Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!usc!apple!motcsd!hpda!hpcupt1!andrews From: andrews@hpcupt1.HP.COM (Edward E. Andrews) Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp Subject: Re: HP 150 microcomputer - can it be IBM compatible?? Message-ID: <-286539989@hpcupt1.HP.COM> Date: 10 Oct 89 14:54:16 GMT References: <706@tijc02.UUCP> Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino Lines: 25 There are a couple of types of compatibility for IBM PC's: 1) DOS compatible. That is, the DOS function calls (INT 21h) are supported (plus a couple of others such as INT 25h and INT 26h for disks). 2) BIOS compatible. That is, software interrupts to system BIOS will works as expected. BIOS compatible implies DOS compatible too. 3) Hardware compatible. This is what everybody tries to be. 99.9% IBM work-alike. The HP150 is DOS compatible. If your program just makes DOS function calls for all I/O (screen, keyboard, and disk), then your program will work. The types of programs that will not work are: TSR's, keyboard enhancers, any disk utility program (the disk layout is slightly different than an IBM clone). All is not lost however. If you want to do your own programming, TURBO- C will will run on the HP150 (an so will the complied programs) if you make one change to TURBO-C. You must remove the INT 1ah in CC.ASM and reassemble it before you run any program compiled with TURBO-C. Also, do not call any of the graphic functions et al that are marked as IBM only in the reference manual. Hope this helps.