LYNX-DEV DOS, DOS and Windows

[Wayne Buttles]

Just a little fodder for the browser.org platforms page.  
<http://www.nyu.edu/pages/wsn/subir/lynx/platforms.html>

From my limited understanding of compilers, a true plain DOS port of the 
current Lynx2-6 is not
possible because some of the obj files generated are bigger than 64k.  If Lynx 
were restructured
there might be a chance, but a drastic change would take some co-ordination 
among the masses.  It
also generates a very big image--maybe too big to run on a low end machine 
without optimizations.
Much of the Lynx code compiles well with Borland C 3.1 and 4.5 and works with 
PDCURSES 2.2 (not sure
about S-lang), although there are some definate problems with pointers as well 
as 16bit integers.

If people have questions about current and future versions of Lynx for DOS they 
can contact me, but
if it is just configurations questions then they should be sent to the 
doslynx-dev list mentioned on
the platform page.  

A DOS 386 port should be feasable including integration into the mainstream 
source.  The first
choice would be djgpp, S-lang and wattcp.  In fact, there is someone working on 
it:
http://lynx.cc.ukans.edu/lynx-dev/9610/0324.html

I compiled some of the Lynx2-6 code in Win32 console mode as a test in Borland 
C 4.5.  Most of the
code is compiler compatable, the tricks will just be the platform independent 
stuff.  IMHO, this
code especially should be an official port because there will be people trying 
to use it in a
multi-user environment and security will be needed.  I did not pursue this 
project, it was just a
test after Lynx2-6 failed to compile for plain DOS.

Thats it for now.
Wayne
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