randy@ncrcae.Columbia.NCR.COM (Randy Smith) (02/06/89)
Greetings, I have several questions about two general topics that probably have been discussed many many times before. Since my background is in the 68000 world I don't really know that much about the IBM-PC's or the intel chips that they have in them. Please reply by E-mail so I don't clutter up this news group with material that has already been covered. Thanks in advance for any help. Now, on with the questions! I have an application that needs to be put into EPROM's and run on the PC. How difficult is it to accomplish this? The application will be written in C. It will be straight reading the keyboard, doing some calculations and then writing to the screen. The PC will not have disks in it if I can get away with it. Do I need a card that emulates a disk with DOS on it or do I have to do all of the DOS stuff myself? What is the best compiler to accomplish this? How does the boot sequence handle a user supplied ROM if at all? Will Julia ever see Mark again? Well you get the picture. I have absolutely zero knowledge about this and I need help in a bad way. The second topic in the panel discussion today is bar code readers. I have another application that requires the use of bar code readers and once again my background in the 68000 world is getting in the way. I have searched the february issue of Computer Shopper only to find one ad that mentions that this company knows a guy in Phoenix who can get one if I do three back flips in the shower while singing a duet with barfy the wonder dog. Am I missing something here? What types of readers (bar code) are out there? What types of bar codes do they read? (I understand there are several flavors to choose from) How hard is it to write software for these things? Where can I buy some (readers)? How do I work this? How did I get here?... Please, please, please, please...I need help. Thanks again.