Programmer's Problem Solver (The Peter Norton Programming Library)

Before the present days of "All-In-One MCSE Exam Cram", there were those computer professionals who knew about the construction of their computer hardware on a micro level and how to write programs that would control that hardware. This book is from those times. Using Basic, C, Pascal, and assembly language the reader is shown how to do such tasks as play a sequence of tones in the foreground, draw individual pixels in various graphics modes, print graphics on a laserjet printer, and intercept keystrokes without displaying them. Granted, there are much easier ways to do the things talked about in this book than assembly language programs, but you get a very good lesson on the inner workings of your computer to boot. Things have not changed so much over the years that basic computer architecture is not the same and therefore some of the information is still useful. The table of contents for the second edition is as follows: 1. Program Organization 2. Equipment Determination - Shows you how to inventory and assess various system resources. 3. Managing Memory - Shows how to inventory conventional and expanded memory. Shows how to manipulate expanded memory. 4. Programming Interrupts - After a brief tutorial on PC interrupts, you are shown how to program an interrupt controller chip, enable and disable particular interrupts, write your own ISR, and finally chain into existing interrupts. 5. Clocks and Timers - Shows how to control time, date, the real-time clock, and control real-time operations. 6. Programming Sound - Takes you from merely beeping the speaker to playing one or more tones to making sound effects. 7. Intercepting keystrokes - After intercepting keystrokes you may want to display them, intercept conditionally, and write a general purpose keyboard input routine. 8. Interpreting Keystrokes - How to look up various codes, use the numeric keypad and cursor keys, and use special purpose keys. 9. Using a Mouse - Setting the characteristics of the mouse, define the mouse's relationship to the screen, and inputting both analog and digital data from a game port. 10. Managing Disk Drives - This is all about how to manipulate and determine disk space and recover from disk errors. 11. Directory Access - How to manipulate directories and files. 12. Reading and Writing Files - The basics of file IO. 13. Controlling Video Hardware - How to control the screen display mode, background, border color, find and manipulate the cursor, and scroll a text screen. 14. Displaying text - How to write individual characters and strings. 15. Displaying Graphics - How to write pixels for the various graphics formats including EGA and VGA and how to find a color at a particular point on the screen. 16. Controlling a printer - How to control and print on an HP LaserJet.

The examples in this book will tell you how to control most of the basic hardware on your computer at a low level. Controlling the head and motors on the floppy drive, activating and using XMS, and many more are all explained and include a code example in 4 languages. In addition, each section includes tutorial and background information on that area of computer hardware that explains some of the background that might affect results.

This is basically a cookbook for doing all kinds of neat things with your computer. Has code snippets in c, basic, asm, and pascal.I love this book!