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#71423 by dhs
Wed May 03, 2017 9:27 pm
I have just downloaded DataCAD 19, and am pleased to be able to use it on my normal computer (The hardlock driver for DataCAD 11 did not work from Windows 7.1, so I've been running DataCAD on an old laptop).

But it seems the DCAL compiler is still not compatible with 64-bit versions of Windows.

I really don't want to install a Virtual Machine in order to run the DCAL Compiler, so I have downloaded DOSBox.
This works, with the following restrictions:
1. It doesn't seem to recognise path or file names with spaces or more than 8 characters, so I had to copy the DCAL folder to a location it would recognise.
2. The output window is only about 24 lines and doesn't scroll (so if I compile something with more than 1 or 2 errors I cannot see what they were). The solution to this is to pipe the output to a file which I can then view after the compile has completed.

Although this is a lot easier than copying stuff to my old laptop to compile, it is still a bit cumbersome. I wondered if anybody had a better solution for using the DCAL compiler on a 64-bit machine (other than installing a VM) ?

I realise that DCAL for Delphi/C++ is probably where the effort is being put in terms of a development tool, but I also wondered if there was ever going to be a 32 or 64 bit version of the DCAL compiler?

Thanks,
David H
#71522 by dhs
Sun May 21, 2017 3:37 pm
I am actually getting used to and quite liking DOSBox for my DCAL compiles.

It actually has a couple of advantages:
- I can use the DCC command (instead of having to use DCC1 followed by DCC2 on the command line provided by recent versions of Windows). I assume this is because it is emulating a really old version of DOS where there is less memory consumed by the overheads of the system?
- I have configured DOSBox to automatically take me to my projects folder when it opens (and it also automatically performs a path command to the dcal folder).

I've gotten used to piping output to a file if I expect errors etc., and keeping that file open in Notepad++ automatically prompts me to refresh the file to see the output without me having to do more than click on the dialog box.

I've also gotten used to naming all my DCAL files with 8 character (or less) file names, and it is not really such a major restriction!

Probably more convenient than a VM in my opinion, and with a lot less overhead.

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