Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:7896 comp.sys.ibm.pc:12925
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!att-ih!alberta!ncc!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!well!mccarthy
From: mccarthy@well.UUCP (Patrick McCarthy)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: TSR (mem. res.) programs in MSC 5.0/QuickC??
Summary: A pain...
Message-ID: <5391@well.UUCP>
Date: 8 Mar 88 02:50:48 GMT
References: <34910PNU@PSUVM>
Reply-To: mccarthy@well.UUCP (Patrick McCarthy)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 36

From ptsfa!ames!nrl-cmf!ukma!psuvm.bitnet!pnu Mon Mar  7 18:25:45 PST 1988
In article <34910PNU@PSUVM> PNU@PSUVM.BITNET (Jon Peters) writes:

> Does anyone have any experience in writing TSR (Terminate & Stay Ready)
> programs in either Microsoft C 5.0 or MS QuickC? Specifically, has
> anyone made use of the _chain_intr, _dos_getvect, _dos_setvect and/or
> _dos_keep functions?
> 
> The runtime library reference, which provides reasonably good examples
> for most functions, has very little info. on these.

I hate to tell you this, but using these library routines can be a
royal *PAIN* for someone new to C and/or the IBM PC (and even for
those who aren't), primarily because of DOS reentrancy problems
(i.e., a TSR can't use DOS if the foreground process is already
using it).  I don't want to sound like a living advertisement, but
Blaise Computing offers a package called C TOOLS PLUS/5.0, which
provides a number of routines to help support writing TSRs which go
way beyond the MSC library routines, as well as text windows, menus,
screen access, and a whole bunch of other stuff. It costs about $175,
but it may save you ten times that much in headaches.  It also comes
with lots of example programs written in C, documentation, and source
(mostly C). This package is functionally almost identical to our
product Turbo C TOOLS (for Turbo C), which has a write-up in this month's
Turbo Technix magazine.

		Blaise Computing
		2560 Ninth Street, Suite 316
		Berkeley, CA 94710
		(415) 540-5441	    <- Technical support/technical questions
		(800) 333-8087	    <- Orders only

Pat McCarthy
mccarthy@well.uucp
well!mccarthy@lll-crg.arpa

P.S.: Actually, TSR stands for Terminate and Stay Resident.