Software Compatibility

[RAFSoft]

How am I going to make my OS compat with DOS exes, and maybe Windoze Exes? :-\

[frank]

dos:

programs can access the hardware directly,
support the same dos interrupts (int 21h) - and give direct access to the hardware.

windows:

support the win32 api and do the same as dos

or, you could ofcourse,
wrtite an emulator.

[mystran]

Supporting DOS is possible, just implement all dos services INT21h mostly, but supporting Win32... well... easiest way might be to try to port WINE.

[Tim]

DOS compatibility is fixed, because no more DOS development is taking place, but full Win32 compatibility is very hard. Maybe you could offer DOS and 16-bit Windows compatibility, and build Win32 on top of that.

[TheChuckster]

My advice would be to port Wine. Trying to reinvent it would be a task in itself.

[Peter_Vigren]

My advice would be to port Wine. Trying to reinvent it would be a task in itself.

Wine?

[bkilgore]

Wine, in standard GBU recursive naming, is "Wine Is Not an Emulator." Basically, it provies unix support for the window api, allowing many windows pograms to run on X and unix without even recompiling, and many more to be easily ported.