The authors of the bestselling Undocumented DOS place at the fingertips of the programmer all the information needed to use reserved Windows functions. Included with the book is a powerful utility disk containing programs that help explore Windows APIs.
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Well it's now 1998, and Bristol Computing has jumped on the growing Microsoft lawsuit pile with another claim that something is rotten in Redmond. The contentious arguments have now moved to the issue of the Win32 API, an issue Andrew Shulman first discussed in his investigative masterpiece, "Undocumented Windows".
If there is a Microsoft monopoly it is that they have total, proprietary, 100% control of the API to which the majority of computer applications are written. The 1992 publication of "Undocumented Windows" revealed for the first time that there was no "Chinese Wall" between Microsoft OS development, and Microsoft Application development. The playing field was indeed not level. Shulman also discovered the reprehensible methodology of using arbitrary changes to low level system calls, the "shared dll's", to spike the performance of competing applications.
As they used to say in Redmond, "Windows isn't done until Lotus won't run".
The Windows OS triumphed over the more sophisticated and capable Mac, and the powerful but balkanized UNIX environment, because of the vast selection of shrink wrapped applications offered.
The Microsoft strategy of providing an open platform GUI, promised both an open Hardware Reference and an open API.
Yes, the Win32 API was sold to eager third party developers as an open platform. Microsoft subsequently captured the mindshare and investment efforts of most third party developers by providing an effective access bridge to an highly competitive hardware development community. Shulman's work proved that while the hardware reference was open, the API was not.
Since then, investors and developers have come to realize that all opportunities on the Windows platform belong to Microsoft. It is just a matter of time, time which is measured by Microsoft first encouraging third party developers in their efforts to grow a new application category, then by their moving in to seize the opportunity once the category proves profitable.
Perhaps the most important aspect of Shulman's work is that he explains in detail his investigative methods. The book also comes with an API sniffer utility so that developers can prove for themselves the shenanigans they must contend with.
Undocumented Windows remains a good read and goes a long way towards explaining the two defining developments of technology in the 90's. The unstoppable (but most predictable) application dominance by Microsoft has come to pass. And, seeking opportunities elsewhere, the Internet gold rush of investors and developers in 1994.
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