SixTrack VS open-watcom-v2

I've done this in the past, i.e. https://github.com/SixTrack/SixTrack/blob/master/source/bdex.f90

Indeed - today you can define an integer parameter to set the kind and literal precision in a consistent way. See e.g. https://github.com/SixTrack/SixTrack/blob/master/source/core_tools.f90

RHIC/CERN seems like the perfect storm of incredibly intelligent and motivated people, coupled with time pressures and a lack of software development knowledge. Add in the fact that their "business" logic requires a PhD, and you've got an extremely limited subset of software developers who even could work on the code.

Most places, you'd figure people just wouldn't be smart enough to Rube Goldberg their way into a functional program. But someone who does high energy physics as their primary job is assuredly capable of torture a compiler as thoroughly as they want.

F.ex. look at the issues: https://github.com/SixTrack/SixTrack/issues

> remove gamma_e from calculation of kick by elens. the gamma_e factor comes from moving from the electron frame to the lab frame. It is actually compensated by the lorentz transformation applied to the electron current density

You know you're in for fun when the docs start with "SixTrack is wonderful, but it is bloody complicated." https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/LHCAtHome/SixTrackDoc

Example of a pretty complex (lots of flags and libraries) multiplatform CMake setup for Fortan and C/C++: https://github.com/SixTrack/SixTrack/

https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2

In terms of ISO-complianceness, perhaps don't expect much. It basically C89 (the C99 support is still incomplete), and for C++... most likely not even C++98 - compliant.

> You will also want to start with a 16-bit C compiler like Borland Turbo C or Microsoft C

The parent post mentioned they're going to use OpenWatcom which is an actively developed[0] C and C++ compiler that targets 16bit DOS (among others).

[0] https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2

Despite the lack of feature support, the compiler is still updated to this day, and still does support DOS, Windows, Linux, and OS/2, so it's modern in the sense of maintenance, just not really standards support. If you got further questions, I can send you the Discord link. They are pretty friendly.

My advice is, when you feel you need that challenge, install DOSBox or DOSBox-X and Open Watcom C/C++, DJGPP, or gcc-ia16 and do some retro-programming. You'll also get the fun of being able to do low-level hardware twiddling and rely on DOS being so simple that it's effectively an RTOS.

If you want to build under Linux, I would recommend you look at Open Watcom. It's the best open source 16-bit x86 C compiler, IMHO.

I have recently found out that Watcom C still exists. And not just exists, but there are plenty of commits.

I should note, that OpenWatcom 2.0[1] is far better for supporting more recent C and C++ code, modern hosts and tooling, but still able to compile into 16 bit code. It is also actively maintained. Instead of MASM I recommend JWasm[2] + Jwlink[3]. Back in time I did a fork[4] of JWasm that has cleaner build system (CMake).

[1] https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2

[2] https://github.com/Baron-von-Riedesel/JWasm

[3] https://github.com/JWasm/JWlink

[4] https://github.com/JWasm/JWasm

If you want to run this in DOS: the code under src/should actually compile with this OpenWatcom fork via the -za99 flag. MiniFB however will not compile. You'd have to palettize the output pixel buffer to 256 colors and then blit it to 0xa000if you fancy that.

GCC, clang or maybe watcom? You wouldn't find it there (before invention of AGI, but that would be entirely different can of worms).