Date:	Thu, 25 Sep 1997 11:33:35 +0200 (IST)
From:	Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To:	Michael Mauch <michael DOT mauch AT gmx DOT de>
cc:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: DJGPP, interprocess communication, and DPMI
In-Reply-To:	<3428f481.28082079@news.uni-duisburg.de>
Message-ID:	<Pine.SUN.3.91.970925113258.22174H-100000@is>
MIME-Version:	1.0

On Wed, 24 Sep 1997, Michael Mauch wrote:

> Maybe in the end we'll have kind of a "terminal" for debugging purposes.

I think this project means much more than just debugging.  It might as
well be the final piece of the puzzle whose solution will let DJGPP
support asynchronous processes (albeit only on Windows).

Windows 95 already allows you to launch another program using the
START command.  What is missing is (1) a means to make a connection
between the two programs, so that they could pass small (say, upto
16KB) chunks of data via a simulated pipe; (2) a means for the child
program to tell the parent that it exited.

Both of these missing parts can be implemented quite easily if a
more-or-less general-purpose communication were possible between two
DOS boxes.  This project might just provide the machinery to make that
happen.

Making the above possible means, for example, that you could
immediately realize such niceties in Emacs as integrated
spell-checking, integrated debugger support, running a shell inside
the editor's buffer, and more.

So I would urge you to continue development of this TSR, with the
above applications in mind.  Thanks in advance!

P.S.  To keep this project compatible with the spirit of DJGPP, it
would be nice if it could be compiled with DJASM, although NASM is
also OK.

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