Wunderkind c't 11/93, S. 240
----------

Borland has for a while offered a C++ compiler for OS/2, but for Pascal,
people still have to go on waiting. With some alteration of the compiler,
units, and the runtime library, you can create 16-bit OS/2 programs for the
OS/2 text modes and even Presentation Manager. The German computer magazine
c't has provided these patches for BP7.x. After applying them, you will be
able to compile your DOS programs for OS/2.

The batch file INSTALL.BAT executes the patches to the files. Fuller details
as to how to apply the patches can be found below.

The files in the package are:

BPOS2.DOC This file
INSTALL.BAT Copies the original files and makes the patches
PATCHBP.PAS Patches the compilers
COMPATIB.PAS Unit which provides DOS interrupt compatibility
CRT.PAS OS/2 port of the CRT unit
DOS.PAS OS/2 port of the DOS unit
MAKEPM.PAS Sets the flags for PM programs
HELLO2.PAS Writes "Hello, world"
HELLOPM.PAS "Hello, world!" in a PM application
HELLOPM.RC Resource file for HELLOPM.PAS
THREAD.PAS Demonstration for Threads
VIDEO.PAS Direct video access unit

There is an extra file "OS2-API.ZIP". This is not part of the original
package, but is rather the result of an effort by S. E. Hugg to create BP7
units for the OS/2 API calls. The original c't package does not contain
units that implement the *full* OS/2 API. Although what they have provided
is fully sufficient for converting your DOS programs to OS/2, if you wanted
to write a program that made full use of the OS/2 API, you still needed to
find a way of interfacing to the rest of the API that was not covered by
the c't magazine's package. Mr. Hugg has implemented the API for character
mode OS/2 programs. He is currently working on implementing the
Presentation Manager API. He has uploaded the file which forms the basis of
OS2-API.ZIP to ftp-os2.cdrom.com, but I am including it here just for
completeness. Note that Mr. Hugg has amended the DOS and CRT units contained
in the OS2-API.ZIP package, because he discovered certain omissions and
mistakes in the original package from c't magazine. This is one reason why
Mr. Hugg's stuff is packaged separately in a ZIP archive. Personally, I have
copied his stuff over the original ones from c't magazine, but you may want
to check both versions for yourself to see which one you prefer.

There is currently an active program on Compuserve to translate C/C++
header files for the OS/2 API into Pascal units. When this project is
completed, BP users will at last be able to delve fully into the
hitherto dark world (to BP users at least) of full OS/2 programming.


******
NOTES:
******
The original package from c't magazine was supplied with a lot of ASM files,
but somebody from Borland has objected to these on copyright grounds. He has
however indicated that 14 of the ASM files that formed part of the original
BP7 RTL have been changed, and so can stay in this package. The 15th one
(OS2.ASM) is, I assume, fine as well, since it does not form part of the
original BP7 RTL.

Everybody who has a legitimate copy of BP7 has all the necessary ASM files
anyway. They are only needed for the purpose of recompiling the SYSTEM unit.

If you want to recompile the SYSTEM unit supplied with this package, you
need to copy all the ASM files from your BP7 RTL into a new directory, and
_then_ copy the ASM files in this package into that directory. That way, the
files that have been amended in this patch will not be overwritten by the
old versions. There is a copy of MAKEFILE included with this package for the
purpose of compiling the ASM sources into object files. You need to run MAKE
for this purpose, but before doing that, you need to edit MAKEFILE so that
all the directories referred to in it are correct.

If you don't want to recompile the SYSTEM unit, then you can ignore all the
points mentioned above.


INSTALLATION PROCEDURE
----------------------

When I installed the patches, I did not have a lot of guidance, and
I was using the German language patch. I sorted things out by trial
and error. I have reduced all I did into a number of steps. They may
seem many, but they are actually quite straightforward.

In order to apply the patch, take the following steps;

1. Make sure that BPC.EXE is in your PATH statement so that it
can be called by the patch routines;

2. Create a directory for your patches files, from where you will
be running the OS/2 patches. It is important to make this decision
before you start anything, as it will make things go a lot
easier. I will refer to this directory from now on as your
BP-OS2 directory

3. Change to your BP-OS2 directory, and UNZIP the file BP7-OS2.ZIP
into this directory.

4. The batch file INSTALL.BAT assumes that your BP7.0 binaries are
in a directory called \BP\BIN on the current drive. If they are
not, you need to edit this file to change all the references to
\BP\BIN to point to the correct directory paths.

5. If you are using BP7.0, type "INSTALL"
If you are using BP7.01, type "INSTALL 701"

This will run the batch file that will copy the files;
BP.EXE
BPC.EXE
into the current directory.

They will be called
BPOS2.EXE
BPCOS2.EXE respectively

Then it will compile PATCHBP.EXE, and apply it to the EXE files that
have been copied.

What the patch does is;
a. To add a new command line parameter "-CO" to your new
BPCOS2.EXE, to compile for an OS/2 platform. You can
still use the patched executable to compile for a DOS
platform by using the "-CD" parameter, and for DPMI, by
using the "-CP" parameter.

b. The unit files produced when you compile a unit for OS/2
will have the extension "TPO".

c. In the new BPOS2 IDE, there will be a new target platform
(OS/2). This replaces "Windows" in the IDE.

d. The default TPL file for OS/2 compilation is now
OS2.TPL

That's about it really.

After the patches have been applied, the new units are added to the
OS2.TPL file. Then the object files (with .OBJ and .OBW extensions)
are moved into a sub-directory called "LIB" in the current directory.

You are now ready to rumble!!!

The patches (BPOS2.EXE and BPCOS2.EXE) can actually be copied
into your BP7 directory. They will read the same .CFG, .TP, and
.DLL files as the unpatched versions. There will be no clash here,
because the units they produce and use have an extension .TPO
However, if you have installed your sources for BP7, you have
to be careful not to overwrite them with the OS/2 versions of
SYSTEM.PAS, DOS.PAS and CRT.PAS. Thus it may be better to keep
the patched EXEs in a separate directory.

The only things being duplicated in the whole system are the two
patched executables. All the other binaries are shared with the
unpatched versions.

THE EXAMPLE PROGRAMS
--------------------

1. HELLO2.PAS - this is a text-mode "hello" program. All you need is
to compile this, and run it.

2. HELLOPM.PAS - this is a Presentation Manager "hello" program -
complete with menus, dialog boxes, etc.

In order to compile and run the HELLOPM program and any other PM
program, you need to take the following steps;

a. Compile MAKEPM.PAS as either a DOS or OS/2 program

b. Compile your PM program

c. Run MAKEPM on your PM program
e.g. "MAKEPM PMPROG.EXE"

d. Run the OS/2 RC.EXE on your PM program and its resource file.
RC.EXE comes with the OS/2 operating system.

e.g. "RC HELLOPM.RC HELLOPM.EXE"

NOTE: You may have to run RC from an OS/2 command prompt.
Running it from a DOS prompt produces an error message.

e. Run your OS/2 PM program!