
       32-bit Unicode Console API Runtime DLLs for OS/2 "read me!"

            Copyright (c) 2000,2009 Jonathan de Boyne Pollard.

          Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard@tesco.net>


Why you may need this package


If a developer has written an application that uses the 32-bit Unicode
Console API, the application will require several DLLs that are not
supplied with IBM OS/2.  This package contains versions of those DLLs
that are suitable for 32-bit IBM OS/2 (i.e. versions 2.0.1 upwards).

The developer can distribute this archive along with the application,
or, more preferably, can point you to a central location from which to
obtain this archive and require you to install it beforehand.

You only need to install this package once, not every time that you
install an application that uses it.


Guarantee and Software licence


The Console API is copyrighted software.  The author reserves all
rights in order to protect his good name and in order to prevent other
people from passing it off as their own and making money from it.  The
author wants this software to enjoy as wide an audience as possible,
and also wants you to receive this software as it was originally
released. Therefore:

 YOU MAY archive, store, copy, and distribute this software (which
  means the programs, and any accompanying electronic documentation,
  helptext, and message or data files) in its entire original,
  unmodified, form for any purpose, commercial or otherwise.  In fact
  you are *encouraged* to give copies of this software to your friends
  so that they can enjoy it too.

 YOU MAY make *limited* modifications to the original distribution
  archive before passing it on to others, to convert it to another
  archive format.  Extended attributes and long filenames must be
  preserved, however.  A FILE_ID.DIZ description file is already
  supplied.

 YOU MAY NOT pass this software off as your own, attempt to modify
  it, or obscure or remove the copyright notices or this software
  licence in any way.  Nor may you attempt to make money from
  distributing it to others apart from media costs, with the exception
  that you may include it in a "shareware collection" CD-ROM or other
  similar product or file collection which you make money from.

 YOU MAY NOT (and this part is especially true for those madly
  litigious Americans) sue the author or anybody else in respect of
  any supposed guarantee.  You receive this software exactly "as is".
  There's no guarantee whatsoever.  The author takes pride in his
  work, and naturally wants the software to behave well and do its
  job; but he isn't prepared (*certainly* not for software that you
  are getting entirely for free) to make any sort of guarantee of
  merchantability or fitness for any purpose.

 Bug fixes and enhancements to the software will occur entirely at
  the whim of the author, as and when he has spare time to write them.
  If you want a specific modification to the software, please remember
  that the author is a professional programmer.  You can always pay
  him to write it!

 The source code for the software is the product of a lot of time,
  skill, and effort.  It is not given away for free.  If you need to
  have access to the source code, approach the author about paying for
  a source code licence.

 Technical support for the installation or use of the software
  consumes time and effort.  If you need such support, approach the
  author about paying for a support contract.


Installation and Configuration


This version of the Console API Runtime follows the TAU application
installation and configuration philosophy:

   The package installs in a "JdeBP\CONRT" subdirectory of your
    chosen Applications files directory.
   Configuring your system to use the package involves setting some
    environment variables and/or DLL search paths.

To install, simply pick an Applications files directory, if you don't
already have one, and unpack the archive there.  For example, if your
applications directory is C:\APPS, extract as follows:

    PKZIP -extract -dir=curr CONRT C:\APPS\ *

( This assumes that the distribution archive that you received was in
  ZIP format, and that you are using PKZIP version 2.50 for OS/2. )

To configure, you must make the following changes to your CONFIG.SYS

    Add C:\Apps\JdeBP\CONRT\OS2\DLL to your LIBPATH directive

and restart your system.


Note


This package is not required on TAU.  The "OS2" in the pathname is
there in part in order to indicate this.  If you configure a TAU
system to use this package, you will find that parts of the system
will fail to operate correctly.  A 32-bit Console system is built in
to TAU.


Conflicts with OS/2


There should be *no* conflicts with IBM OS/2.

None of the files in this package have the same names as files that
are supplied as standard with IBM OS/2 Warp version 4.  If PKZIP asks
you whether to overwrite a file, it is most likely that you are
overwriting a previously installed version of these DLLs, in which
case you might not need to install them again, depending from whether
or not the DLLs already present are the most recent versions or not.

To ensure that you only overwrite older versions with newer ones, and
never /vice versa/, unpack the archive with the appropriate switches
to force it to check file date and time stamps:

    PKZIP -extract=update -dir=curr CONRT C:\APPS\ *

( This assumes that the distribution archive that you received was in
  ZIP format, and that you are using PKZIP version 2.50 for OS/2. )


Documentation


This archive contains only enough to enable you to run programs that
use the 32-bit Unicode Console API on IBM OS/2.  For full
documentation of the API, and a developers' toolkit, you need to
obtain the CONAPI.ZIP or CONAPI.RAR distribution archive.
