What is the FreeBSD situation?

[Walter Bright]

On 11/5/2017 3:13 AM, Patrick Schluter wrote:
> On Sunday, 5 November 2017 at 09:17:37 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> I run dmd regularly on an XP box, but that just means dmd itself runs on XP. 
>> (I converted the front end of DMC++ to D, using DMD in -betterC mode, and XP 
>> is the last operating system that supports DOS programs. XP has the DOS DMC++ 
>> test suite on it.)
>>
> I don't think that's true. It's a 32bit/64bit division, not a Windows version 
> thing. A 32 bits installation can run 16 bits and 32 bits programs, a 64 bits 
> version can run natively 32 bits and 64 bits programs. None can run all 3 modes 
> natively.

Is that an issue with the CPU, or the operating system?

> I know with certainty that Windows 8.1 32 bits installation could still run DOS 
> and Windows 16 bits apps. I haven't seen evidence to the contrary for Windows 10.
> Windows XP was the last version that was installed massively in 32 bits mode. 
>  From Vista on, the proportion of 32 bits installations (and thus losing 16 bits 
> support) dwindeled.

Windows 7  64 bit will not run 16 bit programs. Try it and you get a dialog box 
"Unsupported 16-Bit Application". I haven't tried Win 7 32, but some googling 
around shows you are correct.