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VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

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Re: VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

#64

Post by FlyMoreRockets »

ezoe wrote: post #48
qayxc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only true for TrueType Fonts in graphical mode. In text-mode, characters are "drawn" by simply writing their ASCII code point into VRAM and writing another byte (two 4-bit values really) in an additional "attribute" buffer to set the foreground and background colour. Programmers can swap out the default character set to provide their own typeface and graphical characters for use as window borders, shadows, etc…

Come on. We had long past the ASCII only era.

ASCII is eternal

Re: VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

#66

Post by raintrees »

This reminds me of the DOS menuing system we used to install on clients' computers several decades ago. Cannot remember the name, may have to dig out my old 5 1/4" floppy collection binder I used to always carry with me if not remembering starts to drive me crazy...

That system remapped the function keys to launch batch files or call up sub-menus... Easiest way (at the time) to "customize" peoples' computers for them...

Re: VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

#68

Post by badsectoracula »

makapuf wrote: post #52
Minor49er wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely was super cool. The windows had types, could be resized, had titles, dropdown menus, and form controls. The editor had syntax highlighting. And most importantly (at least for me at the time), there was a language reference included with the help system which had hyperlinking, so you could click through pages about the supported syntax and various topics, gleaning a wealth of information. All on DOS!

Hypertext integrated help has been available earlier than turbo vision even. It has been available from turbo pascal 3 at least. For a young like me who ... copied it on two disks, it was awesome what you could learn.

Turbo Pascal 3 didn't have integrated help (hypertext or not), it was introduced in Turbo Pascal 4 (which itself was AFAIK in general a big rewrite of the compiler and IDE).

Though the integrated help really improved with version 6 (when Turbo Vision was also introduced) since you could move a cursor freely inside the help window as if it was an editor, select and copy text, the help text was much more detailed and more organized and every function/procedure also had a small example showing its use (version 5.5 also had examples but the overall help was much more terse).

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