gray@PENDER.EE.UPENN.EDU (H.J. Gray) (01/15/90)
My response to a quesion about the subject apparently went into the null register. Forgive typos because if I use the GNU emacs editor, this reply may do the same. (My fault, not the ditor's because other people can use it). The C compiler that I am now using is Microsoft C 5.1. It runs on a vanilla Rainbow but, of course, some library functions designed for the IBM do not work on the Rainbow. My Rainbow is equipped with MSDOS 3.10b from Suitable Solutions and with Code Blue with the Suitable Solutions with their patches. Under these circumstances, the install program included with MSC 5.1 works. However, I didn't have all these refinements when I got MSC 5.1 so I ran the install program on an XT and transferred the resulting files to the Rainbow. I now can use Code View in the window mode and I can also use the Micrtosoft editor, M. In addition, Quick C also runs on the Rainbow. One problem: I have not been able to debug programs that use the in and out ports in the window mode; I am not sure why. There is a C graphics library for the Rainbow which is pretty nice. It is called Mooselib and was originally written by "Moose", a friend of Filip Fuma who is at the Moore School. He wrote it for a GDC-based graphics card that "Moose" built for an S100 system according to John Bradley, here. John Bradley modified it so that it would work with the Rainbow. It requires deSmet C version 2.4 (the version that I have). John Bradley supplied me with the source code that he could find and I am trying to modify it so that it would work with MSC 5.1 which is the C compiler that I use; there are problems with deSmet C 2.4, one of which is getting a legal copy of it. I have gotten bogged down in adapting the mouse routines in Mooselib to the Rainbow. They were originally written for the MSC Corp. digital mouse that had a seperate power supply - no longer available - and used a driver for the printer port as Bradley & Co. used the communications port to connect to a main-frame. Very few printers were used in Fuma and Bradley's lab. When their mouse driver is used with MSDOS 3.10b, the mouse quickly fails to operate: the mouse parameters get clobberes: they use file control blocks instead of pointers and MSDOS 3.10b has backed off, I am told, a little from full support of fcb's. A "field repair" is possible: detect the clobbering and rewrie the mouse parameters. This is not a clean solution but it works. So it is taking a little while to straighten things out. In summary, deSmet C v. 2.4 works on the vanilla RB; so does MSC 5.1. MSDOS 3.20b and Code Blue allows the Microsoft editor to work, Code View, and Quick C. A graphics library exists. Josh