Compaq Portable Plus Software

[Ricky2093]

Hello guys!

I am new to collecting vintage computers. My recent interest in this hobby sparked when I played Moria in terminal for my CS systems class. I have recently acquired and fixed a compact portable plus . I want to play around with either C or C++ on the Compaq portable (and possibly play Oregon trail) to practice for my coding interviews in style (sadly BASIC isnt used that much these days). So far on the Compaq, there is MS-DOS in the hard-drive and some accounting software.

I am curious on how to obtain any software through blank 5.25 floppy disks or the harddrive itself.
What software can I install that compiles and runs C or C++ on the Compaq Portable?
Is there a list of software that is worth checking out?

Thank you all so much! I appreciate any feedback!

 

[ajacocks]

Welcome to the forum @Ricky2093 !

There are a couple of ways to get software on 5.25" floppy. The easiest is to install a hard drive replacement device, like the XT CF, and use a CF to USB adapter to load software onto the card. You can then use your Compaq to create 5.25" floppy disks of whatever software you want. This requires a Compact Flash (CF) card, as well, of course.

Another way is to get a device like an AppleSauce and directly attach a PC 5.25" floppy drive to it, and write floppies directly from a Mac. However, that is considerably more money.

A good DOS-based C/C++ compiler is Turbo C++ or Borland C++. There are others, but Turbo/Borland C++ has a good IDE and a decent built-in debugger.

Hope this helps!
- Alex

 

[modem7]

Some methods for transferring files from a modern PC to a vintage PC are at [here].