Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!ralf
From: ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: How to do fast video - summary
Message-ID: <3908@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 19 Dec 88 17:28:25 GMT
References: <46013@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <6490@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 24

In article <6490@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> chasm@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Charles Marslett) writes:
}> Some people suggested letting the BIOS output one character and then
}> checking whether it shows up in B000 or B800. This seemed quite kludgy
}> to me.
}
}Actually this bypasses most of the possible variations of BIOSes, and is
}almost certain to be the most accurate -- it would even let you tell the
}line length by writing to (0,0) and (1,0), then measuring the distance
}between the two words.  Another advantage is that if the character does not
}appear in either buffer area, the mode is most likely a graphics one, and

And it breaks horribly under any multitasking windowing environment.  The 
character could appear anywhere on the screen, and in fact need not appear on
the screen at all.  Your code should at least try the TopView "get video
address" call before resorting to the above kludge (see a previous post of
mine).



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