DOS driver tutorial

[Gunther]

I've to program for an embedded DOS system. Where can I find a DOS driver tutorial?

Gunther

[MichaelW]

If I recall correctly Ray Duncan’s Advanced MS-DOS Programming, and the MS-DOS Encyclopedia (Ray Duncan editor), both published by Microsoft, covered device drivers in detail and included example code.

Also Geoff Chappell’s book DOS Internals is a good possibility.

And the MS-DOS Programmer’s Reference, at least for versions 5 and 6, included a chapter but nothing in the way of code details or example code.

[dedndave]

maybe quicker...
i believe Ralf Brown had some information on drivers

i still remember some of that stuff - lol
i learned from Ray Duncan's book
one of the first things to decide is whether you are writing a character device or a block device
there is also a CLOCK$ device, a special case of a character device
a typical character device replaces system defined devices, like CON, PRN, NUL, etc
typical block devices are RAMDRIVES, and so on
any driver that doesn't fit one of the character device models is usually written as a block device

if you have specific questions, let me know - i may be able to help

are you writing a driver for a piece of hardware ?

[FORTRANS]

Hi,

   "Advanced Assembly Language", by Allen L. Wyatt, Sr. has a
chapter on device drivers.  Both character and block device
drivers were built.

HTH,

Steve N.

[Gunther]

Thanks to all. I've Ray Duncan's books in my book shelf - probably in the basement. I don't know the books by Geoff Chappell and Allen L. Wyatt, Sr. Are they worth reading?

It seems that web tutorials don't exist.

Gunther

[MichaelW]

I don't know the books by Geoff Chappell and Allen L. Wyatt, Sr. Are they worth reading?

DOS Internals is well written and was a useful reference for me at the time, but I don't have any clear memory of device driver-related information in it. I would start with the Ray Duncan books.

[sinsi]

This is shareware (I think), but it's from 1994...
CHAPTER.009 is the one you want.

[dedndave]

if you have Ray Duncan's Advanced MS-DOS Programming book, you have everything you need   :t

[FORTRANS]

I don't know the books by Geoff Chappell and Allen L. Wyatt, Sr. Are they worth reading?

Hi Gunther,

   The book by Wyatt is somewhere between okay and good.
It is sort of a  "Advanced Assembly for Beginners" style of book.
Good explanations, and nicely commented code.  Some redundancy.
But not very deep if used as a reference.  Worthwhile, but not
mandatory in my opinion, if you have other sources to work with.

Regards,

Steve N.

[Gunther]

Dave, Michael and Steve,

thank you for the fast answers. Special thanks to Sinsi for providing the material.  :t

Gunther

[Gunther]

I've checked my basement and found: Advanced MS-DOS Programming. The Microsoft(R) Guide for Assembly Language and C Programmers. By Ray Duncan. Chapter 14 presents a skeleton example for a driver. I found furthermore Extending DOS. A Programmers Guide to Protected-Mode DOS. It has two working driver examples for an EMS and a XMS ram disk.

I think that'll be my starting point.

Gunther

[nidud]

deleted

[Gunther]

Hi nidud,

Here is the last device driver I wrote if that helps.

thank you.  :t

Gunther

[dedndave]

suggestion, Gunther....

boot from a floppy to test your driver   :t
if it hangs, you can still boot the hard drive

[Gunther]

Dave,

boot from a floppy to test your driver   :t
if it hangs, you can still boot the hard drive

that's my plan.

Gunther