Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!stc!idec!camcon!igp
From: igp@camcon.uucp (Ian Phillipps)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Anyone have or seen a copy of FlickerFree software?
Message-ID: <1675@titan.camcon.uucp>
Date: 19 Jul 88 08:32:50 GMT
References: <521@micropen>
Organization: Cambridge Consultants Ltd., Cambridge, UK
Lines: 29

From article <521@micropen>, by dave@micropen (David F. Carlson):
> In article <638@drexel.UUCP>, jeff@drexel.UUCP (Jeff White) writes:
>> 
>>   Has anyone in netland every worked with a piece of software called 
>> FlickerFree?  I've seen in advertised a couple of times InfoWorld.  It's
>> published by Gibson Reserach (ala Steve Gibson), and advertises itself as 
>> a 7k byte assembly language driver that completely replaces the BIOS screen
>> display calls to make screen updates much quicker.  It looked to be a decent

> Because the bios screen routines are in ROM, they require mucho
> wait-states to access (250nS rom vs. 150nS ram).  By simply relocating
> the bios into ram, as many 386 boxes do, a factor of ~2-3 is made.  So
> this was never the miracle that Steve Gibson might have liked to have
> sold.

David is missing a valid point (for those of us with creaky old CGA,
anyhow), that the BIOS can't update the screen while the video is being
displayed - a hardware bug in the IBM CGA card. Most(?) newish CGA-type
cards don't have that bug. Hence, software can easily get a speedup
independent of hardware speed.  There was a PD/share package including the
file QWIKSCRN.COM/EXE which does the same thing (+ smaller & cheaper) if
you have a card which doesn't "snow" when you do this.

It was bundled up with QWIKANSI and QWIKMODE - should be on a bulletin board
near you (I think it was posted near here a while back).
-- 
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