Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!brahms.udel.edu!garrett
From: garrett@brahms.udel.edu (Joel Garrett)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms.programmer
Subject: Accessing devices with port I/O in Windows?
Message-ID: <16648@brahms.udel.edu>
Date: 8 Dec 90 00:21:47 GMT
Organization: University of Delaware
Lines: 27

Hello fellow cwmp readers!  I am working on a project that has controlled a
set of stepper motors through a controller/interface card that has been
operated via IN and OUT statements in either MS C or QuickBasic in real mode
under MS-DOS.  We want to develop a newer version of this application that
would make use of Windows 3.0 for its user interface.

The manufacturer of the stepper motor controller already has device drivers
for their boards for MS C under MS-DOS, but based on what I've read in
this newsgroup and in the Petzold book, I have a feeling that this approach
will either not work under Windows or force a lot of restrictions on how the
application would run (i.e. not a very Windows-friendly application would
result - the program would essentially have to hog the system while running)

If we already have source code for a driver in C under the regular MS-DOS
environment, can this be easily adapted to work in the Windows Environment?

Will we need to get the Windows DDK?  We've already got MS C 6.0 and the SDK
for 3.0  Will we need anything else, like MASM?  Will the existing MSC
libraries for things like software interrupts and such suffice so that we
wouldn't need to code in MASM?

Thank you very much for any advice you might be able to give us in this
endeavour...

						Joel Garrett

						garrett@brahms.udel.edu