Borland C 2.0 WebAssembly

This is a emulation wrapper around the Borland C 2.0 compiler toolchain from 1991.

This compiler was distributed by Borland for free within their archival initiative. It is meant for the archival and historic purposes of maintaining older C code from the DOS era.

Credits

This project makes use of a modified build of DOSBox, which is licensed under the GPLv2 and available at @rawrs/dosbox.

Usage via NPX

You can directly call upon the compiler (BCC) via this package: (see examples/MAIN.CPP for a C file to test with)

npx @rawrs/borland-c-2 MAIN.CPP

This creates MAIN.EXE and the intermediate file MAIN.OBJ.

To print out the BCC usage, just run it without any arguments at all:

npx @rawrs/borland-c-2

Borland C++  Version 2.0 Copyright (c) 1991 Borland International
Syntax is: BCC [ options ] file[s]     * = default; -x- = turn switch x off
  -1      80186/286 Instructions    -2      80286 Protected Mode Inst.
  -Ax     Disable extensions        -B      Compile via assembly
  -C      Allow nested comments     -Dxxx   Define macro
  -Exxx   Alternate Assembler name  -G      Generate for speed
  -Hxxx   Use pre-compiled headers  -Ixxx   Include files directory
  -K      Default char is unsigned  -Lxxx   Libraries directory
  -M      Generate link map         -N      Check stack overflow
  -O      Optimize jumps            -P      Force C++ compile
  -Qxxx   Memory usage control      -S      Produce assembly output
  -Txxx   Set assembler option      -Uxxx   Undefine macro
  -Vx     Virtual table control     -Wxxx   Create Windows application
  -X      Suppress autodep. output  -Yx     Overlay control
  -Z      Optimize register usage   -a      Generate word alignment
  -b    * Treat enums as integers   -c      Compile only
  -d      Merge duplicate strings   -exxx   Executable file name
  -fxx    Floating point options    -gN     Stop after N warnings
  -iN     Max. identifier length    -jN     Stop after N errors
  -k      Standard stack frame      -lx     Set linker option
  -mx     Set Memory Model          -nxxx   Output file directory
  -oxxx   Object file name          -p      Pascal calls
  -r    * Register variables        -u    * Underscores on externs
  -v      Source level debugging    -wxxx   Warning control

Just specifying a set of "CPP" or "C" files will use the default options for the compiler followed by the file listing, which is roughly equivalent to:

BCC -ms -p- -k -V -Z -O -r -G -ID:\\BC2\\INCLUDE -LD:\\BC2\\LIB MAIN.CPP

You can specify all of these options just by including them, and it will automatically use the -I and -L to point to the internal paths for the standard includes and libraries:

npx @rawrs/borland-c-2 -ms -p- -k -V -Z -O -r -G MAIN.CPP

If you want to completely use your own and omit these, specify --no-system-includes and/or --no-system-libs

You can build a CPP file and not link it via -S for just assembly:

npx @rawrs/borland-c-2 -ms -p- -k -V -Z -O -r -G -S MAIN.CPP

which creates MAIN.ASM. If you want just the object file, use -c:

npx @rawrs/borland-c-2 -ms -p- -k -V -Z -O -r -G -c MAIN.CPP

Which creates an OBJ file with the same name as the CPP.

Then to link that MAIN.OBJ file to create an executable, use TLINK. Run it alone to see the options:

npx -p @rawrs/borland-c-2 tlink

Turbo Link  Version 4.0 Copyright (c) 1991 Borland International
Syntax: TLINK objfiles, exefile, mapfile, libfiles, deffile
@xxxx indicates use response file xxxx
Options: /m = map file with publics
         /x = no map file at all
         /i = initialize all segments
         /l = include source line numbers
         /L = specify library search paths
         /s = detailed map of segments
         /n = no default libraries
         /d = warn if duplicate symbols in libraries
         /c = lower case significant in symbols
         /3 = enable 32-bit processing
         /v = include full symbolic debug information
         /e = ignore Extended Dictionary
         /t = create COM file (same as /Tc)
         /o = overlay switch
         /P[=NNNNN] = pack code segments
         /A=NNNN = set NewExe segment alignment factor
         /ye = expanded memory swapping
         /yx = extended memory swapping
         /C  = case sensitive exports and imports
         /Txx = specify output file type
               /Tdx = DOS image (default)
               /Twx = Windows image
                (third letter can be c=COM, e=EXE, d=DLL)

For a simple case, where we used the small memory model (-ms) when compiling, we can link our MAIN.OBJ to both the C runtime for small ("S") memory (C0S.OBJ) and the C standard library (CS.LIB) via:

npx -p @rawrs/borland-c-2 tlink C0S MAIN.OBJ,MAIN.EXE,,CS

To link more objects, specify them together... and to link more libraries do the same for them at the end:

npx -p @rawrs/borland-c-2 tlink C0S MAIN.OBJ ANOTHER.OBJ,MAIN.EXE,,CS MATHS

You can also directly invoke the assembler, TASM, via:

npx -p @rawrs/borland-c-2 tasm