Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hplsla!davidr
From: davidr@hplsla.HP.COM (David M. Reed)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Monochrome character reassign???
Message-ID: <470003@hplsla.HP.COM>
Date: 15 May 89 18:19:16 GMT
References: <2185@uwovax.uwo.ca>
Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA
Lines: 14

I do not know if I will be talking about the same thing as you, but I hope
this provides some insight.  With a graphics adapter (not a text adapter) on
the PC/AT DOS system, a program can create an alternate font for the high
ASCII characters (128-255).  These can then be addressed while is text mode
simply as text characters, which makes display very quick and easy.  I am
finishing up a game where I have done this to create my game pieces.  I
found in testing that this would not work with a monochome adapter card (for
technical reasons I have read about but do not recall).  I did find that there
are some CGA-emulators that can be used with the Hercules-type graphics
adapter cards to allow use of these alternate fonts.  (I use one called 
SIMCGA.)  Though I am a bit limited in my graphics character representations,
I did prefer this method (for speed and a couple of other reasons) of using
graphics characters over a graphics screen (where I would need to worry 
about every pixel).