Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!pasteur!agate!bionet!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxg.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald
From: mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Windows SDK
Message-ID: <245400010@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 25 Jan 89 14:45:00 GMT
References: <106580019@hpcvlx.HP.COM>
Lines: 29
Nf-ID: #R:hpcvlx.HP.COM:106580019:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:245400010:000:1434
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald    Jan 25 08:45:00 1989



>This package is for the development of applications to run under windows
>only.  There are other develpment kits available from Microsoft for
>writing hardware device drivers and the OEM kit for porting to non-IBM
>compatible platforms.  The latter two are not available to the general
>public.
The documentation for the Windows SDK seems to say that the device
driver kit is available to any purchaser of the SDK (at no charge).
Reports indicate, however, that it is severely incomplete. 

Except for the screen, mouse, and printer, it is not clear that
a Windows device driver is the best way. I just finished yesterday
writing a Windows program that collects data from an ADC board
and a parallel IO card. Windows doesn't prevent accessing TSR
device drivers through software interrupts or global addresses in 
low memory. I used this method and it works fine. The Windows program
checks the device driver at every timer tick. But there is a problem
in that certain user actions completely hang Windows: among these
is the simple act of moving a window with the mouse. So I needed
a huge ring buffer.

It is cute to watch a line go up and down on the screen as I
wave my hand in from of my pc. This works even if the program
is iconic. (I find it neat that just telling Windows that your
program doesn't have an icon allows it, with no special actions
needed, to paint its icon, just like it had a whole screen!).

Doug McDonald