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From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: How does BIOS define character attributes?
Keywords: BIOS character attributes
Message-ID: <1990Oct31.124252.9884@uwasa.fi>
Date: 31 Oct 90 12:42:52 GMT
References: <6558@uceng.UC.EDU>
Organization: University of Vaasa
Lines: 22

In article <6558@uceng.UC.EDU> dsims@uceng.UC.EDU (david l sims) writes:
> I want to use BIOS call 10H, function 09H (write attribute/character
> at current cursor position). Register BL is supposed to hold the
> attribute of the character that I want to write. However, I've
> searched my BIOS manual high and low, and I can't find anything
> describing this "character attribute."
>
> Does anyone know how this character attribute is defined?

This may not be what you are looking for, but I'll list the
information just in case. I have rather seen the term character
attribute in the following context. In text mode the screen is
stored in memory as character + character attribute pairs (80x25).
The character attributes define the text color and background color
for each position of the screen. The formula for the attribute is
  (ord(backgroundColor) shl 4) or ord(foregroundColor)
using Turbo Pascal notation.

...................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi        (Moderating at anon. ftp site 128.214.12.3)
School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland
Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun