Revision History

This page contains a list of many of the changes I have made to OSPlus.

Early version

15th January 2000 (or so)

• Created very basic building blocks of OSPlus

Beta 1 - Release 1

12th/13th February 2000 (or so)

• Converted from Watcom C/C++ to Borland C++
• Started work on File Browser
• Started work on Text Editor
• Improved kernel and internal system (because of addition of DLL support, etc, thanks to BC PowerPack for DOS)

14th February 2000

• Started work on File Viewer

15th February 2000

• Created Control Centre
• Created Video Setup Utility

16th February 2000

• Added File Type Detection Support to File Browser

17th February 2000

• Improved File Type support and added more file types

18th February 2000

• Attempted to create Windows Write filter for Text Editor, but the filter failed (what I want to know is how could it possibly make a 75MB file (which was full of unrelated material) out of the Windows 3.1 Readme, which was 90K???)

19th February 2000

• Created Windows/MS-DOS stub, disabled Windows support
• Cut down file sizes (reduced Text Editor from 384KB to 285KB, for example - almost removing 100KB, and whole SYSTEM folder from 1.76MB to 1.46MB)
• Updated messages and About dialogs for beta one

Beta 1 - Release 2

19th February 2000

• Added swap file support
• Changed VIDMODE.EXE to OSPSETUP.EXE and modified it for swap file

20th February 2000

• Added other minor improvements

Beta 1 - Release 3

27th February 2000

• Added floppy disk support
• Improved video handling
• Improved other little features
• Added Windows NT/2000/9x version of loader
• Improved startup screen

28th February 2000

• Improved Win32 loader by adding DOS stub that simply runs OSPlus
• Improved more internal features

29th February 2000

• Added OS/2 version of loading stub
• Created and implemented RTF filter

Beta 1 - Release 4

1st March 2000

• Added ViewPlus - quick, cut-down, 32-bit version of viewer

2nd March 2000

• Improved beta-only features
• Added Windows 3.x device driver for ViewPlus compatability

3rd March 2000

• Added Calculator accessory
• Created 'easter egg' - try pressing ALT+0 in Control Centre or clicking just to the right of the Control Centre status text...

4th March 2000

• Added RTF converter support to File Viewer. Howver, tabs and bullets and so on are represented as little symbols
• Improved and added various kernel APIs

5th March 2000

• Improved efficiency of code

12th March 2000

• Started work on major project (to remain secret for now)

13th and 14th March 2000

• Did more work on secret project

Beta 1 - Release 5

14th March 2000

• Released Release 5 of OSPlus

18th March 2000

• Improved RTF converter

20th March 2000

• Started work on GEM support

25th March 2000

• Completed GEM Support
• Created new Windows version of OSPlus Setup

26th March 2000

• Completed Windows version of OSPlus Setup
• Polished off GEM support

30th March 2000

• Implemented 32-bit version of kernel
• Changed ViewPlus to use this new kernel

9th April 2000

• Created new bitmap management system
• Updated some applications to use it

13th April 2000

• Started work on new graphical version of OSPlus

15th April 2000

• Started work on driver manager
• Created PC Speaker driver

22nd April 2000

• Created very primative button and edit controls for OSPlus 1.1

23rd April 2000

• Created check box and option button controls for OSPlus 1.1
• Added very basic icon support to OSP 1.1 (with half a system icon in the test program!)

Beta 1 - Release 6

27th April 2000

• Added DOS stub to Windows version of Setup
• Started slight improvements on Windows version of Setup
• Improved internal versioning information
• Created problem with Windows version of Setup

28th April 2000

• Completed improvements on Windows version of Setup
• Solved problem with Windows version of Setup

29th April 2000

• Packaged OSPlus Beta 1 Release 6
• Changed 32-bit programs/DLLs to use dynamic version of run-time library

7th May 2000

• Started work on basic scroll bar control

9th May 2000

• Improved look of 3D dialogs and buttons (OSPlus 1.1)
• Completed very basic scroll bar (OSPlus 1.1)
• Started work on new project to do with OSPlus

10th May 2000

• Did some more work on new project
• Fixed error that occurs after OSPlusNT.exe is executed

21st May 2000

• Started work on sound support, but ran into a brick wall with SBPro because of DPMI problems between Borland DPMI and DOS/4GW

30th May 2000

• Updated site to include info on other 'easter egg' - try ALT and one of the numbers 0-6 in Text Editor - hope you like it (I do - sorry about the stretching though)
• Generally improved performance slightly

BETA 1 RELEASE 7

3rd June 2000

• Uploaded Beta 1 Release 7
• Modified executables slightly for Release 7

11/12th June 2000

• Created Owen's FreeGEM Distribution

15th June 2000

• Released Beta 1 Release 7 Update 1
• Added new FreeGEM Distribution to B1 R7 U1
• Created temporary Setup program
• Created new Find File DOS tool (will release OSPlus version, probably as an accessory, soon)

16th June 2000

• Had a long, hard think about graphical version
• Updated Readme.txt to fix some bugs (such as incorrect URLs and installation procedures)

24th June 2000

• Added sound support to basic beeps and created enhanced driver manager

25th June 2000

• Released Beta 1 Release 7 Update 2

29th July 2000

• Confirmed OSPlus worked under FreeDOS

OSPlus 1.00

1st August 2000

• Created new .COM shells to easily start Text Editor etc
• Updated everything for OSPlus 1.00 and removed beta code
• Removed FreeGEM from distribution

11th September 2000

• Updated OSP.EXE to include Windows switch

7th November 2000

• Improved Write filter (it now grabs text, doesn't create huge files, and works OK, but there are still bugs).
• Released Utility Kit

OSPlus 1.1 - DJGPP Version

30th September 2000

• Started work on porting OSPlus to DJGPP
• Implemented basics of Control Centre
• Implemented startup screen and created new logo

1st October 2000

• Created resource file support
• Reimplemented hidden feature (ALT+0 in Control Centre) :-)

OSPlus - Open Source

PLEASE NOTE: See the CHANGES.TXT files in the CVS tree for latest updates

17th December 2000

• Made Text Editor compatible with DJGPP

18th December 2000

• Fixed DJGPP link problem with Text Editor

19th December 2000

• Added support for Allegro and sound to Text Editor
• Added new About dialog
• Made a few changes to Disk Imager

20th December 2000

• Added Win32 support to Text Editor. This uses WINMM.DLL for sound.

21st December 2000

• Added build number to About box (TEXTEDIT)

24th December 2000

• Added -s to GCC command line to strip debugging info (TEXTEDIT)
• Created Linux version, including Allegro support (TEXTEDIT)
• Added SOUND.C for sound-related routines (TEXTEDIT)

25th December 2000

• Got Linux sound working properly (TEXTEDIT)

26th December 2000

• Made TXTRTF.CNV and TXTWRITE.CNV more platform-independant (TEXTEDIT)
• Reimplemented converter support in Text Editor for Linux (TEXTEDIT)

4th February 2001

• Added MIDI player for DJGPP, Win32 and Linux (TEXTEDIT)
• Moved all platform-specific sound code into separate files (TEXTEDIT)

19th May 2001

• Created new About OSPlus dialog to replace old dialog
• Added build version to About dialog
• Uprooted and replaced build files (TEXTEDIT)
• Dropped Win32 support. When the new Win32 version of TV is out, I may bring it back again. (TEXTEDIT)
• Attempted to add Save Desktop and Restore Desktop commands (TEXTEDIT)

4th August 2001

• Released OSPlus Utility Kit 2.0
• Fixed RTF conversion problem with ViewPlus (where ViewPlus only recognised RTF files written in capitals)
• Added Write converter support to ViewPlus

2nd September 2001

• Made it so errors in the disk imaging routines did not call exit(). This should also stop messages like "Insert disk in drive B" then a crash (unless of course you asked to read from/write to drive B). (DSKIMAGE)
• Released Disk Imager 1.3

26th September 2001

• Fixed horrible (and stupid) bug introduced in ver 1.3 that caused the Imager not to read from a disk
• Moved QuickMessage class into seperate CPP file
• Added more progress info and progress bar
• Fixed F2/F3 keyboard shortcuts
• Released Disk Imager 1.4

2nd October 2001

• Attempted to use new Win32 Turbo Vision. There are some bugs which will be fixed in the next version of TV, so I will wait.

12th October 2001

• Improved build structure (obj/platform, bin/platform dirs, etc)
• Improved converter error reporting
• Reimplemented Win32 support with latest version of TV, created makefile, etc

13th October 2001

• Started work on improved converter system

23rd December 2001

• Did some work on converter system

24th December 2001

• Finished off new build structure and improved makefile system
• Made sound-related menu items hidden if platform didn't support sound

5th January 2002

• Cleaned up indentation, changed copyright to 2002, other updates

17th January 2002

• Removed -IC:\DJGPP\contrib\tvision\include from DJGPP targets

Future changes not shown at present.

Click here to view the latest Disk Imager changes, or here for the latest Text Editor changes.