To: opendos AT mail DOT tacoma DOT net
Subject: Re: [opendos] Multitasker API and a demo program 
Message-ID: <19970310.174935.10167.7.chambersb@juno.com>
References: <18053 DOT 9703092358 AT pulteney DOT dcs DOT st-andrews DOT ac DOT uk>
From: chambersb AT juno DOT com (Benjamin D Chambers)
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 20:46:26 EST
Sender: owner-opendos AT mail DOT tacoma DOT net
Precedence: bulk

On Sun, 09 Mar 97 23:58:44 +0000 dg AT dcs DOT st-and DOT ac DOT uk writes:
>I vaguely recall I tried TASM and it didn't understand the 32-bit 
>instructions 
>either (though I could be wrong). Besides, doing it What version of
TASM?  Also, did you remember the compiler directives?
ie:
.286		Enable 286 Instructions
.386		Enable 386 Instructions
.486		Enable 486 Instructions
.586		Enable 586 Instructions
TASM 5 supported Pentium, I don't know if anything knewer has come along.
 I don't like their other compilers, but Borland's TASM really is a good
piece of work (IMHO).

>stand-alone with 
>TASM 
>means that I'd have to find out about the C calling conventions. 
I don't think so - I vaguely remember something about using the macro
CALL and it would take care of it for you.  Also, when you set up a
procedure, you can call it C or PASCAL (I know for sure Pascal, so I
assume you can do the same for C).  I don't remember the actual commands,
check it's manual (I lost mine years ago :( ).

>Why Borland? It's small (v3.1), easy to use (*great* IDE) and is 
>perfectly 
>suited for the task.

I was really more interested in whether or not the API could be used by
djgpp programs - but now that I think about it, isn't there a bug in the
DPMI provider?  (So the multitasking wouldn't work with djgpp programs
anyways - would it?)  I haven't actually gotten OpenDOS yet (I plan to
wait until about 2 months _after_ the source release, to let the initial
bug releases and everything be written.  After the first frenzy things
should stabilize {I hope}), so I don't know for sure.

...Chambers