Mail Archives: opendos/1997/02/02/17:15:14
>root AT capslock DOT com wrote:
>On Sat, 1 Feb 1997, Roger Ivie wrote:
>
>#1) Are you saying that you use COMMAND.COM on those little black
> boxes on airplanes? I personnally think that this is NOT a good
> enough reason for every PC user to NOT get direct video access. I
> mean the number of black box users to PC users with a real
> keyboard and a real video card and real monitor are about
> 10000000/1. Sorry.
Yes, the thing does run COMMAND.COM.
>#2) What we were suggesting was to ADD support for direct screen
> writes to existing OpenDOS programs (primarily COMMAND.COM). How
> does this effect you? It doesn't. There will no doubt be a
> command line switch or a config file to enable direct screen
> writes. Judgeing by the number of people interested in OpenDOS,
> direct screen writes WILL become a reality.
Just please don't make it difficult to _not_ do direct screen writes.
>Judging by your swearing above, it sounds like you are just out to
>start a flame war. Sorry, I won't oblige. I'm just stating the facts
>as I see them.
The post I was responding two used swearing, so did I.
All I really want you guys to think about is that there are other applications
for OpenDOS besides a PC sitting on someone's desk.
Just because something has an x86 does not mean it's a PC.
>> Fundamentally, memory-mapped video sucks. It is not as useful or as flexible
>> as a good old serial port. About the only thing it's good for is drawing
>> pretty pictures on the screen.
>
>That *ENTIRELY* depends on your applications. I think that serial
>based video would really suck in any graphical applications, video
>games, GUI's, and countless other graphical applications.
Umm, aren't all of those "drawing pretty pictures on the screen"?
There are plenty of applications for text mode left. It is already extremely
difficult to do something unusual with the x86 processor; having unnecessary
direct screen writes in the operating system is just more annoying.
>> By the way, there are (or at least used to be) some really good fast console
>> drivers. FANSI Console, for example, is blazing fast and still does ANSI
>> terminal emulation.
>
>Who needs an ANSI driver in DOS nowadays? Keyboard redefinition can
>be done via 4DOS etc. etc. etc.
My point was that FANSI Console did blazing fast straight DOS writes to the
screen; much faster than many programs I've seen which do direct video writes.
> Sure, there are many uses for OpenDOS, and many uses for embedded
> systems, however I don't see any problems with having the best of both
> worlds. Why do you?
Because I used to own a DEC Rainbow. I know where things go once everything
starts doing direct screen writes.
Roger Ivie
ivie AT cc DOT usu DOT edu
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