Developing C for 16-Bit DOS on Windows 11 (or other modern OSs)
DosBox-TurboC
Compiling C for old 16-bit MSDOS machines on a modern OS
Requirements:
Python – Wrapper to automate the compilation tasks
https://www.python.org/downloads
DOSBox – DOS Machine emulator
https://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1
Borland Turbo C Version 2.0 – The 16-bit compiler with attitude!
Using Google search for Borland Turbo C 2.0 🙂
Overview
You do all your lovely C stuff in your preferred code editor on your modern OS. When you want to compile you run a Python script that performs the following operations:
* Parse arguments
* Clear down ready for next run
* Check DOSBOX config file
* Generate startup files for Dos
* Launch DosBox
* Wait for DosBox and compilation to finish
* Get compiler output
* Wait for keyboard or DosBox termination
When DosBox runs it has the following local drives mounted:
| DOSBox Drive | Example Host path | Purpose |
| C: | c:\emulator\dosboxtc | Path that contains the Turbo C files |
| D: | d:\dev\yourcode | Path to your source code |
| Z: | — | The default DosBox startup drive |
Setup
To configure the environment perform the following steps. Install Python and DosBox.
Locate the default coifing file for DosBox, Typically located in the path:
%appdata%\Local\DosBox In the example here is it called ‘dosbox-0.74-3.conf’
Copy this file into the root of the dosbox-turboc directory (this one)
Ensure that the file ‘dosbox-0.74-3.conf’ and the path to the EXE for DosBox are updated in the rg-c-compile.py file:
EmulatorExePath='C:\\Program Files (x86)\\DOSBox-0.74-3\\DOSBox.exe'
DosBoxConfigFile="dosbox-0.74-3.conf"Open the DosBox config file you copied and locate the [autoexec] section
The default should look something like this:
[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
# You can put your MOUNT lines here.Add the #RG-COMPILER-COMMANDS# tag to the end of the commands:
[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
# You can put your MOUNT lines here.
#RG-COMPILER-COMMANDS#That will allow the program to automate each launch of DosBox.
You should then be able to launch DosBox using the following command:
python .\rg-c-compile.py runonly source test.c utils.c That should open your standard DosBox environment as managed by this program. From here you can then start the install process of Turbo C.
To install the Python modules issue the following command:
pip install -r requirements.txt Next get hold of a copy of Borland Turbo C Version 2.0
The program will typically be in a series of .img files (like 1.22Mb floppy images for example.) Using 7zip decompress these files into a separate directory.
Make a temp folder called tcsetup.
Unzip 7z file to temp folder
That should have something like:
* disk01.img
* disk02.img
* disk03.img
Using 7Zip on each file and extract here for each img file.
That should result in a temp folder with all the setup files.
Run the DosBox emulator and cd into the tcsetup folder.
You can then install the program into the c:\TC folder.
Running
To run the program here are the command arguments:
python .\rg-c-compiler.py <mode> <source subdirectory> <file1.c> <file2.c> <file3.c>...In fact the <file?.c> entries are what is added to the TCC command in dos.
So in the example earlier the command:
python .\rg-c-compile.py runonly source test.c utils.c Compiles the TCC command in DOS to:
tcc test.c utils.c > test.cmpThe test.cmp are the complication results to be retrived by the Python script.
mode can be:
* compileonly – Compile the C file only
* compilerun – Compile the C file and run it is created
* runonly – Run the DosBox environment only and do not compile
For example:
python .\rg-c-compiler.py compileonly source test1.cWould compile the file test1.c but not run it. The DosBox application is terminated, effectively only acting as a compiler and not running the resulting program.
The GitHub repo is here:
https://github.com/GingerNinjaLab/dosbox-turboc
Here is a video showing this: