rommel@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de (Kai-Uwe Rommel) (07/14/89)
Situation: Programming advanced text modes and graphics on an EGA under DOS normally goes one of this ways: 1. Using MS-Windows or GEM 2. Using a library like these of Turbo C/Pascal or MS-QuickC 3. manually These ways all do the same: - use BIOS calls for mode setting (Resolution, Colors, Font size ..) - write directly to video RAM for displaying Information (characters, attributes/colors, pixels) - program the hardware directly (palette registers ...) My problem: I want to use the EGA under Xenix not only in the simple 80x25 mode because I have a hires EGA with a 100x42 text mode with 8x14 font ! The minimum requirement for me is to be able to use the 43 line mode. 1. How can I set up any text mode (generally) without BIOS calls but programming the hardware (especially 80x25 and 80x43 standard modes) ? 2. Is the Xenix console driver (SCO 286 Xenix 2.2.1) good enough to recognize the 43 lines and to use them properly ? (If not, what's to do ?) To set up graphics mode 640x350x16, the stty program can be used. But my EGA does 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x480 (all x16) too. 1. How can the graphics modes be set up by programming the hardware directly ? (at least I need info to set up 640x350 this way, the rest is my job, because I do not expect that many people use the same NEL EGA-1024) 2. Because in graphics modes a mouse is often useful, I am interested in info about the hardware protocol of the Microsoft serial mouse too, because there is no driver for Xenix and I have to communicate directly to it via /dev/tty2a. An alternative would be a bus mouse because this NEL EGA has a bus mouse interface on board for a Microsoft one. So. Thats all. If you work on the same problem(s) and know about a solution, I would be happy to get mail from you ! Thanks, Kai Uwe Rommel
chapman@sco.COM (Brian Chapman) (07/19/89)
In article <1147@infovax.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de> rommel@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de (Kai-Uwe Rommel) writes: >1. Is the Xenix console driver (SCO 286 Xenix 2.2.1) good enough to > recognize the 43 lines and to use them properly ? Not untill 2.3. Where there is command "vidi e80x43" to put an EGA video multiscreen into 80x43 mode. >2. Because in graphics modes a mouse is often useful, I am interested > in info about the hardware protocol of the Microsoft serial mouse 2.3 also has an event driver and support for several of the common mices, including the MS serial mouse. -- Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Brian Chapman uunet!sco!chapman SCO UNIX 3.2 Development