CompuServe Thread

Alan, boy that is a good question…. I don't know of any way to control any Bridgeboard application from within CanDo, Foundation, Director, AV, etc. Not to say that it *might* not be possible, however. I've certainly never explored it. The above authoring progs do have ARexx support (ie. they can send ARexx messages to other apps). The only way I can see to do what you want would be to find a regular Amiga app that did what you wanted (ie. controlled the Bridgeboard), and make sure it had ARexx support. Then any of the above authoring progs could control *that* program, etc… I'd bet that you will NOT find such a program though. Let's face it, this is an area that the amiga beats the IBM world hands down on — ARexx control of programs. Lots of Amiga programs have it, making what you want to do much easier on the Amiga side. Very tough in the IBM world. (well, maybe the Windows environment will support some sort of inter-program communication someday). You could duplicate the IBM environment in the authoring program, and train on that? Lots of work…. more than it's worth, I'd imagine. Yeah, the section is dead. Be sure to join the MM discussion today (Thursday) at 7:00 PST!!! –jp–seattle–

Alan, I had a similr application where I had to show some capabilities of a Window-based control program for IEEE-488 electronic equipment, and I just had the Amiga "simulate" the program. I grabbed the IBM screens and transported them trough ADepartment to Amiga… You can show a lot with that… And if you want to show real output and performance (not just explain capabilities), you culd tape the IBM program's output, and then have AVision show how the program could work… But, as you can see, all are not real-time solutions, and I doubt you can inter-process MS_DOS and Amiga applications in real time… (If I'm wrong, please give your opinion, anyone) I hope this sheds some light… —>JEF

I do not know of any available application that can communicate with the bridgeboard. According to the docs, the two can communicate in real time, and parallel process if needed. (There are references to "number crunching" on the Bridgeboard side, and using the Amiga side for graphics and out put based on the data stream coming from the Bridgeboard. I quote from the 1989 version of the manual…. "One of the most powerful features of the Amiga/Bridgeboard desing is the ability to run software tailored specifically to take advantage of the combined strengths of the Amiga and PC systems. For example, a hybrid A2286 system using 80286 abd 80287 processors on the PC side could be performing process monitoring while the 68xxx series processor on the Amiga side is handling real-time graphics display of the process monitoring. (Page 3 1989 manual.) Sadly, I've seen nothing commercial, or PD/Shareware, that utilizes both processors. I've also seen nothing that documents how such a system would work, so that I might be able to experiment with it. It would be great if C= would release some libraries for a MS-Dos C compiler that would facilitate such communication, along with a library for the Amiga side. I sometimes wonder if it was something that was one of those half-thoughtthrough, well-it-ought-to-work ideas, that passed along to the tech writers, who just through it in.

I've been chatting with an ex-C= employee who was last working on bridgeboards. I was trying to convince someone that a Rexx port in the Janus software would be a tremendous idea, but everyone I talk to has some reason or other why it can't be done. This fellow seemed to be implying that PC screen isn't really software driven as we might believe, but hardware driven. Therefore, it would require some kind of gruesome hack running on the PC side to send data to a Rexx port. I personally can't understand this, as the clipboard recognizes the PC screen.