Porting Powerbasic 3.1 program to PB Windows

[Guest]

I have a PowerBasic 3.1 program that in particular uses the following commands:

PSET (x,y)
Line (x1,y1)-(x2,y2)
Line -(x,y)
VIEW {no argument}
WINDOW {no argument}
VIEW (X1,Y1) - (X2,Y2)
WINDOW (X1,Y1) - (X2,Y2)
VARPTR(variable)
VARSEG(variable)
DEF SEG = variable
BLOAD filespec$, address
BSAVE filespec$, address, length
CALL ABSOLUTE address
POKE address,data

Currently, this compiled PB progam is incorporated into a win-32 "wrapper" that pokes holes in the I/O permission map and the PB program inherits these permissions so that it can run under win 2K and XP. It does not need this wrapper to run under win-9x.

I would like to re-compile this program to run in Windows.
How many of the above commands and functions have equivalent commands and functions in PB-Win?

[Michael Mattias]

PSET (x,y)
Line (x1,y1)-(x2,y2)
Line -(x,y)
VIEW {no argument}
WINDOW {no argument}
VIEW (X1,Y1) - (X2,Y2)
WINDOW (X1,Y1) - (X2,Y2)

Not done this way under Windows; however, the GRAPHICS commands provide approximate equivalents.

VARPTR(variable)
VARSEG(variable)
DEF SEG = variable
BLOAD filespec$, address
BSAVE filespec$, address, length
CALL ABSOLUTE address
POKE address,data

VARSEG and DEF SEG have no meaning under Win/32.

BLOAD and BSAVE are seldom necessary; POKE works the same but POINTER variables (instroduced in PB/DOS 3.2 or maybe 3.5) are the preferred way to do the same thing.

CALL ABSOLUTE is CALL DWORD, but again under Windows it's usaully not done that way (not necessary).

HOWEVER.....

If all these commands are used in your DOS program to support some nice graphics, the intrinsic GRAPHIC commands are all you should need.

Currently, this compiled PB progam is incorporated into a win-32 "wrapper" that pokes holes in the I/O permission map and the PB program inherits these permissions so that it can run under win 2K and XP. It does not need this wrapper to run under win-9x.

You won't need that at all.

MCM