The (highly unofficial) FIDONET OS2PROG C++ programmers' booklist
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                               part 4 of 7
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    The Design of OS/2 2.0
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    H.M. Deitel and M.S. Kogan.
    Addison-Wesley
    400 pages
    1992
    ISBN 0-201-54889-5

    ( There is an updated version for OS/2 2.1, for which details are
      unavailable.  Anyone ? )

    I saw Mike Kogan speak once.  He is very knowledgeable about the
    internals of OS/2, and particularly effective at presenting
    information.  This book is no exception.  Mr Deitel also wrote
    _Operating_Systems_, a comparative analysis of operating systems.

    The book itself goes into detail on the inner workings of OS/2,
    covering such areas as the mechanisms of dynamic linking, the
    scheduler, and virtual memory.  For those interested in OS/2 as an
    operating system, or in the innards of the OS/2 kernel, this book is a
    must.  A good foundation in the principles of operating system design
    is a pre-requisite for reading.


    Writing OS/2 2.0 Device Drivers in C, 2nd Edition
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    Steven J. Mastrianni.
    Van Nostrand Reinhold
    1992
    250 pages
    ISBN 0-442-01729-4
    IBM order number G362-0006

    This is a fairly good introduction to (as the title suggests) writing
    OS/2 device drivers in C. Several people criticise Mastrianni for not
    using the standard names for the device helper functions (i.e. those
    in the headers provided in the OS/2 Device Driver Developers'
    Toolkit).  Nevertheless, the book covers most of the basics.


    Writing OS/2 Device Drivers
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    Raymond Westwater
    Addison-Wesley
    1989
    515 pages
    ISBN 0-201-52234-9

    For those who want to start writing device drivers, this is a
    good primer to read.  It covers the basics of writing simple
    character and block mode device drivers, and the DevHlp
    services.  Three example device drivers are listed (with
    assembly language source) and analysed.

    This book was aimed at simple OS/2 1.x device drivers, and
    doesn't cover the IFS model, or any extended services available
    in OS/2 2.x and 3.x such as base device drivers and device
    managers.  Experts may also find its repetition of the same
    information over and over a little tedious to wade through.


    OS/2 EXTRA! KBD, MOU & VIO SPECIAL FUNCTIONS REVEALED
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    Len Dorfman and Marc J. Neuberger
    McGraw-Hill (?)
    ISBN 0-8306-4567-5

    It's basically the information in PRCP.INF, but in printed form (and
    cleaned up a little).  It'll tell you just about everything you need
    to know about the VIO, KBD, and MOU functions, including which
    functions will and will not work in a windowed OS/2 session (as
    opposed to a full-screen OS/2 session).
                                -- Review by Martin Pollard, 1:120/187.0


    User Interfaces in C and C++ for OS/2
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    Mark Goodwin
    MIS Press
    1993
    ISBN 1-55828-278-5

    Book includes a 360kb code diskette, with all the C and C++ code as
    well as compiled object for C Set/2 and Borland C++ in two libraries,
    ready for linking.  The C Set/2 code was compiled for the SE and SM
    libraries.  Don't know about the Borland code, 'cause I don't use
    their IDE/compiler/linker.

    From SCBC, I paid $45.89, which included S&H. VERY short review
    follows, because I haven't read it all, yet, and haven't compiled
    anything from it, yet.  Have run the demo programs, though.  Will post
    more, with experience - assuming you don't beat me to it!!

    First off, I think the author had a good idea for creating the VIO
    interface objects, and figured the code would sell better as a book
    than as a software product.  The book is really an implementation/user
    manual for the included code.  It doesn't really tell you how to use
    the VIO, MOU, KBD API calls, but instead wraps a set of C (very little
    C++) functions around them to implement most all of the calls you'd
    need to make.

    He then proceeds to gather these low-level calls into usable higher
    level functions to create windows, menus and input fields/boxes and
    then even higher level functions to implement all this into a
    application interface system.  Very nicely structured and about as
    object-oriented as you can get in C. He then provides some C++ object
    wrappers around the lower level C stuff, so that it can be implemented
    in C++, should you choose.  Pretty well thought out architecture.

    The book includes ALL the underlying source code, with each section of
    source followed by a discussion of each function implemented in
    pseudocode.

    The code diskette has all the source, demo source and .EXE's, and the
    .LIB's mentioned earlier.  A nice job of packaging.

    My first impression is:  If you are serious about using VIO routines
    and don't want to take the time to hack it into libraries for
    yourself, spend the $$ for the code.  If your time is worth anything,
    you can't do it yourself more cheaply!  If you want to alter the code
    to put your own stamp of individuality on it, all the source is there,
    go to it!

    However, if you want a book to teach you all about VIO, then the old
    MS Press book for OS/2 1.1/2/3 VIO is better.  I have had it for
    several years and used it to create 16 bit libraries for myself.  DO
    NOT want to do that again!

    Hope this helps, will post more as I know more.

                    -- Review by Tom Carr, Ilink OS/2-Support conference


    Developing Multimedia Applications Under OS/2
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    William Lawton, Bradley Noe, and Marcelo Lopez
    John Wiley & Sons
    1995
    ISBN 0-471-13168-7

    Need a paper copy of OS/2's MMPM/2 functions/error messages ?  Here it
    is, in this book, written by some of the developers of OS/2's many
    multimedia goodies.  The book starts off with general multimedia
    information and proceeds to cover OS/2's versions of MCI and MMIO,
    ending up with REXX's usage of the multimedia functions.

    I must admit that this is one of the few books out there on multimedia
    (covering any OS) that doesn't include a CD ROM.  Instead the book
    comes with a DISKETTE and the authors use the movies/sound effects
    that come with OS/2.  I think it would have been nice to have seen
    some other OS/2 multimedia demos (are there any ?).

    The Entertainment Toolkit must have come out after the book because
    DIVE was mentioned - all three pages ( a list of DIVE function names.)

    If you need a book on game programming with information on OS/2's
    Entertainment Toolkit's APIs (EnDIVE, DART, and etc.) you will have to
    look elsewhere, but if you need a book on OS/2's MCI or MMIO, then
    this is the book!
                        -- Review by Jeffrey White, FIDONET#1:130/74.0


   / JdeBP .          / (c) Copyright 1993-1996 All Rights Reserved. .
   / FIDONET 2:440/4.0                      JdeBP{at}donor2.demon.co.uk .

... Another excellent OS/2 day goes by.
--- Blue Wave/OS2 v2.20 [NR]