Message-ID: <176@gitpyr.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 31-Aug-84 10:57:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.176
Posted: Fri Aug 31 10:57:10 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 3-Sep-84 11:46:04 EDT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
Lines: 30

In response to the comment from Microsoft about the INDOS flag, and
the use of undocumented features, about all I can say is that if the
people writing operating systems would create and document all the
facilities needed by programmers, then there would be no need to use
undocumented features.

Perhaps the people at Microsoft could suggest some method for writing
an interrupt handler that uses DOS without using the INDOS pointer?

Or maybe we're supposed to go straight to the BIOS?  :-)

And again, using the SWITCHAR=- configuration statement is undocumented
because lots of programs don't check it and/or produce incorrect results.
But since function 37H isn't documented, we can't even write "correct"
programs NOW!

It really seems that the only thing that can be done is to check the
DOS version number at the start of the program, and bomb out if it
isn't OK.  But it sure would be nice if all the useful functions of
the operating system were documented.

What is really needed is an open architecture operating system to go
along with the open architecture IBM PC.  I for one would love to be
able to buy a MS-DOS Tech Ref Manual, complete with listing on MS-DOS.
-- 
Roy J. Mongiovi.  Office of Computing Services.
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA  30332
Phone:	(404) 894-6163,	(404) 894-4660 [messages]
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