🚀 go-pugleaf

b259phl@utarlg.uta.edu (PHILIP LIPPEL) writes:

RE: Steven J. Mastrianni's "Writting OS/2 2.0 Device Drivers in C"

 > I'm pretty disappointed  by this book. Mastrianni may write great
 > device drivers, as previous posters have suggested, but he doesn't
 > write very good books. This one is very poorly organized and
 > indexed, contains a fair amount of gratuitous information ( a
 > multi-chapter "history of PC's) and is missing a lot of essential
 > stuff-- like what compilers and assemblers one should use for these
 > projects, and examples of how to do so. Or like a description of
 > just what the "DevHlp library and Toolkit disk" is-- you have to
 > figure that one out for yourself. There is a lot of useful
 > information in the book, but it is in desparate need of a good
 > editor.

Steve is also a pretty nice guy, but I'm afraid I have to echo your
sentiments.  My book of choice is "Writing OS/2 Device Drivers" by
Raymond Westwater (Addison-Wesley, 1989), although it is also far from
perfect (and includes some outright errors).  The IBM red book
documentation is of course nearly useless.

 > And I don't like it when people sell me things which pretty much
 > REQUIRE me to buy something else, but do not make this clear.

Amen.  The good news is that Steve is working on a new edition of his
book which should be much improved, and I understand that he plans on
bundling the code disk (but not the libraries) with the book.

Even more good news is that IBM is about to release a DDK (device
Driver Development Kit) for OS/2 on CD-ROM.  GO OS2DF1 on CompuServe
for more information.

Best regards,
John
                                     
----
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The Transfer Station BBS (510) 837-4610 & 837-5591 (V.32bis both lines)|
| Danville, California, USA. 400+ MB Files & FREE public Internet Access |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+