Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!uhccux!bobcat3!aloha1!pegasus!richard
From: richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: Graphic characters in Norton Utilities SYS-V
Keywords: Norton Utilities, graphic characters
Message-ID: <1990Jul27.104059.12955@pegasus.com>
Date: 27 Jul 90 10:40:59 GMT
References: <175@hafro.is> <1990Jul26.011852.1180@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us>
Organization: Pegasus,  Honolulu
Lines: 31

>In the current version of the Utilities, if a full-screen program sees that
>it's running on a mappable screen, it goes into a special high-performance
>mode that writes directly to the screen and has the line-drawing characters
>hard-coded in.  For people not using code page 437, this can produce some
>rather peculiar looking screens.  It's a limitation of the current product
>that we expect to fix in a future version.
>
>In the meantime, you might try the "-term" flag which tells it to run through
>terminfo and curses even though it's on the console, and give it a terminfo
>entry that better reflects your screen characters.  It's not quite as fast as
>direct writes, but might look nicer.
>

What in the world did you gain by talking directly to the screen?  A little
speed?!  Or was the idea to make the package non-portable?

Unsophisticated developers have been tying text-display based (non-graphic)
utilities to specific hardware for years now, on pc's and mac's and
others.  They often get burnt later.  And the utility gains basically
nothing; perhaps enough additional speed to almost notice, or it looks
a little prettier, but the desired function isn't noticeably enhanced.

The bugs tend to be a little more interesting I guess.  There's certainly
more opportunity for them to be created.

Maybe I missed something here, what in the world does a Norton Utilities
clone have to gain from direct video?


-- 
Richard Foulk		richard@pegasus.com