[comp.sys.3b1] MGR hack report

dt@yenta.alb.nm.us (David B. Thomas) (05/09/91)

dwex@cbnewsj.att.com (david.e.wexelblat) writes:

>[ I write ]
>> 3. My new job has me writing bit blit routines in assembly languages all day
>> long.  What's one more?  I'm going to code all of mgr's bitblits in 68010
>> assembler and get this baby cookin'.

>Are you away of the loop-mode instructions for the 68010?  They are

Yup!  I wouldn't post this but more than one person has written to
introduce the concept to me.  Don't worry, I've got it!

(By the way, David W., your reasons for writing a replacement for wind.o
make a good deal of sense to me.)


Here's the latest, 3b1ers...

By tonight, I expect to have mgr blanking the screen.  Right now, it simply
always blanks if no kb or mouse activity happens for BLANKTIME minutes
(compiled in).  Much cooler (and probably not at all difficult) would be to
make an escape sequence that sets the blank time.  That way, you could
do anything you wanted with blanking (including blank immediately) from
software.  In any case, I'm definitely going to add "blank screen now" to the
main menu.

I'll probably post diffs for that in a few days, once it stabilizes.

Other hacks include:

	- disabling startrek intro (bellcore deserves MOOCHO appreciation and
free plugs, but this is an incredible amount of fat (20-30K if I remember
right), and if you have mgr started automatically from inittab, like I do,
you don't want it burning all those cpu cycles until somebody hits a key (it
might boot unattended after a power failure)).  I've finished this mod.
Someone else made diffs that make the startrek demo time out, if you prefer.

	- bitblits!!  These won't be ready for a couple more weeks, minimum.
Should be a major performance win.


Another thought I had: since I'm now having mgr start from init, it would make
sense to create a console window that is never destroyed, which is linked to
/dev/syscon.  That way, issuing run level changes won't screw up the terminal
modes on the real console.  Just an idea so far.

					little david
-- 
Unix is not your mother.