December 1988 - OPERATING SYSTEMS

ARTICLES

BUILDING SOFTWARE FOR PORTABILITY

by Greg Blackham
Greg examines three critical issues related to software portability: the operating system, the hardware, and the compiler.

UNIX VS. UNIX

by Donnalyn Frey
The confusion over UNIX system standards doesn't mean you have to put off writing software until the dust settles. Donalyn presents a strategy that prevents you from getting left behind when/if a standard eventually emerges.

WRITING OS/2 APPLICATIONS WITH I/O PRIVILEGES

by Ray Duncan
OS/2's built-in I/O drivers may not provide all the power you need. Ray shows you how to bypass OS/2 to take direct control of peripheral devices.

WRITING PROGRAMS FOR MULTIFINDER

by Chris Derossi
With Multifinder the world changed. Chris describes the new landscape and how to keep from being led astray.

SPELUNKING MS-DOS: DOCUMENTING THE UNDOCUMENTED

by Scott Robert Ladd
Undocumented DOS functions aren't exactly for the faint of heart. But, as Scott suggests, there are times when the payoff makes the risks worthwhile.

EGA AND VGA SMOOTH SCROLLING AND PANNING

by Andrew Chalk
Andrew shows you how to manipulate EGA/VGA video controller registers for moving the viewing window a pixel at a time in any direction.

FIND THAT FUNCTION -- FROM INSIDE BRIEF!

by Marvin Hymowech
Marvin is with us once again, this time with a Brief macro version of his spiffy function finder for revising C source code.

REVIEW

EXAMINING ROOM: A CLASSIFIER

coordinated by Ron Copeland
Ernie Tello looks at the latest version of C_Talk from CNS --an implementation of C in Smalltalk-like environment.

COLUMNS

C PROGRAMMING

by Al Stevens
Al discusses menu structuring, file management, and text searching along with an implementation of a context-sensitive help facility.

STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING

by Kent Porter
Kent introduces Xref, a symbolic cross-reference utility that uses some unusual data structures.

PROGRAMMING PARADIGMS

by Michael Swaine
Michael presents some general principles for classifying parallel processing algorithms.

FORUM

EDITORIAL

by Jonathan Erickson

LETTERS

by you

SWAINE'S FLAMES

by Michael Swaine

PROGRAMMER'S SERVICES

OF INTEREST

brief product descriptions