Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site faron.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxb!mhuxn!mhuxm!mhuxj!houxm!whuxlm!akgua!sdcsvax!dcdwest!ittvax!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!cmcl2!philabs!linus!faron!kbb From: kbb@faron.UUCP (Kenneth B. Bass) Newsgroups: net.micro.pc Subject: need info about DOS drivers Message-ID: <214@faron.UUCP> Date: Wed, 6-Feb-85 14:16:28 EST Article-I.D.: faron.214 Posted: Wed Feb 6 14:16:28 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 10-Feb-85 04:36:28 EST Organization: The MITRE Corp., Bedford, Ma. Lines: 28 I am trying to write a DOS driver. But the information I have about them (mainly DOS technical reference manual) doesn't go into great detail about how DOS accesses them. Mainly: - when does DOS use the ioctl commands (assuming that the ioctl bit is set in the attribute word in the header), as opposed to the other read/write commands? Does DOS only use the ioctl commands when a program reads or writes to that device, or can the program choose - and if the program can choose, how does it? (ie., how can a driver have both a data and control channel and how does a calling program choose whcih channel?) - how do you access the driver from a high level language (like 'C', or pascal)? - what happens if the driver returns an error? Does DOS freak out, or does it return the error code to the calling program, or does it just ignore it? If anyone knows of any good books/manuals/articles about this, please send me info about them (name, author, where to buy, etc.). Thanks, ken bass linus!faron!kbb