Re: Is CLI valid for applications in Windows?

From: Neil Bradley (nb_nospam_at_synthcom.com)
Date: 09/17/04 

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 10:31:58 -0700

"Robert Wessel" <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:bea2590e.0409161817.5df69a6c@posting.google.com...
> no-one@dont-mail-me.com (Robert Scott) wrote in message
> news:<414a0b9c.17213696@news.provide.net>...
>> I need to port some DOS industrial control software to Windows. The
>> application is tolerant of the non-real-time nature of Windows, but in
>> one specific place, I need to execute several consecutive machine
>> instructions without any possibility of being interrupted between
>> them, because they directly start two external hardware processes that
>> need to be nearly synchronous. In DOS I just bracketed my three
>> instructions with a CLI and STI. But will that work in Windows,
>> especially Windows 2000 and Windows XP? Will a CLI be virtualized or
>> something, thus invalidating its use in ensuring that no time elapses
>> between these several instructions?
> In a VDM (aka DOS/real-mode/v86 emulation), you can do a CLI, and
> it'll be virtualized, but only for that DOS box. For a real Win32
> application, it won't be allowed.

Actually, that's not true.

There is something called a Win32 console application which is a Win32
console. You can't tell the difference between them just by looking at them,
but if you're using MSVC V 6.0 or newer, one option you can choose is the
console apps. Also, there are exclusitivity calls you can make to the Win32
kernel (forgot what they are off the top of my head, but it has to do with
thread priority).

But as you said, one cannot access hardware directly. Everything is done
through a virtual device driver, so there won't be direct access to
nonstandards ports, or any ports for tha matter (everything is virtualized).

-->Neil

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