home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Welcome to Borland Pascal with Objects 7.0
- ------------------------------------------
-
- This README file contains important, last minute information
- about Borland Pascal with Objects 7.0. In addition to this file,
- there are several files in the \BP\DOC directory that you should
- browse.
-
-
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- -----------------
- 1. How to get help
- 2. Brief introduction to DOS Protected Mode Interface (DPMI)
- 3. Installation
- 4. New Features
- 5. Release Notes
- 6. Important note for Borland C++ and Paradox 4.0 users
-
-
- 1. HOW TO GET HELP
- ------------------
- If you have any problems, please read this file, the online
- documentation files in \BP\DOC, the online help files, and the
- Borland Pascal manuals first. If you still have a question and
- need assistance, help is available from the following sources:
-
- 1. Type GO BPROGA on the CompuServe bulletin board system. If you
- are not a member of CompuServe, see the enclosed special
- offer.
-
- 2. Check with your software dealer or user group.
-
- 3. Write to us:
-
- Borland International
- Borland Pascal with Objects 7.0 Technical Support, Dept 26
- 1800 Green Hills Road
- P.O. Box 660001
- Scotts Valley, CA 95067-0001
-
- Please include your serial number or we will be unable to
- process your letter.
-
- 4. If you have an urgent problem and you have sent in the license
- agreement that accompanied this package, you can call the
- Borland Technical Support Department at (408) 461-9177. Please
- have the following information ready before calling:
-
- a. Product name and serial number from the distribution disks.
-
- b. Product version number. Both the IDE and the command-line
- compiler display a version number when they are executed.
-
- c. Computer brand, model, and the brands and model numbers of
- any additional hardware.
-
- d. Operating system and version number. (The version number
- can be determined by typing VER at the DOS prompt.)
-
- e. If running Windows, the version and mode of your Windows
- session. (From Program Manager, select Run from the File
- menu, and enter "WINVER").
-
- f. Contents of your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files.
-
-
- 2. BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO DOS PROTECTED MODE INTERFACE (DPMI)
- ------------------------------------------------------------
- Borland Pascal with Objects 7.0 includes DPMI-based tools, and
- allows you to produce DPMI applications. These applications gain
- access to all available extended memory by using a special mode
- of the computer's CPU, called protected mode. However, only 80286
- (and above) chips provide this capability. For this reason,
- Borland Pascal requires the following minimum configuration:
-
- Processor type : 80286
- DOS memory : 640k
- Extended memory : 1MB free
-
- (On 80286 machines, it is recommended to have a memory manager
- such as HIMEM.SYS installed. Refer to your DOS manuals for more
- information on memory managers.)
-
- A protected mode application requires that the files DPMI16BI.OVL
- and RTM.EXE be located in the same directory as the application
- or on the DOS path. RTM.EXE provides the application with memory
- management services, while DPMI16BI.OVL is the DPMI server. You
- may also use other DPMI servers instead of DPMI16BI.OVL, such as
- the one provided by Windows when running in a DOS box.
-
- Please refer to the Borland Pascal documentation for more
- information regarding protected-mode.
-
-
- 3. INSTALLATION
- ---------------
- Note: Borland Pascal with Objects 7.0 is not intended to be
- installed over any previous version of Turbo Pascal.
-
- Use the INSTALL program to install Borland Pascal. The files on
- the distribution disks are all archived and INSTALL will
- de-archive them for you. INSTALL places them into subdirectories
- and automatically creates configuration files for the
- command-line compilers and the Integrated Development
- Environments (IDEs).
-
- IMPORTANT: All further references to directory paths in this
- README file assume you've used INSTALL's default directory
- structure.
-
- To start the installation, place the disk labeled INSTALL in
- Drive A:, and type A:INSTALL.
-
- Borland Pascal allows you to create applications for these target
- platforms:
-
- o DOS real mode
- o 16-bit DOS protected mode (DPMI)
- o Windows
-
- In addition, you can use either DOS or Windows as your host
- development environment. Both the DOS-hosted IDE (BP.EXE) and the
- Windows-hosted IDE (BPW.EXE) can produce applications for all
- three platforms.
-
- You can disable target support for a particular platform by
- selecting the "Target Platforms" menu item (from the main install
- dialog box) and setting the target option to "Don't Install."
-
- When you toggle any of the three target platforms (to either
- "Install" or "Don't Install"), the Install program automatically
- modifies the settings for the product components that relate to
- that platform.
-
- Windows Installation Notes
- --------------------------
-
- o The following is a list of Windows .INI files and DLLs that
- Install may modify:
-
- o WIN.INI - Temporarily modified if you install a Program
- Manager group. The original WIN.INI is saved as WININI.OLD.
- The next time you start Windows, the group creation program
- will run and then WIN.INI will be restored to its original
- state.
-
- o SYSTEM.INI - Modified if you install TDDEBUG.386.
- The original file is saved as SYSINI.OLD. The line
- "device=tddebug.386" is placed in the [386ENH] section, and
- if the line "device=windebug.386" is present it is removed.
-
- o TDW.INI - Modified if you install Turbo Debugger
- for Windows. The original file, if present, is saved as
- TDWINI.OLD.
-
- o BPW.INI - Created if you install the Windows IDE
- (BPW.EXE).
-
- o SYSTEM\BWCC.DLL - Overwritten with the BWCC version 1.3.
- You can tell INSTALL where to place this file by selecting
- "Directory Options", and changing the path for "BWCC.DLL".
-
-
- 4. NEW FEATURES
- ---------------
- Borland Pascal with Objects 7.0 offers many new features,
- including:
-
- o DOS protected-mode applications - Create DOS applications
- that run in protected mode and gain access to all available
- extended memory (up to 16 MB).
-
- o DOS DLLs - Produce DLLs (Dynamic-Link Libraries) for DPMI
- applications. Using Borland Pascal with Object's WINAPI unit,
- you can generate one Pascal DLL and use it in both DOS and
- Windows programs. See \BP\EXAMPLES\COMMON\CHESS for an
- extensive example of sharing a Pascal DLL between DOS and
- Windows chess programs. See \BP\EXAMPLES\COMMON\GREP for an
- extensive example of sharing a C DLL between DOS and Windows
- programs.
-
- o Multi-target IDEs - Produce DOS, Windows, and protected mode
- DOS applications from inside the same IDE (your choice of
- Windows-hosted BPW or DOS protected mode-hosted BP).
-
- o ObjectBrowser - Browse units, objects, and symbols while you
- edit your source code using either BP or BPW. Includes full
- cross reference information for every identifier in your
- program.
-
- o Syntax highlighting - Assign unique text colors (and font
- attributes under Windows) for symbols, reserved words,
- identifiers, strings, etc. You can also print your syntax
- highlighted source code from inside the IDEs.
-
- o Tools menu in the IDEs that enable you to transfer control to
- external programs, such as GREP or Turbo Assembler. You can
- add your own tools to the Tools menu in the DOS IDEs.
-
- o Persistent browsing - BP and BPW save your program's symbol
- information across sessions so you can instantly browse or
- debug your program after exiting and then reloading the IDE.
-
- o User-installable help files in the DOS IDEs. Indexes from
- multiple help files are automatically merged so you can
- perform keyword or incremental searches.
-
- o Local Menus - A click of the right mouse button (or Alt+F10)
- brings up a context-sensitive menu in all our new IDEs.
-
- o Optimizations and RTL enhancements
-
- o RTL now automatically recognizes 386 (or better) processors
- and uses fast 32-bit instructions for longint arithmetic.
- o Faster text file I/O.
- o Faster string Pos routine.
- o Optimized sets.
- o Integer overflow checking {$Q+/-} - Integer, Word, etc.
- o PChar support - Allows null terminated strings.
- o OBJ file line number information pass-through - Allows
- stepping through C or ASM code using the integrated
- debugger.
-
- o Language extensions
-
- o Open array parameters {$P+/-} - Allows safer, more
- flexible variable length array parameters.
- o New OpenString type - Allows a procedure or function to
- accept any type of string parameter, even in $V+.
- o Constant parameters - Efficient, read-only value
- parameters.
- o Public/private sections - Allows public and private
- sections of objects to be declared in any order.
- o Typed @ operator {$T+/-} - Enforces type checking when
- using the address (@) operator.
- o Inherited reserved word - Allows references to an inherited
- method without knowing the ancestor's name.
-
- o New standard procedures/functions
-
- o Assigned - Returns True if a pointer is not equal to nil
- (especially useful for procedure and function pointers).
- o Include - Adds an item to a set.
- o Exclude - Removes an item from a set.
- o Break & Continue - FOR, WHILE, REPEAT loop control.
- o Low & High - Return the low or high bounds of open array
- parameters or of any scalar type.
-
- o ObjectWindows enhancements
-
- o New printer objects to simplify printing in Windows.
- o Data validation objects.
-
- o WinPrn unit - Enables easy printing of text files from
- within your Windows programs.
-
- o Turbo Vision enhancements
-
- o Data validation objects.
- o New outliner object.
- o New methods for inserting/executing windows and dialog
- boxes.
- o Multi-state check boxes.
- o Cluster items that can be disabled.
-
- o Turbo Debugger for DPMI (TDX.EXE) - Special version of Turbo
- Debugger used for debugging DOS protected-mode applications.
-
- o Turbo Debugger for Windows now includes XGA/SVGA support for
- several popular chip sets, including TSeng, Ultra, ATI, 8514,
- and others.
-
- o Completely reorganized printed documentation, with new
- tutorial programs.
-
- o Expanded online help system, covering all new features.
-
- See the "What's new" section of the User's Guide for more
- information regarding the new features of Borland Pascal with
- Objects 7.0.
-
-
- 5. RELEASE NOTES
- ----------------
-
- o In ObjectWindows, the WObjects unit has been reorganized into
- several smaller units to allow greater compatibility with DOS
- units and easier compilation with debug information. It's
- easy to modify your "uses" lists to reflect the new units: As
- a general rule, any program that uses WObjects should now use
- OWindows and ODialogs. Streams and collections are now found
- in the Objects unit (which is shared between DOS and Windows
- programs). Finally, the StdDlgs and StdWnds units have been
- renamed to OStdDlgs and OStdWnds, respectively.
-
- o If you are using Windows 3.0, update your Windows Help system
- (WINHELP.EXE and WINHELP.HLP) to the Windows 3.1 versions
- which are in the \BP\BIN directory. You can safely overwrite
- the 3.0 versions of these files with the 3.1 versions.
-
- o RTMRES.EXE - This program (found in \BP\BIN) causes the
- Borland DPMI loader and server to be resident in memory. This
- will speedup the loading of DPMI applications such as BP.EXE.
-
- If you have an 80286-based system and want to run BP.EXE in a
- Windows standard-mode DOS box, you should run RTMRES before
- running Windows. This is only necessary if you will run more
- than one Borland protected-mode application at a time (BP
- 7.0, BC 3.x, Paradox 4.0, and so on).
-
- To use RTMRES.EXE for this purpose, specify the amount of
- extended memory the Borland DPMI server should allocate,
- using a DOS environment variable called DPMIMEM. For example:
-
- SET DPMIMEM=MAXMEM 2048
-
- This command, which can be executed from the DOS prompt or a
- batch file, allocates 2 MB to the DPMI server and leaves all
- remaining extended memory for Windows. Note that BP.EXE
- requires a minimum of 1 MB of extended memory.
-
- The command-line syntax for RTMRES is:
-
- RTMRES [ProgName [arg1, arg2,...]]
-
- Where ProgName is the optional name of a program to
- immediately execute (which avoids loading a copy of your
- command processor if the program is an .EXE or .COM file).
- You must include the program's extension, for example:
-
- RTMRES win.com
-
- The source code to RTMRES.EXE is located in
- \BP\EXAMPLES\UTILS\RTMRES.PAS.
-
- o If you run BP.EXE from a Windows DOS box and want to modify
- the BP.PIF file provided, make sure to specify at least 1 MB
- XMS. Without a minimum memory setting, the DPMI application
- may not be able to get the memory it needs; without a maximum
- memory setting, the DPMI run-time manager (RTM) will grab
- half of all available memory, slow Windows performance, and
- prevent you from opening more than one or two Windows DOS
- boxes.
-
-
- 6. IMPORTANT NOTE FOR BORLAND C++ AND PARADOX 4.0 USERS
- -------------------------------------------------------
- The DPMILOAD.EXE and DPMI16BI.OVL files provided with this
- release replace the older ones that came with Paradox 4.0 and
- BC++ 3.0 or later. Delete or rename the older versions and put
- \BP\BIN on your DOS path (so Paradox and BC can use the newer
- ones).
-
- If you want to be able to run BC++ or Paradox from within BP.EXE,
- you will need to use the EXTLEAVE option for the RTM environment
- variable in order to leave enough memory available. For example,
- you can set aside 2 MB for other programs by using:
-
- SET RTM=EXTLEAVE 2048
-
- See the printed documentation for more information regarding the
- RTM environment variable.
-
- If you plan to shell out from Paradox or BC++ to run BP.EXE,
- limit the amount of extended memory used by those programs. For
- Paradox, use its /extk command-line parameter; and for BC++, use
- its /x command-line parameter. Refer to their documentation for
- more information on the use of command-line options.
-
- Here's a summary for troubleshooting purposes:
-
- 1. Are there any copies of DPMILOAD.EXE or DPMI16BI.OVL on the
- path prior to those provided \BP\BIN? Or in the same
- directories as BC.EXE or PARADOX.EXE? If so, replace them
- with BP 7.0's newer versions or remove them and set your
- DOS path correctly.
-
- 2. Have you set the RTM environment variable? For example:
-
- SET RTM=EXTLEAVE 2048
-
- 3. If starting Paradox or BC first, have you used the required
- command-line options?
-
- * * * * *
-
-