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From: guido@mcvax.UUCP (Guido van Rossum)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Are BIOS interrupts available on "compatibles"?
Message-ID: <5904@mcvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Jul-84 11:21:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: mcvax.5904
Posted: Thu Jul 19 11:21:51 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Jul-84 08:18:35 EDT
Reply-To: guido@mcvax.UUCP (Guido van Rossum)
Organization: "Stamp Out BASIC" Committee, CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 23

Hello, world\n

I am writing some C programs that need to do fancy things to the screen
like scrolling subwindows.  On UNIX I use curses for this, but for the
PC I hope to use the BIOS interrupt 10 hex, "video output".  It's quite
easy to use from C, given a way to issue an interrupt and the documentation
in the Technical Reference Manual.  Now the following important question
arises:

	Is there any hope that this works on a PC that claims to be
	"compatible" with the IBM-PC?  In short, how "compatible" is
	a compatible machine?  I assume it runs MS-DOS (I even require
	MS-DOS 2.0), but what's universal beyond that?

Thanks in advance.  If I receive interesting mail, I will summarize
to the net (send uninteresting mail at your own risk).

Help me, you will help to stamp out "BASIC".  (How's that for a flaming
subject.)

--
	Guido van Rossum, "Stamp Out BASIC" Committee, CWI, Amsterdam
	guido @ mcvax