From: Russ Magee Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer,comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: Porting DJGPP DPMI Apps-->Borland C++5.x Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 15:19:30 -0700 Organization: Mount Royal College Lines: 44 Message-ID: <3A36A472.7040003@home.com> References: <3A302D69 DOT 8020107 AT home DOT com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 142.109.110.34 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.mtroyal.ab.ca 976659543 10160 142.109.110.34 (12 Dec 2000 22:19:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse AT mtroyal DOT ab DOT ca NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 Dec 2000 22:19:03 GMT User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; m18) Gecko/20001010 X-Accept-Language: en To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Jack Klein wrote: > > Why do you assume you need DPMI at all? You have no need whatsoever > to access DOS calls with BC 5.02. Just build Win32 console > applications and you can use all of the standard C and C++ library > functions. There is no need for DPMI. > > Jack Klein Oops, my apologies. I didn't state clearly enough in the original message that this course needs to to a lot of C <--> ASM glue code (it's a systems-programming course, things like writing keyboard handling ISRs, parallel-port drivers, etc.). So really we won't be using libraries much at all -- it's all 'close to the metal' type stuff. Our concern is whether it will be easy to convert the existing DJGPP C and GAS assembler source to Borland's environment; VESA video BIOS calls are also a big concern, as there are graphics assignments using it. We have the Borland 5.00 compiler which has full support for standard DOS program compilation, and also the newer version which has no DOS support at all, so I guess my questions really are: 1) If we use the 5.0 compiler and make 16-bit DOS apps, is it true we don't need DPMI at all, and can just call BIOS the traditional way, and bang on hardware directly? 2) If we use the newer compiler, and compile win32 console apps, can these access the BIOS and hit hardware directly as well? If so, does it look the same from the assembly-coder's standpoint (other than being able to use a flat address space, I suppose, which would be nicer)? The textbooks on PC Assembler/Hardware Architecture all use DOS apps in their examples of accessing hardware/BIOS directly. We NEED the development environment to be somewhat compatible with the textbook. 3) And can we use VESA BIOS calls with either of the above schemes, without DJGPP? (IE, what kind of support for VESA calls is there in TASM, Borland C/C++)? I hope this is clearer. Thanks again in advance, -Russ