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FYI: Entire MS Modular Windows SDK (for Tandy VIS) #8197

Open follower opened 3 years ago

follower commented 3 years ago

The Vintage Technology Digital Archive has the MS Modular Windows SDK as a CD-ROM & associated documentation in PDF form (~169GB archive.org mirror):

Thought I'd mention its existence because I've spent the past weeks trying to locate anything Modular Windows related (for reasons not specifically related to MAME[0]) and only stumbled on this gold mine today via some magic combination of search terms. :)

Included VIS-specific documentation

Of note is the "Microsoft Modular Windows Programmer's Reference" contains VIS-specific content including:

In addition the following is relevant for serial debugging support:

Included VIS-specific code/tools/includes

The SDK CD-ROM itself is VIS-compatible (with control.tat & autoexec files) with winshell.exe, cooldemo\reversi.exe & cooldemo\slidesho.exe executables.

Also includes header files, libraries & debug versions of the in-ROM Modular Windows code.

Various pieces also run under WINE (see attached winshell.exe screenshot): `winshell.exe` Screenshot

Anyway, thought this information might be helpful for either enhancing the current VIS support and/or anyone wanting to make new software for this platform. :D

cc @cracyc who seems to have implemented much of the current VIS support?

[0] I started out investigating the .mvb-related file formats used in some versions of the MS Encarta "MindMaze" game (including .m20 & .m21 which differ from the older .mvb & .m14 versions). Along the way I discovered that the associated MS "Multimedia Viewer"/"MediaView Viewer" tools & compiler apparently have support for Tandy VIS & Sony PIX-100 MMCD output: https://twitter.com/RancidBacon/status/1401009436949237763.

cracyc commented 3 years ago

This is interesting stuff but the vis specific parts only deal with the few things useful while in windows specifically the yuv hardware graphics support (which is only used by Links in dos afaict). The memory card part only is about a high level api. I believe I've fixed the remaining issues with the sound in dos programs though.