How to setup old Borland C for use with eComStation Toolkit

By Anakor

Introduction

Back in 1984 Borland Int. had released the last version 2.0 of their Borland C/C++ for OS/2 Compiler. It came with OS/2 2.0 header files and documentation. That seems to be very outdated.

In my opinion the Borland compiler is a good compiler for beginners or small projects. It has a nice GUI and the great Ressource Workshop. But we have to deal with these problems:

First, the headers had no knowledge about MMOS2, so it isn't possible to use any of the MMOS2 Functions with the original files. Second, IBM had changed several things in the header files back in Warp 4 days. Since then, the Borland Compiler isn't supported anymore in the headers.

But believe it or not, were's a will there's a way.

Installing the Toolkit

Our first step to get these working, is to install the toolkit from the eComStation 1.1 Disk 2. The Toolkit comes with an install programm so this thread is pretty simple. After install and reboot is done, your config.sys will be supplied with various SET statements and other stuff.

For those of you don't want to messed up the config.sys and favourite a small installation I recommend to not use the supplied tkinst program. Instead you should simply copy the required files by hand to a directory of your choice. You should proceed through following steps:

1. Create a directory tree to place the toolkit files in:

toolkit ──┐

         h
         book
         help
         ipfc

Create this tree by hand on your HD. We don't need any other directories.

2. Copy all files and directories available in source\h from your toolkit source to your previously created directory toolkit\h.

3. Copy all Onlinebook files available in source\book from your toolkit source to toolkit\book. This is only the documentation, so this isn't a must.

4. Copy all files available in source\ipfc from your toolkit source to toolkit\ipfc. These are help compiler files, so it is required only if you want create help files using the IPF-Compiler.

5. Check and/or edit your config.sys. Make shure these settings are available and working:

to be continued