Message-ID: <000601bd8287$011fd0a0$624e08c3@arthur>
From: "Arthur" <arfa AT clara DOT net>
To: "DJGPP Mailing List" <djgpp AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: DPMI
Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 15:23:46 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Precedence: bulk

>> >Please read sections 18.4, 18.6 and 18.7 of the FAQ.  They explain
>> >this issue.
>> >
>>
>> Not brilliantly. :^(

>
>I never said I was brilliant.  It just so happened that DJGPP had a
>FAQ list which didn't cover many of the questions asked here, and all
>the brilliant people were engaged with something else, so I set up to
>write a better FAQ, and I'm improving it ever since as best as I can.


Sorry, no offence meant.

What I did mean was that it didn't explain what DPMI _was_, not how to
access it. 18.4 of the FAQ tells you about it but generally assumes that you
know about the inner workings of the PC, what bits you can access at what
time, and that you generally know what you are doing. I have had less than
four months programming experience on the PC, and am trying to find these
things out as best I can.

Obviously these things are out of the scope of a FAQ about DJGPP, and I was
simply looking for some info about how to do stuff, or some pointers on how
to go about finding it.

Trouble is, every book you can buy either assumes that you are completely
new to programming, or have had long-term programming experience on the PC.

>
>If this is your way of thanking those who help you for free, then it
>really sucks.
>

Honestly, I do appreciate all this free help. After all, I'm not going to
pay for anything (combination of tight wallet, student life, and a bookshop
which thinks that a computer section should consist of Mr Gates'
autobiography and the Dummies Guide to Foxpro) :^)

The FAQs and all the other stuff from various sites have helped me do loadsa
things - for instance, what Mode 13h was and how to draw stuff on the
screen. And the bits of the FAQ which cover what I want seems to be well
written and easy to understand (grovel).

>If somebody more brilliant such as yourself would like to take over
>the responsibilities for maintaining the FAQ, I will gladly relinquish
>my duties.

No thanks. I took one on some time ago but abandoned it after I found out
how much work it entailed.

>Contrary to popular belief, I do have life beyond DJGPP.


So do I, but I'm working on it.

>On the other hand, if you care to tell me what needs to be improved in
>those sections (or anywhere else) in the FAQ, I will gladly do
>whatever I can, although maybe not as brilliantly as others.


Can't think of anything specific to DJGPP at the moment. Perhaps a framed
version so that you have an index down the left hand side :^)

Tell you what, though (and this is to everyone) : There is nothing worse
than having a tutorial which cannot be downloaded and read offline. Stuff
from the Programmer's Vault is great - just save the frame as HTML source -
simple. I did, however, have to do a little tweaking to the files at
www.delorie.com to view tham offline (from the look of the source, it was
done in Frontpage - notorious for this sort of thing).

Still, doesn't affect the FAQ does it?


James Arthur
jaa AT arfa DOT clara DOT net