Mail Archives: djgpp/1996/04/17/07:50:14
Eli Zaretskii (eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il) writes:
> On 14 Apr 1996, Paul Derbyshire wrote:
>
>> > To learn about DPMI, I recommend the book Extending DOS, 2nd edition.
>>
>> No offense, but I find these book references extremely unhelpful.
>> Libraries do not carry books more recent than decades old, usually, and
>> rarely many computer books at all. If so they're just the "... for dummies"
>> series.
>
> The guy asked where could he find some material to learn about DPMI, so I
> told him about the only good source I know of that *explains* the
> machinery behind the DPMI and protected-mode programming on MS-DOS in
> general.
Oh... usually any computer related topic is documented in pieces all
across the 'net. I was wondering, for instance, about the detailed inner
workings of Windows BMP files and before long I had found via the Web a
big index of all manner of FAQs and other documentation for graphics file
formats... along with links to things like C libraries for accessing the
files.
>> something. (Nor is it usually easy to find a book: the poor asker of the
>> question, assuming he's well to do at all, will probably have to spend
>> hours searching book and computer stores up and down his city looking for
>> this thing, and if he is in a small town he's probably SOL right there.)
>
> Come on, it's almost year 2000 out there. These days, you don't have to
> go to the store and spend hours looking for a book. There are quite a
> few companies that make such services available over the Internet. You
> can look up any book (even if you know its title and author only
> vaguely), order it in less than a minute and have it in your nearest post
> office by the end of the week, and for less money than you'd pay in a
> bookstore. For an example, check out http://www.amazon.com/.
Well, I sure as hell never heard of these. The only places I've ever known
where you get books are, bookstores and the library. Bookstores are only
greatly helpful for finding neat new fiction, and libraries are both bad
for fiction and bad for anything newer than ten years old. I went to get a
book on C++ from a library once, and that being a rather new topic, even
though this was a university library, they had to loan it over from across
the province at of all places a military academy.
Exactly where do these book-order services advertise? They'd make a
killing if everyone knew they existed.
>> I'm sure there are references and works and info on DPMI on the Web that
>> could be pointed to, that are much more accessible (since he obviously has
>> Usenet capability), and more convenient, as free or cheap as his usenet is,
>> and reasonably comprehensive especially as the topic is computer related.
>
> The guy didn't want refrences (the DJGPP FAQ has a pointer to the DPMI
> spec); he wanted something that will let him learn to understand the DPMI
> environment. This question was asked many times here and nobody came out
> to tell about some place on the net where such an info exists. If you
> know about such place, please say where it is, and I promise to put it
> into the next revision of the FAQ.
Well I don't... only thing I can suggest for this guy is, either track
this book down through this Amazon thing, or if you don't have the cash or
want the info free, try a web search for "DPMI"... (I guess sooner or
later, probably within a couple decades, most important nonfiction will be
in an online format).
(One thing about books: books sometimes do work from the ground up in
explaining a topic, while most Internet references plunge into the
technical details instantly at about word 3. Easier to learn C++ from a
book, anyway.)
--
.*. "Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not
-() < circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a
`*' straight line." ,------------------------------------------------
-- B. Mandelbrot | Paul Derbyshire (PGD) ao950 AT freenet DOT carleton DOT ca
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