Create a 16bit application?

I want to create a 16 bit Dos application and want it to run using the NTVDM.exe on my 32bit windows 7 machine. How do I do it? I basically want my application to do the file operations through the NTVDM and for that I think I'll need a 16 bit application first, Is there any other way?

• I don't need an Emulator, I need to create an 16-bit app

A couple free C/C++ compilers that claim 16-bit (MS-DOS and Win16) support are the Digital Mars compiler and the Open Watcom Compiler.

The Open Watcom webpage is unresponsive at the moment... There's a SourceForge download page though.