/****************************************************************************
          DRC compatibilty headers for CP/M-86 & the IBM-PC family.

	        (C)1998-1999 Ken Mauro, All rights reserved.
                        Free for non-commercial use.
****************************************************************************/

                            August 12, 1999


This package of modified DRC header files was created to ease the porting of 
dos based programs to the cp/m-86 environment for the IBMPC and compatibles.

Some knowledge of C and DRI programming tools is required and assumed here.

Several usefull samples originally written in Turbo C for dos are included.
Some of the graphic display programs will conditionally compile for both 
DRC (cp/m-86) or DOS (Turbo C 1.5 or above). The examples contain comments,
conditionals and hints for accomodating common graphic display cards.

They should also (with minor modification) compile under the DOS version of 
DRC recently uploaded to the internet. 


PCBIOS.A86 (in RASM86) is provided in source to simulate common features found 
in many dos C compilers, but not available in the DRC C 1.11 compiler.

This module is currently only available for the large model library.

One feature of this module is to return IBMPC fkey and keypad special keys
regardless of the cp/m-86 implementation via direct port access.  



Use of cp/m-86 emulator (DOS) may require ANSI.SYS support for terminal codes
to work correctly (refer to your dos manual for ansi.sys and config.sys info). 

If using the cp/m-86 emulator under dos, a ramdisk is strongly recommended as
crashes caused by programming errors and DRI tools may cause lost chains and
clusters. Interrupting link86 may also cause this problem. 

I for example, use a batch file to save (zip) everything up between sessions.


While these files have not been tested on every cp/m-86 variation, 
feel free to modify or improve the header and assembler sources as required. 


Features
--------

* Version independant console input from cpm86, ccpm86, dosplus & cdos etc.    
* Pfkeys available at the ccp prompt will be ignored during program execution.
* See pcbios.a86 for additional Dos / Turbo C compatible functions available.
* project batch files for use under cp/m-86 emulator. re-write as needed.
* DRC header files re-written to save some space in the executable (*.CMD)  


Example use of batch compile under DOS cp/m-86 emulator
-------------------------------------------------------
drcfig img16    (full name (img16.c) not required. 
e		(e.bat calls your favorite text editor) 
m		(to compile calls all required files, compiler, rasm86)


Soucre Editing
--------------

DRC has many undocumented flakies under the dos emulator.

Sometimes addtional parens will be required to group expressions or nested
expressions, otherwise erroneous compile errors may occur.

A more common one is the requirement of esc chars padded out at the end of your
source files. when editing (*.h) files, notice the esc's embedded at the file's
end - do not remove them. (This is not an issue under real cp/m-86.)

C source files do not require this eof padding as I have compensated by adding
them in via an intermediate file during compile. (batch file)

ie:  copy /b source.c+cpmeof = srcfile.c  (actual file to be compiled by DRC )

Note: the orginal name is then added back in the actual *.cmd executable. 

While the simple text editors like TED.COM (TED.CMD under real cp/m-86) allow 
the addition of embedded escapes (press esc to try it), other editors such as
the Turbo C IDE will strip them out while saving.



Source acknowledgments.
-----------------------
Addtional tools and emulators may be currently found on Tim Olmstead's 
Un-Official CPM Website and mirror sites at various places on the Internet.

The cp/m-86 emulator used to test this package (by John Lopushinky) is also 
available on this site. Clearly the best one for the job. 

*.img files may be directly prepared using GEM Paint under the GEM system.


Color and B/W *.pcx and *.img formats for the graphics examples may be prepared 
using Alchemy Mindworks excelent Graphic Workshop program (dos or windows) 
available on the Internet. 

I am not the originator of all of the information provided in all of the 
source examples provided, and as such acknowledge here. Thanks.

Once again, a special thanks to Kirk Lawrence:)


Enjoy -Ken.