Subj : PL/I v 2.1 FixPak 6
To   : Murray Lesser
From : Vitus Jensen
Date : Tue Jul 25 2000 02:48 pm

Moin Murray!

24.07.2000, Murray Lesser wrote a message to David Noon:

(let me answer something, also to confirm that your msg made it to germany)

 ML>     I spent entirely too much time yesterday (Sunday) downloading and
 ML> installing FP6 for the PL/I for OS/2 compiler v 2.1.  I lost
 ML> connection a little over halfway through the 2.5-hour download.  When
 ML> I restarted, FTP Browser didn't "resume!"  Probably my fault :-(. 
 ML> After I installed the FP, I found (in the file READFP6.HTM), the
 ML> following statement:

 ML>       "On OS/2, all 16-bit support has been dropped."

 ML>     I read this as meaning that there is no longer access to the
 ML> 16-bit OS/2 API calls :-(. My needs are for KBD and VIO calls, since
 ML> there are things that I wish to do in interactive text-mode
 ML> applications that cannot be done in "native" PL/I. 
....
 ML>     Two questions:  What could have led the PL/I perpetrators to do
 ML> such a dirty deed?  More important, can you think of any other
 ML> workaround than the one I used (restored the previously installed
 ML> version)?

I don't know.  But remember that 1) IBM always discouraged developers to use 
16-bit APIs and 2) they dropped 16-bit support in the C++ part of VAC++ 4.0.

JdBP coded a DLL to supply 32-bit counterparts of Vio, Kbd and Mou (with or w/o 
unicode support).  AFAIR he annouced the package in OS2PROG.  Look for this:

conapi.zip     66047 02-07-00* 32-bit Unicode Console API for OS/2 with
                               developers' toolkit (c) Copyright 1999-2000
                               Jonathan de Boyne Pollard.  All Rights reserved.

IBM did the same while developing OS2PPC (a unsupported 32VIO archive floats 
arounds).


 ML>     Secondary purpose of this post:  There has been no traffic for
 ML> about two weeks in either this echo nor in OS2REXX.  If I don't get
 ML> an answer from you in the near future, I will assume:  1) You are on
 ML> vacation, or 2) the problem is that Bob Juge has lost his feed for
 ML> this echo.  Of course, this doesn't say anything about the Summer
 ML> doldrums on OS2REXX, does it?

Your post was the first in OS2PROG since 4 July.

Bye,
   Vitus

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