. Reactos, well its new and I think its a good start.
Are they perfect, no. After 15 years of programing I know that no program is.
But this is why I am looking for the technical specs and programming guides.
I want to hit a little closer to the mark.

As for fixing FreeDos. Well I have join the project and have started helping,
as much as I can do at the moment. The release, is in mid-stream at the moment.
It is in active development and needs more developers (You want to volunteer? ).
I do not yet know assembly and much of the core is in assembly.
The FreeDos project needs a little more activity yes, but I am hoping that a project
like this will spark some interest.

Thank you for the links, I am sure that they will be most helpful.
theMouse

I inquired into freedos and was told
that though it could be done...
there intention was not recreating dos
said they were aiming at more of a linux

check out open/dr dos it runs win3x just fine

wine programers and users
asure me that no further work will be done on win16
that wine runs 90% of win16 programs and
work on win 32,64,128,256,etc.. comes first logicly

yet my win16 programs did not seem to run right for them
they did not really know if they had been testing win16,win32 or win32s apps
and asured me that wine worked much better in the past...

3.1,95 and 98 are 16bit at the core and
win3x programs often use hardware directly
no true multitasking operating system can run win16 programs at full power

though the resources are availible
intention is not to create andor recreate
at most only to simulate and or emulate?

you have a volunteer to oppose repeating the same ideas again
I will continue using and programing in and for win3x

dos RULES!
windows 3.1 ROCKS!

you know from 15 years of programing that all programs are flawed?
and you want to draw people from win3x?
your intentions are not quite clear yet
but your actions will soon clairify them

any thing that runs win32 or dos apps is capable of making win3x programs
linux,freedos,xp and even vista will work

if you are basic programer
then the various basic compilers might be of use to you
MSVB(dos,win16,win32s) or maby XBLite(win32s)

for asm you might
check out gwbasic(win16) as it's compiler takes asm
also flat assembler 1.67.29 for Windows(win32s) might be of interest

if self taught amatures such as myself can recreate cpl applets
then such simple tasks should be fun for you

work on recreating winsetup(dos&win16) needs done
as a smart programer with years of experience
how can you resist?

wat say?

watlers_world wrote:

I inquired into freedos and was told
that though it could be done...
there intention was not recreating dos
said they were aiming at more of a linux

... who the Hell told you that? Whoever it is, they're completely wrong. FreeDOS is neither based on linux nor aimed to work or look like it. It's a reimplementation of the DOS core along with its command prompt and APIs. It does come with a few GNU utilities (optionally), but even them are just pure DOS versions, and if there was an equivalent bundled with original DOS systems, a re-implementation of it is included as well.

not recreation,simulation nor replacement
a reimplementation of functionality

thank you Dr Frankenstein
an excelent description of the situation

Dr Frankenstein wrote:

watlers_world wrote:

I inquired into freedos and was told
that though it could be done...
there intention was not recreating dos
said they were aiming at more of a linux

... who the Hell told you that? Whoever it is, they're completely wrong.

Not so wrong, in fact the DOS kernel of Freedos was written many years ago by Pat Villany and Freedos was only adding utilities and making minor corrections nearly the last 10 years. A not so big achievement...and they search for new ideas to give Freedos more audience.

"Hall says that software will include features like multitasking and flat memory. "I'd also like to see more utilities to make it possible to replicate some of the advanced features we take for granted in modern operating systems, such as Linux."
http://www.linux.com/feature/55477

But it seems clear to me that the DOS community is not anymore around Freedos and there are some new communities in German/Dutch/Eastern Europe that are working on DOS now. Some big recent achievements are HX Dos extender, USB on DOS and WIFI on DOS.

DOS communities are also less concerned by GPL/Free software, if it runs, is free and is maintained by an nice person why bother anyway?

I never read up on it but...
http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/18101/caldera-courts-source-code-issue-again.html
does Caldera have the win3x source code?

Judging from the article, they might have some but "not all" of it.

Does Caldera still exist? The article is from 1998.