twb@cbnewsh.att.com (thomas.w.beattie) (11/13/90)
Recently I posted a message describing the uses I had for a dual monitor setup
and asking if there were other uses. A dual monitor setup consists of a
primary VGA display and a secondary mono (herc.) display.
Summary of responses incl. my own (edited and condensed - no names):
I. DEBUGGING (uses having to do with debugging)
- MS Codeview for Windows (CVW) uses the mono. monitor for debugging info.
leaving the VGA for Windows and the program being debugged.
- Turbo C can use 2 monitors: 1 to show the program code executing and
the other to show the program output.
- Apparently TurboC and Turbo Pascal support dual monitors in their
integrated environment. There is a command line switch that
activates this feature, although I never tried it myself.
- Turbo C++ lets you run TC on the VGA and see your output on the
Monochrome monitor.
- ... running PC Watch. This is a great little debugger that traces
software interrupts. I find it particularly useful for peeking at
what files are being opened by misbehaving commercial software (or
software that wasn't designed for network operating). You can run
the debugger with output going to part of the screen, provided your
watched program will stay away from it (for example, if it just writes
in line-by-line mode). Or you can put an EGA into 43-line mode and
use the bottom 25 lines for the target program.
But with a second monitor you can even watch a graphics program
without having the trace information and the program's output bother
each other.
- Another use for the second monitor is with the DDK and the debugging
version of the kernel and WDEB386. If you enter .md at WDEB386's
command line you can start a character-based page table display on
the second monitor.
This complete status of Virtual Memory in terms of pages out on disc,
dirty pages, locked pages etc. can be display and will become updated
as things get paged in and out and such.
I am working on some debugging tools and have to know if certain pages
are locked down in memory. The debugging kernel is shipped, in
compressed form on the DDK discs and has proved to be VERY useful.
- Other debuggers besides CodeView support 2 monitors. Periscope and
Multiscope come to mind.
II. Non-Debugging (uses other than debugging)
- In general, at the DOS prompt you can enter "mode mono" to switch to the
mono screen.
- If you enter "mode mono" from Win3 with DOS in a window the DOS
session will be switched to the mono monitor (full screen). You can
then shrink the original window to get it out of the way. Clicking
anywhere within it will reactivate the mono DOS session.
For some reason Windows won't display the cursor on the mono
screen :-( Anyone have a fix for this?
- The CSHOW .GIF viewer is able to display its menu on the mono and
graphics on the VGA. From DOS enter "mode mono". This activates the
mono monitor. Start CSHOW. The menu appears on the mono and the
images on the VGA.
- Just recently, I found out that my Mah-Jong (MJVGA20) game uses dual
monitors it'll let you play the game on the VGA monitor and it
displays all the tile info (how many tiles played/left which tiles
played/left, etc) on the mono.
[Note: I was unable to find a copy of this Mah-Jongg game in the
"usual" places. I have received a version 1.1 via Email and
will upload it to grape.ecs.clarkson.edu soon - TWB]
- I've got a pair of drivers which let you do a
DIR > MONO
for example which will let you use your spare monitor as a
scratch-pad.
[Note: I don't have any info. about availability of these "drivers".
If anyone has any further info. please let me know - TWB]
- SuperCalc 5 will use dual monitors for displaying graphics.
- The dual monitor also works well with the OS/2 compatibility box. just
add a MODE MONO at the beginning of the dos box's AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
It prevents the screen-flipping on a single-monitor system, because
the DOS box is the only full-screen OS/2 service left!
- You can use the mono monitor as a "scratch pad" with a DOS sequence like:
MODE MONO
DIR
MODE CO80
This results in the mono screen being cleared, the output of the DIR
command is then displayed on the mono, the VGA screen is then cleared
and the PROMPT is displayed. Of course a variety of commands can be
used in place of the DIR in the above example.
Is there a way to keep MODE from clearing the screen?
If anyone knows of any other uses for this dual monitor setup please let me
know. I'll add them to the summary.
This information was collected from my own personal experiences and from
various Email messages. It does not reflect AT&T's views or policies nor is
it an endorsement of any kind.
---
Tom Beattie
att!hoqaa!twb
t.w.beattie@att.com
My real .sig is displayed on the other monitor.