DDK Notes - Nov 1993

by Judith A. Courter

Version 1.1 of the IBM Device Driver Source Kit for OS/2 (DDK) became available on September 30, 1993. If you previously ordered the one year program, Version 1.1 was automatically shipped to you. If you ordered the single-issue copy of Version 1.0, you can start your yearly program now by ordering Version 1.1. (Call 1-800-6DEVCON.)

We hope you are pleased with the direction the DDKs are going. We've received your requests through the DUDE, conferences, and trade shows and are trying to satisfy them as fast as possible. I enjoyed meeting many of you at the Device Driver Conference held in San Jose in July; it was a great opportunity to talk to you and find out what you needed in order to write your OS/2 drivers.

If you haven't signed up for the DUDE, see the Directory of this newsletter for more information on DDK support.

For those of you who started with the Beta in February, you can see how we've grown in the last several months. Some of the new items are the direct result of requests we've received from you. For example, a new tool, DDKREF, has been added to enable viewing the online documentation directly from your CD-ROM instead of installing the books on your hard drive. We've added a new tool, DELDDK, to use if you ever want to delete the DDK. Several files created by the install program are not obvious to you and if not deleted could cause problems when reinstalling or installing a new DDK. DELDDK takes care of these. Additionally, you've asked for debuggers and we've provided 7, plus documentation. Some of the other online documentation has been updated and expanded.

Using Your DDK
Version 1.0 contained an online book called General Information. It has been renamed Using Your DDK. This book contains the following helpful information:
 * A listing and description of all new drivers, tools, and books contained in this version.
 * A listing of each driver and a cross-reference to the compiler/assembler needed by each driver and tool.
 * A directory structure overview of the DDK.
 * A listing of each compiler/assembler used in the DDK and a cross-reference to the device drivers and tools.
 * The file names of all drivers that can be built using the DDK.
 * A listing of some useful reference books that may help you develop your own device drivers under OS/2; including excerpts from Steven Mastrianni's book, Writing OS/2 2.1 Device Drivers in C.
 * Documentation on the 32 bit Mini-Driver Rasterizing Printer Driver sample.

It's a Program
As we've said in the past, it doesn't end here! The DDK Team is currently working on the next DDK. It will contain additional device driver source code, more tools, and restructured and expanded documentation. If you haven't ordered the DDK, see the Directory of this newsletter for more information on ordering.

Version 1.1 Contents
The Version 1.1 CD-ROM contains almost 140MB of source, tools, debuggers, and documentation. The following list identifies what's new:
 * Video Device Drivers
 * 32-Bit S3 Chip Set Support (8 bit color)
 * 32-Bit ISO Fonts
 * DBCS VGA/SVGA PM Display
 * Screen Base Videos
 * Printer Device Drivers
 * 32-Bit 42xx Rasterizing Sample
 * 32-Bit Mini-Driver Rasterizing Sample
 * DASD Device Driver
 * Adapter Presence-Check Services
 * PCMCIA Device Driver
 * Client Services Sample
 * Multimedia Device Drivers and Installs
 * Generic Audio Installation
 * Generic Video Installation
 * Audio Vendor-Specific Resource File
 * Video Capture Adapter PDD
 * Video Capture Adapter VSD
 * Clock Device Drivers
 * Debuggers
 * OS/2 Debug Kernels
 * ASDT32 Debugger
 * Debugo
 * Test Tools/Suites
 * 32-Bit Font Test Tool
 * MMPM/2 P2String Audio Test Suites
 * MMPM/2 P2String Video Test Suites
 * DDK Tools
 * DELDDK
 * DDKREF
 * Updated and expanded on-line documentation