Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!crackers!m2c!umvlsi!dime!smectos!eli
From: eli@smectos.gang.umass.edu (Eli Brandt)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: (none)
Message-ID: <25943@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 1 Feb 91 20:58:39 GMT
References: <25726@adm.brl.mil> <11733@j.cc.purdue.edu>
Sender: news@dime.cs.umass.edu
Reply-To: eli@smectos.CS.UMASS.EDU (Eli Brandt)
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Lines: 41

Somebody needs to say this, I guess...

In article <11733@j.cc.purdue.edu> zhou@brazil.psych.purdue.edu (Albert Zhou) writes:
>In article <25726@adm.brl.mil> SCP3006%SAKAAU03.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu writes:
>>Subject : What are these functions in INT 16H..
>>*******************************************************************************
>>Hi all of you ..
>>
>>   While I was studying a program written in assembly language . I was
>>surprised to see functions 10H , 11H , 12H were used .
>
>I don't think Int 10H is reserved. They are just some BIOS functions.

The original author was talking about *functions* under INT 16, not about INTs 
10/11/12.  INT 10 is the video-services interrupt.

>I don't know much about 11H and 12H. 
>
>>you will find that these functions under INT 16H are * RESERVED *
>
>When people mention Int 16 (not 16H), it's the same thing as Int 10H.

Incidentally, I have never seen anybody discuss interrupts in a radix
other than 16.  He means 16h.
>
>Needless to say, those low-level interrupts are very tricky. It's safer and
>more convenient to used DOS interrupts.

INT 16 is the only way to get real keyboard information, short of writing your
own INT 9 handler.  It's not tricky, it's quite safe, and INT 21 can't do the
job, in addition to being non-reentrant.

Please check your facts before you post...


To answer the original question, functions 10-12 were, I believe, added in the PS/2
BIOS to deal with the new keyboard.  Putting this data into functions 0-2 would
have broken programs.  Your reference is eveidently pre-'87; they *were* reserved then.

Sorry to have to say this, but this sillyreplying is getting overly annoying...
   Eli