Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucsd!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
From: Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: MS-Fortran versus Sidekick Plus
Message-ID: <24322b85@ralf>
Date: 30 Mar 89 13:28:37 GMT
Sender: ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science
Lines: 25
In-Reply-To: <45900219@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>

In article <45900219@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>, mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
}>My question is:  Is the input method used by the Fortran program legal? 
}
}Yes. Service 34 is marked "reserved" in my DOS reference. This means
}"RESERVED TO MICROSOFT". Your Fortran compiler was written, along with
}its run-time code, by Microsoft. They used a reserved function -
}RESERVED TO THEM. If another Fortran vendor used that method, it would
}not be legal.
}
}It is Sidekick that is broken. They used a reserved function -
}RESERVED TO SOMEONE ELSE!

Sorry, RESERVED TO MICROSOFT only means that MS won't officially tell you what
it does, and reserves the right to change its meaning at will.  However,
INT 21h function 34h is a vital call for any TSR that wants to do disk I/O,
and the _MSDOS_Encyclopedia_ acknowledges that by telling you what it does
(return a pointer to a flag byte that says whether or not DOS is already in an
INT 21h call).  On the other hand, just because it is officially documented
doesn't mean that MS won't change it anyway (look at function 38h).

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