Printing XyWrite 3+ Under OS2Warp -Reply

[Steve Crutchfield scrutch@xxxxxxxx]

>>> So what did I lose by locking up IRQ 7 with my printer? Will
this move hurt me somewhere else? If anyone knows of a downside,
pls let me know. <<<<

The reason for this is due to some arcane inconsistencies between
printing under DOS and printing under OS/2. Briefly, DOS is
rather fast-and-loose about IRQ assignments, sometimes doesn't
mind if multiple things try to grab a particular IRQ.
Ferrrinstance, some sound cards use IRQ7 for sound, which DOS
allows. Under OS/2, that's a no-no, which makes sense under a
multitasking system: not a good idea to allow multiple pieces of
hardware to share an IRQ line. Earlier versions of OS/2 caused
some printing operations to choke if a non-standard printer port
was used. This was "fixed" in WARP by changing the way OS/2
handles printer interrupts from DOS sessions.

You probably won't lose anything by "locking" IRQ 7 in this
manner.

Steve