[comp.sys.ti] Sprint on a Pro?

dee@mitre.org (David E. Emery) (09/09/89)

I just bought Borland Sprint.  I've been running FinalWord II, its
precedessor, for 5 years now.  But when I try to install sprint, my
system hangs.  Without the 'emulate' program, I get the old unhandled
interrupt.  With 'emulate', the screen goes blank, and then nothing
happens.

Does anyone have any experience running Sprint on a TI Pro?

		thanks		dave emery
				emery@aries.mitre.org

las) (09/13/89)

In article <DEE.89Sep8133848@faron.mitre.org> dee@mitre.org (David E. Emery) writes:
}I just bought Borland Sprint.  I've been running FinalWord II, its
}precedessor, for 5 years now.  But when I try to install sprint, my
}system hangs.  Without the 'emulate' program, I get the old unhandled
}interrupt.  With 'emulate', the screen goes blank, and then nothing
}happens.

}Does anyone have any experience running Sprint on a TI Pro?

I have zero experience with Sprint, but it undoubtedly manages the
display by directly updating the video ram.  This is, of course, much 
faster than using the PC's ROM BIOS, but it means that EMULATE.COM
can't help you.  If Sprint pulls any other direct-to-hardware funnies
like, say, hooking the timer tick interrupt, they won't work either.

If you are able to exit from Sprint by entering the appropriate key-
strokes, if you then run DEBUG and display the memory starting at
B000:0000 using "db000:0000" you will almost certainly see the data
Sprint "wrote" to the display along with the appropriate display
attributes.

A couple of years ago, I posted a set of patches to get Turbo Pascal
3.01A (PC version, not generic DOS version) working on the Pro.  I
have zotted a number of other programs as well, but this is not always
possible.  I have also produced TI Pro-compatible versions of some of
the programs posted to the net such as Daniel Laurence's MicroEmacs
(the supplied TI Pro driver module is broken - or it was as of V3.9,
and I have a written a fast direct-to-video version, anyway) and a
BIOS-only version of Stevie, the PD VI editor, which works on both
the IBM PC and the TI Pro (EMULATE not required).

Recently, I learned that if you set the environment variable TERM=tipro,
then the Mortice Kern Systems VI will work on the Pro (told to me by
Andy Toy of MKS).

This code zotting is getting old for me - and more difficult to accomplish
as programs get bigger, display management more sophisticated (or more
tricky), and display adaptor choices proliferate (leading to more complex
code to deal with them).  The last one I did was the the Fitted Software
Tools shareware Modula-2 language system (nice, but then I'm a Modula-2
neophyte, so what do I know?).  This may be my last zot, and Stevie may 
be my last adaptation - I'll probably get a new 386 clone next year.

regards, Larry
-- 
Signed: Larry A. Shurr (cbema!las@att.ATT.COM or att!cbema!las)
Clever signature, Wonderful wit, Outdo the others, Be a big hit! - Burma Shave
(With apologies to the real thing.  The above represents my views only.)
(Please note my mailing address.  Mail sent directly to cbnews doesn't make it.)