Early Windows Programming

[mR_Slug]

PubTech File Organizer 2.11 is what i use on win 2, they made one for 3 too but it was a bit busy visually.

PubTech File Organizer 2.11

toastytech.com

What software are you trying to create for 1 and 2?

 

[krebizfan]

One source of how early Windows works is contained within the documentation for the Actor programming language. Not everyone will like Actor's mix of Smalltalk with Pascal but the explanations of Windows design clarified things for me. Actor also had the resource kit which was much easier to use than the command line resource compiler MS offered. The resource kit was so good that Borland included it with some of their compilers.

 

[mdh]

I’d start with Windows 2, as it would run on anything from 8088 to 80386. Look to see if you can find Charles Petzold‘s book on windows 2 programming. I think it was MSC 6.0 (or maybe 5.0) we used for development, and there was a windows SDK for that.

helpful hints: you can’t use most of the C runtime functions, like any memory allocation, or any flavor of print. You need to use windows memory allocation, and there is a wsprintf you can use (Undocumented, but widely used API).

If you have a 286 or 386, you can compile within windows, but be WARNED: There is no file sharing - you can recompile a running program, which WILL EVENTUALLY END IN DISASTER. Like erasing hard disk, completely corrupting directories, etc. I speak from experience…

 

[mdh]

Developing for Windows 1 and 2 requires a dual-headed machine with both a graphics card and a text only MDA card. The MDA card is needed to display debugging information,

Actually, you don’t; it will also debug to serial port, which I used for years with a VT 52.

 

[mdh]

I remember making many bound os/2 dos programs… I liked the OS/2 api, the way it broke down the apis by groupings, like Sys, Win, etc…

 

[Chuck(G)]

Well, the (paper) OS/2 documentation was superb, if not voluminous.

 

[JohnElliott]

The OEM Binary Adapation Kit has what MS provided. The documentation is minimal. Tutorials non-existent. At least, a good selection of sample drivers were included.

I think that's for Windows 2.x? The driver API is sufficiently different that a Windows 2.x driver won't reliably work on 1.x (the internal format of bitmap fonts changed, so a 2.x driver can't render 1.x fonts; and as I recall there are some differences in things like BitBlt too).

I've seen the sample drivers built, and modified drivers based on them (eg, VESA 800x600 based on the VGA 640x480 driver source). I haven't seen anyone manage to get to higher resolutions (where the framebuffer gets bigger than 64k so bank switching would be required) or more colours. It doesn't help that a Windows screen driver has to draw on the screen, offscreen colour bitmaps and offscreen mono bitmaps, and the existing drivers combine these code paths all over the place because in the mono or 16-colour planar modes they're quite similar memory models. Not so much for a 256-colour mode. They also generate blit code on the fly, which doesn't make the code very readable.

 

[mdh]

I have no idea about the safety of this website, but this is the C compiler I lived on under Windows 2.x:

Microsoft C/C++ 6.x

This is the original standalone Microsoft C/C++ compiler for DOS and Windows - Later versions were rebranded and renumbered as Microsoft Visual C++ and were bundled with Visual Studio or the SDKs.

winworldpc.com

And the SDK + DDK:

Windows SDK & DDK Windows 2.x

The Microsoft Windows Software Development Kits (SDK) provide sample program code, extra libraries, and documentation to aid application developers producing Windows applications. Microsoft Windows Driver Development Kits are similar sets of samples and libraries but specific to device driver...

winworldpc.com

 

[krebizfan]

I recommend not using MSC 6; the optimizer was very buggy and the code generated when the optimizer was off was rather slow. Stick with MSC 5.1.

 

[Chuck(G)]

MSC 8.0 should do even better. I've used it for years; no real complaints.

 

[compaqportableplus]

There was a Program Manager for Windows 2 released through the Microsoft BBS. Got enough press for me to notice and download. It was a bit memory intensive so not a good choice for the 640K machines.

You don’t still happen to have a copy of that do you? I’ve never been able to find an archive of that anywhere.

And also,@Exceter, did you ever make any progress with this? Would be cool to see some new Windows 1.x/2.x apps!

 

[rmay635703]

You don’t still happen to have a copy of that do you? I’ve never been able to find an archive of that anywhere.

And also,@Exceter, did you ever make any progress with this? Would be cool to see some new Windows 1.x/2.x apps!

Would be more amusing to backport some 3.x apps to 1.0/2.0 real mode, likely need to strip features to fit

 

[krebizfan]

You don’t still happen to have a copy of that do you? I’ve never been able to find an archive of that anywhere.

Unfortunately, it does not appear on any of the disks I have that still work. Looks I managed to lose about half a dozen Win 2 applications excluding specialty business applications or learn to program games.

 

[mdh]

Found this site, has some useful stuff.

Microsoft Programmer's Library 1.3

Home of the original IBM PC emulator for browsers. PCjs offers a variety of online machine emulators written in JavaScript. Run DOS, Windows, OS/2 and other vintage PC applications in a web browser on your desktop computer, iPhone, or iPad. An assortment of microcomputers, minicomputers...

www.pcjs.org

 

[compaqportableplus]

Unfortunately, it does not appear on any of the disks I have that still work. Looks I managed to lose about half a dozen Win 2 applications excluding specialty business applications or learn to program games.

Ah, that sucks. I was hoping maybe we had finally located a copy! Thanks for answering my question though!