In a message dated 09-05-99, Murray Lesser said to Lee Aroner about "Family
Mode API"

Hi Murray,

This discussion really belongs in OS2PROG, as I expect most people in this
echo won't have the faintest idea what it's about.

ML>    The only reason to play with the 16-bit OS/2 Family API functions is
ML>to write dual-mode programs that will run under both DOS and OS/2 (and
ML>under Win3x),

Well, not Windows programs, but most FAPI programs will run in a DOS box.
Only OS/2 (non-PM) and DOS programs can be FAPI, and not all OS/2 programs
are FAPI-compliant either. One cannot use multi-threading in a FAPI program,
and several other base API calls have no FAPI bindings.

ML>which must be linked with BIND.EXE.

Which is in the 16-bit OS/2 DTK, which Lee doesn't have.

ML>I have grave doubts
ML>that you can play the "bound" EXE game from any version of Pascal.

One can use IBM Pascal/2, which was a thinly disguised version of MS Quick
Pascal. However, the grammar supported by that compiler will come as a
severe shock to anybody accustomed to Borland's enhanced Pascal. One thing
most Pascal programmers really hate is having to use Pascal! [In the strict
meaning of the name of a programming language.]

There is also the patch for Borland Pascal 7.0, prepared by the German
magazine c't a few years back. It allows one to produce 16-bit OS/2 code,
and the resulting executables should be FAPI-compliant.

ML>The
ML>necessary linker (BIND.EXE) was distributed only (AFAIK) with MS MASM
ML>5.0, MS C 5.0, and OS/2 1.x.

BIND.EXE operates on already linked executables. It also requires
BINDINGS.LIB to introduce the DOS object code. These arrive with the OS/2
DTK 1.3 (on DevCon), or with MS C 5.x/6.0, MS FORTRAN 5.1 and MASM 5.x/6.0.

However, BIND.EXE will work on any valid NE-format executable. The LINK.EXE
supplied with OS/2 will prepare just such a file, even with object code from
Borland Pascal 7.0 (suitably patched).

Regards

Dave

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