1.2 Organization of the Manual

The MS-DOS Programmer's Reference consists of nine chapters and three appendixes.

This chapter, “Introduction,” shows how to use the manual and provides a brief description of conventions used to present information.

Chapter 2, “Overview of MS-DOS,” discusses system features, functions, components, and organization. It also presents a simple MS-DOS program, elaborates the importance of device independence and cooperation as characteristics of MS-DOS programs, and offers programming guidelines.

Chapter 3, “File System,” describes the MS-DOS file system, particularly as it relates to disk drives and similar storage devices.

Chapter 4, “Character Input and Output,” presents the MS-DOS character devices, such as the system console and communications ports, and describes the system functions used to access these devices.

Chapter 5, “Program Management,” defines the resources that are available when programs first start, explains how programs load and run other programs, and shows the proper method for terminating a program. This chapter also describes the format of MS-DOS program files and explains how MS-DOS loads these files and transfers control to them.

Chapter 6, “National Language Support,” presents the features of MS-DOS that provide support for foreign-language markets, such as country information, keyboard layouts, and code pages.

Chapter 7, “Interrupts,” provides information about software interrupts that a program can use to request services from the operating system and from extensions to the operating system.

Chapter 8, “Interrupt 21h Functions,” describes the MS-DOS system functions available through Interrupt 21h. The functions are listed in numeric order according to the number used to call the function.

Chapter 9, “Device Drivers,” describes the format of MS-DOS device drivers. It explains how MS-DOS uses device drivers to provide an interface between the operating-system kernel and hardware devices.

Appendix A, “Code Pages,” contains code-page tables for the six code pages included with MS-DOS.

Appendix B, “Extended Key Codes,” lists the keys and key combinations that generate the extended key codes MS-DOS retrieves when reading from the keyboard.

Appendix C, “Error Values,” lists the error values returned by MS-DOS system functions.