new DOSMerge

[Tom Neff]

In article <51 at calcite.UUCP> vjs at calcite.UUCP (Vernon Schryver) writes:
>VP/ix is a pure DOS-in-a-window sort of thing.  Interactive tells me that I
>cannot run INTEL's PLM386 development stuff from a makefile, as I now do
>with DOSMerge.  DOSMerge allows a DOS program which does no more than
>character stuff to the console and keyboard to talk with UNIX standard
>I/O.

VP/ix absolutely allows this.  A command of the form

	dos -c "myprog" | nocr | less

works as intended.  VP/ix detects the pipe or redirection of stdout
and forces the DOS program output to handle 1.

>Another restriction of VP/ix is that DOS programs can only talk to devices
>that have drivers in the UNIX kernel.  

VP/ix doesn't care what devices are linked into the kernel.  It has a
special hook called the Virtual Device Interface (VDI) which allows
Direct Device Access (DDA).  There is a set of utilities (dda*) that let
you configure nonstandard devices into VP/ix without a kernel rebuild.
I have successfully used it to add things like a Scanjet interface card,
which then worked perfectly under Simul-Task (the name for VP/ix on this
AT&T 6386E system).
-- 
"My God, Thiokol, when do you     \\	Tom Neff
want me to launch -- next April?"  \\	uunet!bfmny0!tneff