[comp.sys.ibm.pc] Why not OS/2 Presentation Mgr for DOS?

johnl@ima.ISC.COM (John R. Levine) (06/05/88)

In article <13116@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> todd@SEAS.UCLA.EDU (Todd Booth) writes:
>The OS/2 Presentation Manager looks like a good approach to standardizing
>the user interface.  ...
>...  Has anyone heard of a C programming interface for
>DOS that uses the same logical OS/2 PM windowing functions?  This would
>allow us to develop DOS applications that have the same *standard* user
>and programmer interfaces.

Thousands of centuries ago, when OS/2 was named DOS 5.0 and a 6 MHz AT was
a fast computer, Microsoft swore up and down that MS Windows executables
would run unmodified under DOS 5 whenever it came out.  Unfortunately, IBM
then invented SAA and made all sorts of random changes to the programming
interface.  (The binary format seems to be the same; Windows and OS/2 use
the same linker.)  Even so, the Windows programming environemnt feels a lot
like the PM one, and is as good a place as any to start.
-- 
John R. Levine, IECC, PO Box 349, Cambridge MA 02238-0349, +1 617 492 3869
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