Need help for ACK for Windows

[Admiral Ackguh]

Greetings!

I am thinking of making a Windows ACK based on the latest version (mega patch 0.9).

I have most of the Turbo Pascal source code for ACK itself, but not ACK Launcher. I plan to use Free Pascal as the development language. My first goal is to get something workable. You can help by supplying me source code, development notes, and alpha-beta testing.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Good to see you! Let's do it.

[Admiral Ackguh]

First of all, I will need the source code for ACK Launcher and MegaPatch 0.9. I can probably do without the former; and create my own launcher not requiring DosBox. Since I will be coding in Free Pascal for Windows, someone could also compile it for Mac, Linux, etc

WACK for Mac? Why not.

One thing I would really like is help with alpha and beta testing. I would also like to hear from ACK gurus Garth's Equipment Shop and rld, although you and I are guru-ish enough.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Ok. I don't know where any of that is or how to
find it unfortunately.

[Tdarcos]

I've been using Free Pascal for years, I'd be willing to help, but unfortunately converting Turbo Pascal to Free Pascal will have to be a manual process. Some things that required special actions such as MS-DOS calls are now handled through the various libraries. Is this strictly text based, or is it interactive? If what you are doing is simply a compiler, then a text-mode application will work. If it is a run-time library, and it has to support multimedia, then it would be a graphical program.

Let me know if I can help. I'll see if I can find some of the missing pieces, but you may have to accept that you'll have to do a "best guess" of what they do and replace them that way. Sorry if it ends up that way, but "software archaeology," like the real thing, sometimes requires making (presumably) educated guesses.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

You are a good man, Commander.

[Admiral Ackguh]

from Tdarcos:

> I've been using Free Pascal for years, I'd be willing to help, but unfortunately converting Turbo Pascal to Free Pascal will have to be a manual process. Some things that required special actions such as MS-DOS calls are now handled through the various libraries. Is this strictly text based, or is it interactive? If what you are doing is simply a compiler, then a text-mode application will work. If it is a run-time library, and it has to support multimedia, then it would be a graphical program.

ACK was written in Turbo Pascal 7.0, very archaic. Free Pascal is supposedly compatible, but external program calls ("MS-DOS calls") may be tricky. Chris used them extensively, as well as his own functions, to do what might be better done with modern FP built-in functions. I haven't hacked in Pascal for years, so I have some learning (and re-learning) to do. It's going to be graphical. i expect it to have the same functionality as ACK MegaPatch 0.9

> Let me know if I can help. I'll see if I can find some of the missing pieces, but you may have to accept that you'll have to do a "best guess" of what they do and replace them that way. Sorry if it ends up that way, but "software archaeology," like the real thing, sometimes requires making (presumably) educated guesses.

Software archeology kept me in business for the last 20 years. :)

[Admiral Ackguh]

from Ice Cream Jonsey:
You are a good man, Commander.

I take it you are referring to me. I'm an officer and a gentleman, or at least try to be. :)

[Tdarcos]

ACK was written in Turbo Pascal 7.0, very archaic. Free Pascal is supposedly compatible, but external program calls ("MS-DOS calls") may be tricky. Chris used them extensively, as well as his own functions, to do what might be better done with modern FP built-in functions.

MSDos was good for what it was designed for, to provide the basic means to run programs on low-end single-task processors. While it provided lots of functions, sometimes it didn't do everything you needed. Today, people expect a fully formed library to take advantage of accessing a large part of the features available in modern operating systems. The Free Pascal libraries do one thing very well: they hide differences between the means to do the particular function on all platforms by abstracting away the differences, e,g, looking up files in a directory uses the same three subroutine calls (FindFirst, FindNext, and FindClose) even though the mechanics for doing so are different on Windows, Linux, and MacOS.

In order to replicate the features the system can offer, it will be necessary to identify them, and at that point, figure out what is implemented, what isn't, and what either can't be, or no longer need to be. I found the single reference on Google for downloading ACK, and that page has a link to here, so it's probably where you went. I think I'll set up a repo on Github as a place to manage the project. Since it is intended to be a graphical program, the Lazarus IDE provides a very good editing system along with a visual form designer.

from Ice Cream Jonsey:
You are a good man, Commander.

I take it you are referring to me. I'm an officer and a gentleman, or at least try to be. :)

Well, I don't know if I'm a gentleman, although I have occasionally walked through doors reserved for "gentlemen." Those are the kind of places you washed your hands after touching any thing, if you get my drift.