[SignWriting] Re: sw 4 not working with new computer

[Trevor Jenkins]

On Mon, 3 Jun 2002, Valerie Sutton wrote:

> SignWriter 4.4 in DOS works best on Windows 95, 98 or ME. It does NOT
> work on Windows 2000, NT or XP. You are right....it freezes the
> keyboard.

I was porting SignWriter 4.4 to Windows NT4 several years ago but
ill-health and redunancy prevented me from completing the project. The
problem (with SignWriter 4.4) is that the program makes direct calls to
the BIOS of the computer. With the release of Windows NT4 (and therefore
Windows 2000 and Windows XP) such direct calls to the hardware have been
blocked.

I still have the sources. However, it uses functions for which I can find
no documentation. Even posts to various newsgroups/mailinglists have
elicited no responses whatsoever. If anyone knows exactly what the
following functions are supposed to do I'd like to hear from you (I can
make a guess at some of them but there are subtlies in usage that I need
to understand).

FUNCTION ALLHQQ (wants: WORD): WORD; EXTERNAL;
FUNCTION ALLMQQ (wants: WORD): ADSMEM; EXTERNAL;
FUNCTION DOSXQQ (command, parameter: WORD): BYTE; EXTERNAL;
FUNCTION GetDTA: ADSMEM; EXTERNAL;
FUNCTION GETUQQ (VAR f:FCBFQQ; len: WORD; dst: ADSMEM): WORD; EXTERNAL;
FUNCTION PUTUQQ (VAR f:FCBFQQ; len: WORD; dst: ADSMEM): WORD; EXTERNAL;
FUNCTION TICS: WORD; EXTERNAL;

And also the FCBFQQ structure? (I know that the structure is a DOS FCB,
aka File Control Block, but I need the exact layout of the structure.)

I can compile the original source with various compilers (GNU Pascal,
FreePascal, CodeWarrior Pro) that target various platforms. As someone
who wrote the internals of a Pascal compiler I know the language very
well so that isn't a problem. It's the MS-DOS specifics that I need to
hack.

Regards, Trevor

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