Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!yunexus!maccs!cs4g6ag From: cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer Subject: Re: PORTABLE Direct Screen access? Keywords: screen access, portability Message-ID: <260EC1D5.19474@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca> Date: 27 Mar 90 01:28:53 GMT References: <321@pallas.athenanet.com> Reply-To: cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn) Organization: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario Lines: 17 Well, you can always do the brute force method - figure out where screen memory is likely to be (usually either segment B000 or B800 will do), then clear the screen and print something, and look in the possible screen memory locations to see if it's there. If so, you can then find out how many characters are in a line by printing CR followed by something else, and noticing how much farther on in memory the something else appears. As for the number of lines, you can keep printing different things at the start of each line and see how many times you can do this before the screen scrolls. If you do this all in black-on-black text, the user won't really notice it. -- More half-baked ideas from the oven of: **************************************************************************** Stephen M. Dunn cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca = "\nI'm only an undergraduate ... for now!\n";