Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!att-ih!pacbell!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!gatech!udel!rochester!srs!dan
From: dan@srs.UUCP (Dan Kegel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: What's faster than 'type'-ing a menu screen
Keywords: MSDOS type batch file
Message-ID: <630@srs.UUCP>
Date: 8 Mar 88 21:10:35 GMT
References: <4742@ecsvax.UUCP> <62@dogie.edu> <10604@ut-sally.UUCP>
Reply-To: dan@rem.UUCP (Dan Kegel)
Distribution: na
Organization: S.R.Systems
Lines: 27

Somebody asked,
>>> How can I display menu screens quickly?  The DOS 'type' command takes
>>> about 1.0 second.
Ed Nather answered,
> If you want fast screen painting, nansi.sys is unbeatable, in my
> experience.  On a PC or XT using a mono display card, a full-screen
> Update appears instantaneous.  To get this speed, however, you must
> put MS-DOS I/O into "raw" mode via the IOCTL system call, and you
> must send the output in one huge gulp.  Writing in C, the fastest
> way I have found is with write(), although puts() does pretty well.
> I, too, have found no incompatibilities.

It isn't that hard, really!  If you have nansi.sys installed, you can use
the DOS 'copy' command to type a file to the screen in "raw" mode, vis:
    COPY /b MENU.TXT CON:
This blasts the file MENU.TXT on the screen in 1/10 sec or so.
( The /b parameter makes COPY ignore ^Z (the old CP/M EOF char), and also
  sets the output handle to "raw" mode. )

For best speed, each menu screen file should start with the four characters
    <ESCAPE> [ 2 J
to clear the screen and home the cursor.  This avoids scrolling, which is
about the same speed in nansi.sys as in ansi.sys.
-- 
  Dan Kegel
  srs!dan@cs.rochester.edu  {rutgers!} rochester!srs!dan
  Avoid UASH.