valve gear design sofware

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Bit off the metal bashing themes, but I never cease to be amazed by the expertise out there..

Many moons ago I wrote some software to design and analyse valve gears using Borland C++ compiler and the Borland Graphics Interface. It ran on Windows 95, which I think in reality means it ran on DOS.

I cannot for the life of me get it to work on Windows 7, and it didn't work very well on Windows XP, it ran until it tried to save data then crashed. I know there is Dockstader version, but mine worked out the maximum die displacement, max swing of expansion link etc, which others don't. Apart from finding a geriatric computer anyone got any ideas how to get it to run? Linux?

I've started rewriting it in CodeBlocks, but getting graphics has defeated me

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Buy an old copy of win 95 from a well known auction site

WinME may be ok too

A note of caution, all my old assembly stuff works fine on ME and XP, so I would buy W95

It may be a dll issue kinda thing, something specific

Put the W95 on a cheap IDE 30gigabyte hard drive and only plug it in when you need it

Even a cheapo external drive may do the job

If you have a high end fancy graphics card unplug it and try the bog standard motherboard graphics

Edited By Ady1 on 29/08/2015 00:03:51

[clivelParticipant @clivel]

Posted by duncan webster on 28/08/2015 23:47:15:

Apart from finding a geriatric computer anyone got any ideas how to get it to run? Linux?

There are a few alternatives you could consider for getting it to run on Linux:

1. If it ran in in a DOS box on Win95 then the simplest would be to install DosBox on your Linux system.
2. You may be able to run it using Wine (a Windows compatibility layer) however I am not sure if the current version of Wine still supports older versions of Windows.
3. If all else fails you could consider installing an emulator under Linux. These emulate the actual PC hardware thus allowing you to install the operating system of your choice e.g an old Win95 CD from the well known auction site suggested by Ady. Free emulators to consider are VirtualBox or the free version of VMware Workstation Player.
   I run Linux Mint for the most part, but occasionally I need to test some software under Windows. Using VMware, I can simultaneously run both XP and Windows 7 without leaving my Linux environment. I believe that VirtualBox works just as well, but haven't actually tried it myself.

Hopefully one of these suggestions is of some help,
Clive

 

 

Edited By clivel on 29/08/2015 03:30:17

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

+1 for Windows95

Whilst you'e at it … give it a dose of IEradicator

MichaelG.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

I also vaguely remembering becoming an "expert" at tweaking a DMA related file or something like that

You had to experiment with a config settings file to find the best combination which eliminated conflicts with the DMA sound card etc or the whole program could become geriatric

W95 was at a crossroads for computer software, DOS/4GW was fast but hard to program, Windows 3.1 was the worst OS ever created and W95 popped up

Emulators are a bit of a wing and a prayer, if W95 worked for you I would take that route

Edited By Ady1 on 29/08/2015 06:44:47

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Whilst you'e at it … give it a dose of IEradicator

I would disagree, just don't surf the net with internet exploder, use firefox or summat

The old original IE has some fabby activeX stuff and other hacker friendly bits which can be used for offline database work if you ever need it, there was a lot of functionality in the original IE which has been eliminated for security reasons

Just don't surf with it and you'll be fine

Modern Computers are becoming mini-internet databases nowadays, 2 terrabyte drives are common and the amount of offline information you can store on a desktop is mind boggling

IE can search hundreds of gigabytes of stuff in a few seconds

Edited By Ady1 on 29/08/2015 07:14:35

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Ady1 on 29/08/2015 07:00:54:

I would disagree

.

Fine… That's what forums are for.

MichaelG.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

I would disagree, In the most friendly way

Upgrades have been reducing functionality in recent years, I stuck with XP because of zonealarm pro, which Vista refuses to use(because it's so good IMO, it even blocks microsoft)

I also have a Win ME drive I plug in if required

When I upgrade to 64 bit I will unplug my two older drives(XP and ME) and use a separate drive, 64 bit stuff can be amazingly fast but I have tons of useful 32bit stuff that I want to hang on to and I don't want any upgrading to mess things up for "security reasons" or any other excuse that they come up with

Edited By Ady1 on 29/08/2015 07:51:39

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Ady1 on 29/08/2015 07:32:44:

I would disagree, In the most friendly way

.

Ady,

That was understood, and respected; I assure you !!

Sorry if I seemed abrupt … it wasn't my intention.

My understanding of Duncan's original post was that he simply wanted to run an existing piece of software; and for that purpose, removing IE seems a good way of de-cluttering.

MichaelG.

.

[this morning's job is cleaning-out the sink drain 'cos the washing machine outlet has overflowed]

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

There is more chance of an older application running under wine than many "new" ones. It is probably worth trying that. Also install Q4Wine. It eases wine configuration problems and also WineTricks which provides a lot of dll's. It's infuriating when things nearly run. What it lacks is something to track dll calls.

There is also another wine add on called Swine but unlike Q4Wine it's not possible to easily specify what directory a program needs to run in.

Failing that VirtualBox is easy to use. I would have thought XP would be the thing to install on it but I don't think I would allow any of them to update unless there was no choice as all it will do is slow it down. From memory XP will emulate earlier versions of windows but has to be set for the program that needs it.

John

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[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I thought I'd replied to this earlier, but it hasn't appeared.

Thanks to everyone who replied, I took the hint from clivel's reply and installed Dosbox on W7, works a treat. Why didn't I think of that?

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

You could try the trial version of BBC BASIC for Windows, it makes graphics very easy.

Neil

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

It must be 35 years since I learned BBC basic, then switched to GW basic, then to Pascal, then C. Is this an invitation to second childhood? Be there soon enough, but thanks for the suggestion

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Must admit I miss GWbasic. I used to use it at work for modelling software that would eventually be written in assembler for use on an ECU with the advantage the it could produce graphical output and quick things that needed a graphical output to see what was going on. Many pro software people say I wont use that – 'cause it's called BASIC. Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.

Pity it wasn't called something else because the original Dartmouth version is probably the most comprehensive concise computational instruction set ever invented. An excellent learning tool because various types etc have to be built up by the person who is writing it. GWbasic retained that with graphics in a simple form.

Out of interest it seems microshaft refered to it as Gee Wizz basic. Some reckon it stands for something else.

John

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[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

John,

Merry Christmas [or whatever]

**LINK**

 http://www.gw-basic.com/downloads.html

MichaelG.

 

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 31/08/2015 17:18:07

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Where is the Linux version Michael. Working with windows at work cured me of it more or less completely.

I suspect some of my opinions comes from the complete and utter pigs ear they made of dos but I have done some deep windows tampering as well, Not for a long time though. The trouble with doing the sort of thing that I mentioned is that it's an aid to a main task. There comes a point where it just takes too long to do anything useful with it to be worth while. I kicked windows into touch for this sort of thing when they decided that vars declared out of main were no longer static under C. Ok I just had to declare them but ……. The graphics at that point were mostly too long winded to use anyway.

John

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[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by John W1 on 31/08/2015 17:33:43:

Where is the Linux version Michael.

.

G.I.Y.F.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

When I moved from Basic to Pascal the book kept saying 'pascal is so much better because you can't do such and such in Basic', well you could do most of it in both BBC and GW basic, in fact the only thing I ever wanted to do that I couldn't was pass a function to a procedure, but I think I'd struggle to do that in C now anyway. The biggest difference I noticed was the speed, in the valve gear program on the old Beeb I had a message come up to say 'calculating, go and have a cup of tea,' as it took 20 minutes or so to do the sums, then it would give you the results and moving pictures. On my first PC with BorlandC++ Builder it drew the pictures as it went along, and I had to insert pauses so you could see what was happening, but Borland won't run on W7 unless anyone knows different?

The interweb reckons I can import the Borland Graphics Library, but so far I've failed. This is as easy as BBC graphics

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

The biggest difference I noticed was the speed, in the valve gear program on the old Beeb I had a message come up to say 'calculating, go and have a cup of tea,' as it took 20 minutes or so to do the sums, then it would give you the results and moving pictures. On my first PC with BorlandC++ Builder it drew the pictures as it went along

I found that too. I wrote a BBC basic gears calculator in a day from scratch with hardly any skills… but it can take up to an hour to run

Writing a basic assembly program within the BBC basic package took me 3 months to figure out, it's sooper fast but nowadays I'm getting too old to care

The other big advantage with BASIC was the ability to simply bolt new stuff on if you wanted, expanding your project was a doddle

memories…

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

There used to be an ideal about called a threaded code compiler that was ideal for Basic. It works on the principle of having basic in memory as a run time. The program was then just a series of calls to it. Very fast and memory efficient. Some would also allow blocks of code to be inserted so that all or critical sections didn't do any calls at all.

This might sound familiar to some under other language names.

Next time I need to do some fast crunching quickly without any complications I'll take a look at the cross platform GWbasic – thanks Michael. There is another Linux / Win basic but it often gets messed up by windows people doing work on it. Could I be bothered to fire up C or C++ and produce proper graphics output – no. They leave too much work to do.

John

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[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

This is worth a look, whatever Djikstra said…

http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcwin/bbcwin.html

Neil

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

I couldn't help looking that man up in the wiki Neil and noticed the comment computer science was in crisis in 1968 etc. Interesting one. The only language standard that did stick to there guns and tried to prevent programmers from doing all sort of things is Cobol. C++ did initially but like all it didn't last. Really a lot of the changes are down to deskilling the problem of producing reliable maintainable code and have nothing what so ever to do with the basic (pun) problem. Fashion can be one. I once did some work on some one else's code who came from the subroutines are wonderful era – when I traced the flow of something that was acting up I went 16 deep and decided that the guy was a nut and just junked it and replaced the lot. No doubt he had been told that subroutines were the way.

Truth is structure techniques cab be achieved in any language they just look different. Trouble is that some need something like a GOTO to do it but what's wrong with that if it's to somewhere rather logical like the end of a while do loop. The only problem with GOTO is some will just do that and stuff the rest of the things that might be going on.. I've even heard senior pundits state that these sort of loops are bad idea as programmers blah blah .. so get rid of them. They'd probably love pure in line code with no branches at all. Actually that's not a bad approach but seldom possible.

John

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[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

The joy of BBC Basic for Wiindows is it gives you all those 'real' structured progamming tools while letting you write ordinary BASIC as well.

The good fun was in the old days when knowing what was where in ROM you could speed things up by a judicious call.

Imagine how fast a BBC B would be if it was running everything the same but at 2.4 gig?

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I've had a look at BBC basic, and it's tempting, but I'd have to rewrite everything again. Dosbox is solving the current problem, I'll keep slogging away at the graphics issue when time permits, but we retired chaps don't have a lot of time!

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