Subj : Re: squish
To   : Alan Ianson
From : Bob Jones
Date : Mon May 22 2006 11:44 pm

 AI> Squish & Maximus were originaly OS/2 programs that were then compiled
 AI> for DOS, and then later for Win/NT IIRC. Now it's being compiled on
 AI> *nix too. There must be quite a mix of stuff in there by now.. :)
 AI> I'm not a coder myself, I don't know if it's ANSI complient or not.

ANSI C?  Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.....

I suspect Maximus version 1 predates the common usage of the ANSI C 
standard....  Working with the segmented architecture of the 8086 / 8088 
processor causes usage of some non-standard C coding conventions, especially 
when it comes to needing to handle data (messages) over 64Kb in size....

On a more pratical note, any code that properly handels a modem via a serial 
port probably has at least some code that is not portable, and probably not 
ANSI C.  Maximus has some assembly code in some of the target systems.  It has 
hooks to seperately compiled DLL's in OS/2, and I think also for WIN based 
systems.....  There is conditional compile stuff....  The code running on Linux 
is a probably bit better for being ANSI C compliant.  I believe the person who 
put the initial effort into the port even has it running on a 64 bit system, so 
it is better that it was....  But there are tricks used that aren't ANSI C at 
some points.....  Part of the "fun" to get it to compile under Linux is to get 
the right set of definitions and macros defined to clear certain declarations 
that are needed in a segmented environment....

Bob Jones, 1:343/41

--- Maximus/2 3.01
 * Origin: Top Hat 2 BBS (1:343/41)

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