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Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!faqserv
From: jeffrey@carlyle.com (Jeffrey Carlyle)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer,alt.msdos.programmer,comp.answers,alt.answers,news.answers
Subject: comp.os.msdos.programmer FAQ part 1/5
Supersedes: <msdos-programmer-faq/part1_873193441@rtfm.mit.edu>
Followup-To: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Date: 30 Sep 1997 09:49:14 GMT
Organization: The COMP-FAQ Project
Lines: 828
Sender: jeffrey@carlyle.com (Jeffrey Carlyle)
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
Expires: 11 Nov 1997 09:49:05 GMT
Message-ID: <msdos-programmer-faq/part1_875612945@rtfm.mit.edu>
Reply-To: jeffrey@carlyle.com (Jeffrey Carlyle)
NNTP-Posting-Host: penguin-lust.mit.edu
Summary: Frequently asked questions by DOS programmers with tested answers.
X-Last-Updated: 1997/08/04
Originator: faqserv@penguin-lust.MIT.EDU
Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.os.msdos.programmer:92880 alt.msdos.programmer:39077 comp.answers:28267 alt.answers:29274 news.answers:113409
Archive-name: msdos-programmer-faq/part1
Comp-os-msdos-programmer-archive-name: dos-faq-pt1.txt
Posting-frequency: 28 days
Last-modified: 04 Aug 97
------------------------------
Subject: comp.os.msdos.programmer FAQ part 1/5
FAQ updates can be found at <http://www.premiernet.net/~carlyle>.
This is part 1 of the frequently asked question list for the
newsgroup comp.os.msdos.programmer.
Part 1:
Section 1. General FAQ and Newsgroup Information
Section 2. General Reference
------------------------------
Subject: Is MS-DOS Dead?
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 97 16:29:08 CST
No. Though Microsoft may not be actively developing MS-DOS there
are still many computer that are not capable of running Microsoft
Windows. The current version of Microsoft Windows will also run
any MS-DOS program; therefore, MS-DOS is not dead, and will most-
likely never die just as Commodore-64s and Amigas have not died.
------------------------------
Subject: comp.os.msdos.programmer FAQ
Comp.os.msdos.programmer FAQ Version 1997.08
Copyright 1997 by Jeffrey Carlyle. All rights reserved. This
article is not in the public domain, but it may be redistributed
so long as this notice, the acknowledgments, and the information
on obtaining the latest copy of this list are retained and no fee
is charged. The code fragments may be used freely; credit to the
FAQ would be polite. This FAQ is not to be included in any static
archive (e.g. CD-ROM or book); however, a pointer to the FAQ may
be included.
=============================
TABLE OF CONTENTS
=============================
Part 1:
Section 1. General FAQ and Newsgroup Information
Section 2. General Reference
Part 2:
Section 3. Compile and Link
Section 4. Keyboard
Part 3:
Section 5. Disks and files
Section 6. Serial ports (COM ports)
Part 4:
Section 7. Other hardware questions and problems
Section 8. Other software questions and problems
Part 5:
Section 9. Downloading
Section 10. Vendors and products
------------------------------
Subject: Section 1. General FAQ and Newsgroup Information
<Q: 1.01> - What is this article for?
<Q: 1.02> - Who has contributed to this article?
<Q: 1.03> - How can I search this article for a particular topic?
<Q: 1.04> - Are the answers guaranteed to be correct and complete?
<Q: 1.05> - What is comp.os.msdos.programmer about?
<Q: 1.06> - Is comp.os.msdos.programmer just for C programmers?
<Q: 1.07> - What is comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer?
<Q: 1.08> - Is comp.os.msdos.programmer available as a mailing
list?
<Q: 1.09> - What's this "netiquette"?
<Q: 1.10> - How can I learn more about Usenet?
<Q: 1.11> - What other technical newsgroups should I know about?
<Q: 1.12> - Where are FAQ lists archived?
<Q: 1.13> - Where can I get the latest copy of this FAQ list?
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 1.01> - What is this article for?
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 97 23:23:16 CST
This is the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list for the
newsgroup comp.os.msdos.programmer. This list is maintained in
versions; new questions and revised questions in this version are
not marked do to the restructuring of the FAQ; however, in future
versions new or revised questions will be marked with "NEW" or
"REVISED" in the subject. This list is posted every 20 days.
FAQ lists are intended to reduce the noise level in their
newsgroups that results from the repetition of the same
questions, correct answers, wrong answers, corrections to the
wrong answers, corrections to the corrections, debate, etc.
This list should serve as a repository of the canonical "best"
answers to the questions in it. The names of folks who have
helped to improve this FAQ list are listed in <Q: 1.02> - "Who
has contributed to this article?"
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 1.02> - Who has contributed to this article?
*revised*
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 95 12:00:00 CDT
This list is maintained and edited by Jeffrey Carlyle. To contact
him send email to <mailto:jeffrey@carlyle.com> or via surface
mail to:
Jeffrey Carlyle
297 Meadowlark Trail
Bowling Green, KY 42101-9427
Stan Brown <mailto:brown@ncoast.org> as the former list
maintainer has been the major contributor: Stan wrote most of
this list.
Many articles posted in comp.os.msdos.programmer sparked ideas or
provided information for the first version of this list. Though
they are not responsible for any errors, thanks are due to the
following persons for posted articles or private email that led
to improvements in this FAQ list:
Jamshid Afshar, Mark Aitchison, Sanjay Aiyagari, George Almasi,
Aaron Auseth, Robert Baker, Preston Bannister, Scott Barman,
Denis Beauregard, Per Bergland, Mike Black, Chris Blum, Ron
Bodkin, Mark Brader, Jon Brinkmann, Andrew James Bromage, Glynn
Brooks, Paul Brooks, Ralf Brown, Stan Brown, Shaun Burnett,
D'Arcy J.M. Cain, Jeffrey Carlyle, Raymond Chen, Kelly Cooper,
Denny de Jonge, Eric DeVolder, Alan Drew, Paul Ducklin, Gary
Dueck, Roland Eriksson, Mark Evans, Markus Fischer, George
Forsman, Roger Fulton, Vincent Giovannone, Robert Grunloh,
B.Haible, Janos Haide, Klaus Hartnegg, Kris Heidenstrom, Tom
Haapanen, Joel Hoffman, Ari Hovila, Chin Huang, Daniel P Hudson,
Joe Huffman, Michael Holin, Mike Iarrobino, Byrial Jensen, Rune
Jorgensen, Ajay Kamdar, Igor Kerp, Everett Kaser, JJ Keijser,
Jeff Kellam, Jen Kilmer, Reinhard Kirchner, Dave Kirsch, Chad
Knudsen, Samuel Ko, Jan Kotas, Janne Kukonlehto, Robert Luursema,
Benjamin Lee, Stephen Lee, Jim Lynch, Greg Malknecht, Sidney
Markowitz, Jim Marks, Dimitri Matzarakis, Fred McCall, Ken McKee,
Doug Merrett, Tom Milner, Bill Moore, Duncan Murdoch, Steve
Murphy, Daniel Neri, Mert Nickerson, David Nugent, John
Oldenburg, David Pape, Keith Petersen, Karl Riedling, Arthur
Rubin, Gerald Ruderman, Timo Salmi, Tapio Sand, Charles Sandmann,
John Schmid, Russell Schulz, Huseyin Sevay, Adam Seychell, Ajay
Shah, Bob Smith, Bob Stout, Sean Sullivan, Steve Summit, Tom
Swingle, Anders Thulin, Curt Tilmes, Rick Watkins, Ya-Gui Wei,
Morten Welinder, Joe Wells, Scott Winder, Gregory Youngblood, Eli
Zaretski, khill@vax1.umkc.edu
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 1.03> - How can I search this article for a
particular topic?
To locate a certain word or phrase use your newsreader's,
browser's, or editor's search utility.
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 1.04> - Are the answers guaranteed to be correct and
complete?
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 94 15:34:00 CDT
There has been an attempt to check all facts, but THERE IS NO
WARRANTY ON THE CODE OR ON THE TECHNIQUES DESCRIBED HEREIN.
Please send corrections to <mailto:jeffrey@carlyle.com>. All the
code has been tested; but the testing may not have been perfect,
and machines and configurations vary. (Except where otherwise
noted, C code was tested with MSC 5, BC++ 2.0, or BC++ 4.x.)
The mention of particular books or programs must not be construed
to reflect unfavorably on any that are not mentioned.
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 1.05> - What is comp.os.msdos.programmer about?
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 94 15:34:00 CDT
Comp.os.msdos.programmer (comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer until
September 1990) concerns programming for MS-DOS systems. The
article "USENET Readership report for Jul 94" in news.lists shows
120,000 readers of this newsgroup worldwide. Traffic (exclusive
of crossposts) was 1981 articles aggregating 3.1 Megabytes. It
ranked as the 79th most popular newsgroup.
Much of our traffic is about language products (chiefly from
Borland and Microsoft). More programming topics focus on C than
on any one other language, but we are not just for C programmers
(see <Q: 1.07> - "Is comp.os.msdos.programmer just for C
programmers?").
Since most MS-DOS systems run on hardware that is roughly
compatible with the IBM PC, on Intel 8088, 80188, or 80x86 chips,
we tend to get a lot of questions and answers about programming
other parts of the hardware.
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 1.06> - Is comp.os.msdos.programmer just for C
programmers?
No, it is for all programmers who want to share information about
programming in MS-DOS and DOS replacements like 4DOS. Programs
and questions are also posted in Pascal, assembly, and other
languages (including MS-DOS batch programming).
Why does the newsgroup seem to be so C-oriented sometimes? There
are two reasons. First, comp.lang.c and comp.lang.pascal have
evolved in different directions. Comp.lang.pascal welcomes
vendor-specific discussion, such as Turbo Pascal. Since so many
of Turbo Pascal's features are tailored to programming on PCs and
in MS-DOS, Turbo Pascal programmers tend to find DOS questions
welcomed there, so that comp.os.msdos.programmer gets less of the
"DOS in Turbo Pascal" traffic. On the other hand, comp.lang.c
has stayed closer to talking only about the C language, and
vendor-specific or operating-system-specific questions are not
welcome. This tends to push questions about disks, DOS file
structure, video, the keyboard, TSRs, etc. to
comp.os.msdos.programmer even when those programs are written in
C.
This FAQ is definitely C-oriented, not because that's necessarily
best but because I tried to stick to what I could verify
personally. As a C programmer (with some assembler), I could most
carefully verify solutions in C or assembler. I felt that short,
clear programs could be published in just one language and
programmers could translate them into their languages of choice.
But the FAQ list also contains several long programs written only
in C; this is a defect with no obvious remedy. Most answers that
point to source code at archive sites include both C- and Pascal-
language source when available.
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 1.07> - What is comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer?
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 97 19:18:26 CST
Comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer is the old name of
comp.os.msdos.programmer, and has been obsolete since September
1990. However, many systems have not removed the old group, or
have removed it but aliased it to the new name. This means that
some people still think they're posting to
comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer even though they're actually posting
to comp.os.msdos.programmer.
You can easily verify the non-existence of
comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer by reference to the "List of Active
Newsgroups" posted to news.groups. It's available at:
<ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/active-
newsgroups>
(For RTFM usage instructions see <Q: 1.13> - "Where are FAQ lists
archived?")
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 1.08> - Is comp.os.msdos.programmer available as a
mailing list?
Sorry, the newsgroup is not available as a mailing list.
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 1.09> - What's this "netiquette"?
Netiquette is good Usenet etiquette. It includes basic rules
like the ones below. (See also <Q: 1.11> - "How can I learn more
about Usenet?")
- Always read a newsgroup for a reasonable time before you post
an article to it.
- Pick the one right group for your article; don't crosspost
unless absolutely necessary. If you absolutely must post an
article to more than one group, do crosspost it and don't post the
same article separately to each group. See <Q: 1.12> - "What
other technical newsgroups should I know about?" when considering
where to post an article.
- Before you post a question, make sure you're posting to the
right newsgroup; the best way to do that is to observe the
proceeding rule. Check the group's FAQ list (if it has one) to
make sure that your question isn't already answered there; see <Q:
1.13> "Where are FAQ lists archived?"
- When you post a question, if you ask for email responses then
promise to post a summary. Keep your promise. And make it a real
summary: don't just append all the email you got. Instead, write
your own (brief) description of the solution: this is the best way
to make sure you really understand it.
- Before you post a follow-up, read the other follow-ups. Very
often you'll find that someone else has already made the point you
had in mind.
- When someone posts a question, if you want to know the answer
don't post a "me, too". Instead send email to the poster asking
him or her to share responses with you.
- When posting a follow-up to another posted article, remove
all headers and signature lines from the old article; just keep
the line "In <article>, so-and-so writes:". Also cut the original
article down as much as possible; just keep enough of it to remind
readers of the context.
- Keep lines in posted articles to 72-75 characters. Many
newsreaders chop off column 81 or arbitrarily insert a newline
there, which makes longer lines difficult or impossible to read.
But you need to keep well below 80 characters per line to allow
for the > characters that get inserted when other people post
follow-ups to your article.
- Keep your signature to 4 lines or less (including any
graphics) and for heaven's sake make sure it doesn't get posted
twice in your article.
- Don't post email without first obtaining the permission of
the sender.
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 1.10> - How can I learn more about Usenet?
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 97 19:18:14 CST
There are two important newsgroups for learning about how Usenet
and newsreader software works:
- News.announce.newusers contains periodic postings that
everybody is asked to read before posting anything to Usenet. (In
theory, all new users are subscribed to news.announce.newusers
automatically. But in practice not all newsreader software does
that, so that many people violate the guidelines given there
simply because they don't know about them.)
- News.newusers.questions is described as "Q & A for users new
to the Usenet". But new and long-time users can ask or answer
questions about Usenet and newsreader software there. There's an
important article, "Welcome to news.newusers.questions! (Weekly
posting)", that everyone is asked to read before posting to
news.newusers.questions. (See below for ways to get a copy of
that article.)
The following postings in news.announce.newusers might be
considered the "mandatory course" for new users:
Introduction to news.announce.newusers
What is Usenet?
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
Rules for posting to Usenet
A Primer on How to Work with the Usenet Community
Hints on writing style for Usenet
Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
The articles mentioned above are downloadable via ftp from
rtfm.mit.edu in the following files:
- <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/news-
newusers-intro>
Welcome to news.newusers.questions! (Weekly posting)
- <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/news-
announce-intro/part1>
Introduction to news.announce.newusers
- <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/what-
is/part1>
<ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/what-
is/part2>
What is Usenet?
- <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-
group/news.answers/usenet/faq/part1>
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
- <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-
group/news.answers/usenet/posting-rules/part1>
Rules for posting to Usenet
- <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-
group/news.answers/usenet/primer/part1>
A Primer on How to Work with the Usenet Community
- <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-
group/news.answers/usenet/writing-style/part1>
Hints on writing style for Usenet
- <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-
group/news.answers/usenet/emily-postnews/part1>
Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
For rtfm.mit.edu instructions, see <Q: 1.13> "Where are FAQ lists
archived?"
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 1.11> - What other technical newsgroups should I know
about?
Date: Wed, 02 Oct 94 15:34:00 CDT
Caution: Some of these newsgroups have specialized charters;
you'll probably get flamed (and deserve it) if you post to an
inappropriate group. Most groups have FAQ lists that will tell
you what's appropriate. Don't post a request for the FAQ list;
instead, retrieve it yourself: see <Q: 1.13> - "Where are FAQ
lists archived?"
- Misc.forsale.computers.d and misc.forsale.computers.pc-clone
are where you post notices of equipment, software, or computer
books that you want to sell. Please don't post or crosspost those
notices to comp.os.msdos.programmer.
- comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.* groups (formerly part of
comp.windows.ms.programmer): Similar to comp.os.msdos.programmer,
but focus on programming for the MS-Windows platform.
- Comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware is for more hardware-oriented
discussions of the machines that run DOS.
- The various comp.lang.* groups for articles and questions on
the programming languages. Caution: some groups welcome
discussions that are operating-system dependent or vendor
specific; others do not. For example, comp.lang.c is definitely
_not_ for questions about programming DOS or PC system features,
even if the programs are written in C.
- Comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted: AFTER you have looked in the
other groups, this is the place to post a request for a particular
binary program.
- Comp.archives.msdos.announce (moderated) explains how to use
the archive sites, especially Garbo and SimTel, and lists files
uploaded to them. Discussions belong in comp.archives.msdos.d,
which replaced comp.binaries.ibm.pc.archives in December 1992.
- Comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d is for discussions about programs
posted in comp.binaries.ibm.pc, and only those programs. This is
a good place to report bugs in the programs, but not to ask where
to find them (see cbip.wanted, above). Comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d is
NOT supposed to be a general PC discussion group.
- Comp.sources.misc: a moderated group for source code for many
computer systems. It tends to get lots of Unix stuff, but you may
also pick up some DOS-compatible code here.
- Alt.sources: an unmoderated group for source code.
Guidelines are posted periodically.
- Comp.os.msdos.djgpp is specifically for support of DJGPP. For
more information on DJGPP see <Q: 10.06> - What and where is
DJGPP?
- Comp.os.msdos.programmer.turbovision is specifically for
programming in Turbo Vision.
- Rec.games.programmer discusses many graphics programming
topics.
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 1.12> - Where are FAQ lists archived?
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 97 19:20:21 CST
Very possibly the FAQ list you want is already at your site.
Check the newsgroup news.answers; if your site doesn't carry
news.answers, check comp.answers, rec.answers, etc., according to
the top-level name in the FAQ list's "home" newsgroup. Articles
are posted to the *.answers groups in a way that should make them
last until the next versions are posted. If they expire sooner
at your site, you might want to lobby your sysadmin to treat the
moderated *.answers groups as a special case and grant them
longer expiration times than other groups.
To ftp most FAQ lists, connect to <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-
by-group/news.answers>. The name of the file that you want is
the Archive-name from the top of the article. For instance, if
the Archive-name were software-eng/part1 you would retrieve
<ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/software-
eng/part1>.
By email (only if you have no ftp access, please), the server is
<mailto:mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu>. It accepts "send" commands
that omit the leading "/pub/" from file names; for example:
send usenet-by-group/news.answers/software-eng/part1
For full instructions about the mail server, send it a message
consisting of these two lines:
help
index
Not just FAQ lists, but every article listed in the "List of
Periodic Informational Postings" (LoPIP) can be obtained by ftp
or email from rtfm.mit.edu. If you have an old copy of an
informational article, look for an "Archive-name" at the
beginning. The article is stored under that name at
<ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers>. If the
article has no Archive-name, check the first name on the
Newsgroups line and change to that directory under
<ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group>.
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 1.13> - Where can I get the latest copy of this FAQ
list?
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 97 00:08:35 CST
The latest version of the FAQ is available at
<http://www.premiernet.net/~carlyle>.
Or it is available via FTP in the directory
<ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/msdos-
programmer-faq>.
If you have no ftp access, see <Q: 1.13> "Where are FAQ lists
archived?" for instructions on retrieving it by email.
------------------------------
Subject: Section 2. General Reference
<Q: 2.01> - Are there any good on-line references for PC hardware
components?
<Q: 2.02> - Are there any good on-line references for PC
interrupts?
<Q: 2.03> - What and where is "Ralf Brown's interrupt list"?
<Q: 2.04> - Where can I find lex, yacc, and language grammars?
<Q: 2.05> - What's the best book to learn programming?
<Q: 2.06> - Why won't my code work?
<Q: 2.07> - Are there any good sources of example code?
<Q: 2.08> - What and where is "SNIPPETS"?
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 2.01> - Are there any good on-line references for PC
hardware components?
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 97 19:28:22 CST
Good reports of HELPPC21 have been posted. It is downloadable
as:
<ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/info/helppc21.zip>
<ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/helppc21.zip>
This hypertext system contains much information on ports and
other hardware, as well as some overlap with Ralf Brown's
interrupt list <Q: 2.03>. It is shareware ($25).
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 2.02> - Are there any good on-line references for PC
interrupts?
The definitive work is Ralf Brown's interrupt list. For more
information see <Q: 2.03>.
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 2.03> - What and where is "Ralf Brown's interrupt
list"?
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 97 19:31:12 CST
Ralf Brown's Interrupt List contains megabytes of information on
documented and (officially) undocumented BIOS and DOS interrupts,
DOS tables, and interrupts hooked by many software packages.
The distribution files contain not only the actual list, but also
a collection of utilities and conversion programs for the list.
An HTML version of Ralf Brown's Interrupt List can be found at:
<http://ctyme.com/rbrown.htm>
Ralf Brown's Interrupt List can be downloaded from his page at:
<http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/ralf/pub/WWW/files
.html>
The list is made up of files titled inter*.zip downloadable from:
<ftp://oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/msdos/info>
<ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming>
Updates are announced every few months in
comp.archives.msdos.announce.
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 2.04> - Where can I find lex, yacc, and language
grammars?
The FAQ list of the comp.compilers newsgroup answers this for
BASIC, C, Pascal, and other languages. See <Q: 1.13> "Where are
FAQ lists archived?"
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 2.05> - What's the best book to learn programming?
Sorry, this FAQ list cannot settle religious arguments.
Much of the heat over this topic arises because each person
believes that the book that he or she learned from is the best
book, but different people have very different experiences of the
same book. The only person who can tell you which is the best
book for learning a given topic is you.
Your best bet is to go to a fairly well stocked bookstore when
you have a couple of hours to spare. Start at one end of the
shelf and work your way methodically through every book that
looks like it might cover what you want to learn. Look at the
tables of contents; read a page or two from each book. Then make
your decision. If money is a problem or if you're not sure of
your choice, check out your top two or three from your library.
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 2.06> - Why won't my code work?
First you need to try to determine whether the problem is in your
use of the programming language or in your use of MS-DOS and your
PC hardware. (Your manual should tell you which features are
standard and which are vendor- or MS DOS- or PC-specific. You
have read your manual carefully, haven't you?)
If the feature that seems to be working wrong is something
related to your PC hardware or to the internals of MS-DOS, this
group is the right place to ask. (Please check this FAQ list
first, to make sure your question isn't already answered here.)
On the other hand, if your problem is with the programming
language, the comp.lang hierarchy (including comp.lang.pascal and
comp.lang.c) is probably a better resource. Please read the
other group's FAQ list thoroughly before posting. (These exist
in comp.lang.c, comp.lang.c++, comp.lang.modula3, comp.lang.lisp,
comp.lang.perl; they may exist in other groups as well.) It's
almost never a good idea to crosspost between
comp.os.msdos.programmer and a language group.
Before posting in either place, try to make your program as small
as possible while still exhibiting the bad behavior. Sometimes
this alone is enough to show you where the trouble is. Also edit
your description of the problem to be as short as possible. This
makes it look more like you tried to solve the problem on your
own, and makes people more inclined to try to help you. See also
<Q: 1.10> "What's this 'netiquette'?"
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 2.07> - Are there any good sources of example code?
Bob Stout maintains a very large archive called SNIPPETS. For
more information see <Q: 2.08>.
------------------------------
Subject: <Q: 2.08> - What and where is "SNIPPETS?"
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 97 19:39:08 CST
Excerpt from the SNIPPETS FAQ follows:
The SNIPPETS archive, maintained by Bob Stout, contains public
domain/freeware portable C/C++ source code & instructional text.
There are more than 500 files, including:
Approx. 56,000 lines of code + approx. 10,000 lines of
tutorials.
Approx. 30% PC-specific, 70% portable
Approx. 6% C++-specific, 94% C/C++
The PC-specific functions are system-level utility code - no
multimedia or GUI code. Tested on all popular PC compilers plus
Unix compilers where possible. An eclectic collection with
everything from macros to complete cut-and-paste C/C++ code
solutions & utilities, along with FAQ and instructional files.
The SNIPPETS distribution file is created in the form of
SNIPdddd.xxx, where "dddd" is the release date and "xxx" is the
archive utility extension.
SNIPDIFF.xxx updates a previous version of SNIPPETS to a new
release.
Internet locations to get SNIPPETS and SNIPDIFF via anonymous
ftp:
<ftp://ftp.brokersys.com/pub/snippets> (The Official SNIPPETS
distribution site.)
<ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/c>
<ftp://connectn.acs.niu.edu/bbc/rbbs-pc/ra/files/c>
<ftp://juge.com/c/file/c>
<ftp.funet.fi/pub/msdos/Simtel/c>
World-Wide-Web sites:
<http://www.brokersys.com/snippets/>
<http://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/simtel-msdos/c/>
------------------------------
Subject: End
(FAQ updates can be found at
<http://www.premiernet.net/~carlyle>.)
(End of comp.os.msdos.programmer FAQ Version 1997.08 Part 1/5)
(This text is copyright 1997 by Jeffrey Carlyle. All rights
reserved.)
// Jeffrey Carlyle, Bowling Green, Kentucy USA
//
// comp.os.msdos.programmer FAQ maintainer
// <http://www.premiernet.net/~carlyle>