milo@ndmath.uucp (Greg Corson) (08/20/86)
I am interested in writing a little background program for the Macintosh to handle certain types of electronic mail applications. Unfortunately I am having a hard time finding out exactly how to put such a program together. The program is to be installed as in INIT31 resource when the machine is booted...it will NOT be a desk accessory. Its function will be to "listen at the modem port for a message from a modem or hardwired CPU. As an example the program might listen for the "you have mail" message from a host CPU tied to the modem port. When it "heard" the message it would pop up a window on the Mac screen to notify you that there is mail on the mainframe for you. The basic idea of this is to allow you to login your Mac when you get to work and then go about your business in Excel or some other program. If you got mail on the mainframe the background program would briefly interupt Excel to let you know there was mail (so you could use a DA terminal emulator to go read it). The questions I need answered are this... 1. Is there a way to install this program so it won't mess up use of the second screen/sound buffer? 2. What form should the program take? A driver of some kind or just a memory resident routine tied into the Modem port's interrupt vector. 3. How can I use the Window manager from within the program (can I??) 4. Is there an easy way (without using the window manager) to cause all windows (including the background pattern) to go through an update event? <<I suspect writers of "sleep" and "screen saver" programs have already figured that one out>> 5. Is there an easy way to sense when a forground program opens or closes the serial port (so the background program can turn itself off when a terminal program wants the port, and back on when ther terminal program is done) Any hints/tips would be appreciated...source code examples would be appreciated even more!! Thanks in advance Greg Corson pur-ee!iuvax!kangaro!milo
graifer@net1.UCSD.EDU (Dan Graifer) (08/26/86)
In article <131@ndmath.uucp> milo@ndmath.uucp (Greg Corson) writes: >I am interested in writing a little background program for the Macintosh to >handle certain types of electronic mail applications. Unfortunately I am >having a hard time finding out exactly how to put such a program together. > >...(list of questions) Seems to me that most of what you want is being done by the DA "QDial". You might talk to them about it; They offer the source for the assembly code: (415)661-7374 or 753-3002 (MacQueue). Dan