The application program interface (API) provided by OS/2 to protected-mode programs is quite different from the familiar Int 21H interface of MS-DOS and the OS/2 3.x Box. However, the OS/2 API is functionally a proper superset of MS-DOS. This makes it easy to convert well-behaved MS-DOS applications to run in OS/2 protected mode, whence they can be enhanced to take advantage of OS/2's virtual memory, multitasking, and interprocess communication capabilities.
To give you a feeling for both the nature of the OS/2 API and the practices that should be avoided in MS-DOS programming if portability to OS/2 is desired, I will outline my own strategy for converting existing MS-DOS assembly-language programs to OS/2. For the purposes of discussion, I have divided the conversion process into five steps and have assigned each an easily remembered buzzword:
1.Segmentation
2.Rationalization
3.Encapsulation
4.Conversion
5.Optimization
The first three stages can (and should) be performed and tested in the MS-DOS environment; only the last two require OS/2 and the protected-mode programming tools. As you read on, you may notice that an MS-DOS program that follows the compatibility guidelines presented earlier in this chapter requires relatively little work to make it run in protected mode. This is the natural benefit of working with the operating system instead of against it.