PCBoard Toolkit Pricing 
The PCBoard DOOR Developer's Toolkit provides programmers with an easy to use library for building DOORS specifically for the PCBoard environment. DOORS created with the Toolkit automatically inherit much of PCBoard's look, feel and most importantly, functionality. It allows even inexperienced C programmers to create high quality DOORS with very little effort by allowing the programmer to concentrate on the application itself, leaving most of the details of programming for an online environment up to the library.
- The Toolkit includes 52 high-level, easy to use, functions for implementing
door applications:
- Initializing the door, reading configuration files, setting up the comm
port, etc., is virtually effortless. A single function call does it all.
- TPA information in the USERS.INF file is updated automatically and without
any effort on the programmer's part.
- High level, and very powerful, functions are provided for getting input
from the caller. A single function call can: display the question on
the screen, place ( ) guides around the field of input, convert input to
uppercase, mask unwanted characters, allow high-ascii if desired, echo
dots on input, perform word wrap, convert input to desired format,
automatically provide online help, sound a bell, send line feeds before
and/or after the input and more.
- Display functions include automatic ANSI support, @-code support (including
@X color codes), virtual screen buffer support for multitaskers and more.
- Includes a display file function which automatically picks graphics,
security specific and language specific versions of files in a manner
compatible with PCBoard's display functions.
- Includes another 100 low-level functions for greater programmer control
of application specifics:
- File I/O functions include automatic error handling which requires no
effort on the programmer's part to implement.
- Includes Stream I/O functions (fread(), fwrite(), etc.) which are anywhere
from 52% to 758% faster than those from either Borland or Microsoft.
- Includes functions for converting Microsoft Binary Format real numbers to
and from long integers.
- Memory allocation functions that help alleviate run-time errors in C code.
- Useful string and bit manipulation functions.
- Date and Time calculation functions.
- Effortlessly provides features similar to PCBoard including: a status line
on the screen with ALT-H rotation, function key controls (log off, lock out,
shell to DOS, toggle screen display), Sysop chat mode, and more.
- Access to much of the PCBoard environment, including configuration files,
information about the user online, etc., is provided by simply accessing
variables already in memory. There is no need to write routines to read or
write most of the files that PCBoard, and the DOOR application, utilize.
- Programs written using the Toolkit are automatically multi-tasker aware for
environments such as: DESQview, Windows, OS/2, OmniView, PC-Mos, DoubleDOS.
- Compatible with most networks and multi-taskers for writing multi-node /
multi-user applications.
- Asynch routines with 16550A FIFO support for up to 115K bps. Supports
non-standard IRQ and ADDRESS settings. Includes automatic carrier loss
detection and more.
- Automatic session limit enforcement and keyboard timeout detection.
- And perhaps most important of all: The Toolkit, having been written by
Clark Development Company in conjunction with PCBoard, makes use of much of
the same source code that is used in PCBoard. What this means is that as
PCBoard continues to improve so will the Toolkit. In many cases a simple
recompilation or relinking process will be all that will be necessary to
support new and advanced features of PCBoard. For instance, as support for
Digiboard (and other multi-port cards) is added, the Toolkit will be updated
with the same capabilities requiring little or no effort on the DOOR
developer's part to continue to run in a PCBoard environment.
- The Toolkit supports Turbo C 2.0, Borland C/C++ 3.x and Microsoft C/C++ 7.0.
The small, medium, compact and large model libraries are all provided on
both 3.5" and 5.25" diskettes in the same package. A 350 page, well indexed,
and easy to read manual is provided as well as a quick reference card.
