The Watcom

Watcom

Watcom International Corporation was founded in 1981 by three former employees of the Computer Systems Group at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada...

 C/C++ compiler is a compiler

Compiler

A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...

 for the computer

Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

 programming language

Programming language

A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....

s C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

 and C++

C++

C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...

 that produces executable programs for several platforms and operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

s. The code it produces for MS-DOS

MS-DOS

MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...

 executes very fast. It was one of the first compilers to support the Intel 80386

Intel 80386

The Intel 80386, also known as the i386, or just 386, was a 32-bit microprocessor introduced by Intel in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors and were used as the central processing unit of many workstations and high-end personal computers of the time...

 "protected mode". In the mid-1990s some of the most technically ambitious DOS games such as Doom, Descent

Descent (video game)

Descent is a 3D first-person shooter video game developed by Parallax Software and released by Interplay Entertainment Corp. in 1995. The game features six degrees of freedom gameplay and garnered several expansion packs...

and Duke Nukem 3D

Duke Nukem 3D

Duke Nukem 3D is a first-person shooter computer game developed by 3D Realms and published by GT Interactive Software. The full version was released for the PC . It is a sequel to the platform games Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II published by Apogee...

were built using Watcom C.

Though no longer sold commercially by Sybase

Sybase

Sybase, an SAP company, is an enterprise software and services company offering software to manage, analyze, and mobilize information, using relational databases, analytics and data warehousing solutions and mobile applications development platforms....

, the Watcom C/C++ compiler and the Watcom Fortran

Fortran

Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...

 compiler have been made available as the free and open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

  Open Watcom package with the assistance of SciTech Software

SciTech Software

SciTech Software, Inc. is a privately held software company based in Chico, CA.Founded by Kendall Bennett in 1996, SciTech Software, Inc. developed many popular graphics device driver programs for the PC, ranging from UniVESA to SciTech Display Doctor and SciTech SNAP Graphics and SciTech SNAP...

.