Index
Being a mathematically minded person, and also full of curiosity <g>, I have spent many hours playing with graphs - what's y=sin(tan(x)) look like? What about y=tan(sin(x))? And many more besides. As the graphing of trignometric functions is a perfect job for a computer, I naturally sought out a program to do the work. But graphics support, real free form graphics as is required for this sort of thing, wasn't very easy to come by. I could write a DOS program, in Q-Basic, C, or assembler, but I prefer to use the OS/2 PM. I could use VREXX (an IBM Employee Written Software package), and indeed I have done so for years, but it has its failings - for example, if the REXX program crashes or for any reason terminates without calling VExit(), the drawing window will remain and the VREXX library will be completely disabled until the VREXX.EXE process is killed (such as by rebooting). So finally, when I'd found out about (1) graphics in OS/2 PM, (2) calling REXX programs, and (3) being called by the REXX program, I decided to write a drawing program in assembler.
Rexx Draw is fairly simple to use, mainly because it doesn't do much yet. Simply start the program, select File... Run (or press F5), and choose a program to run from the file dialog. Any REXX program should run successfully, though there isn't any console as yet.
Three sample programs have been provided, and anyone can write more programs as required. See SAMPLE.CMD or RXDRAW.DOC (both in the ZIP) for details on writing more programs. Note that running the CMDs outside RxDraw.EXE will cause Routine Not Found (REX0043) errors as DrawAddObject and DrawClearAll aren't found.
Source of RxDraw.EXE is available by permission. Drop me an email and ask - but you'll have to have a good reason. Think hard! <bg> RxDraw.ASM requires S2MACROS.ASM - without the help of those macros the source would be unmanageable!
The archive contains the following files:
The .CMD programs can be used, modified, and needle nardle nooed as much as desired, but don't distribute modified programs without contacting me first please. Please also drop me an email if you make some useful, positive change. I'd like to know what people do with my programs!
File: RxDraw.ZIP - current version 1.0.0
Requires: OS/2 PM, REXX, VROBJ (for Graph.CMD), RxMathFn.DLL or RexxMath.DLL for Graph.CMD and Sine.CMD
Installation: Unzip
Operation: Run RxDraw.EXE, choose File... Run and select a REXX program.
De-installation: Delete. You can remove one or more of the CMDs without affecting the others, but removing the EXE will (of course) prevent the CMDs from working.
Distribution: Freeware.