VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment • Hacker News Board

Re: VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

#111

Post by raintrees » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

nocman wrote: post #107

raintrees wrote: post #66

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…

like Borland Sidekick? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland_Sidekick

Ah, SideKick... TSR hell days...

No, went and looked through my little 5 1/4 binder, not sure I still have the menu utility...

But for those of you who were doing this back in 1991, here is a list of the utils I carried on 5 1/4":

Gibson's SpinRite

MS-DOS 6.22

pcAnywhere 5.0

PKUnzip 2.04G

Everex - The Edge Utility (BIOS settings app)

Easy Data 286 Setup for 10-12MHz

Laser Digital Phoenix Setup

Wyse Tech - Setup & Test

IBM Diags PC/AT

Utron Inc - Neat 286 Setup Disk

Misc. Novell files

QEMM 386 5.10

Brief 2.0

SuperStor V2.04

XTreeGold

Mountain Tape (tape backup)

Norton Utils 5.0

ProComm Plus

Intel Satisfaction

MicroHouse IDE

Diagnose

DOS 5.0

DOS 3.3

Checkit 3.0

Scan80, Clean80, CPAV

Norton Antivirus

LapLink III

And somewhere in my office I still have the multiple boxes of 3 1/2" disks, both the 10 disks boxes, and bigger 100 Disk box, that saw a lot of wear and tear in my backpack - I skateboarded to clients around Santa Cruz, so everything had to fit into my backpack at the time.

Re: VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

#112

Post by makapuf » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

badsectoracula wrote: post #68

makapuf wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

Ah, maybe version 4. 5.5 was my favourite with objects. Later ones with turbo vision swapped on my 640k 8086.

Re: VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

#113

Post by emilfihlman » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

sfgweilr4f wrote: post #63

moron4hire wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worked fine for me in PuTTY.

What settings? Mines more like an abstract color art piece but not so much a desktop environment.

Same here

Re: VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

#114

Post by stjohnswarts » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

subbz wrote: post #99

ajarmst wrote: post #74

The width of the display used in the screenshot appears to be less than 150 characters. Why would you add the clutter and distraction of transparent windows with frame decorations in such a limited environment? 30% of the real estate is consumed by elements that don't present any information to the user. On a modern display, this could far more productively be replaced with (1) any number of tiling WMs with console t…

80x24 is the default terminal height. I mostly use this size on all of my projects. It has many favors: compatibility everywhere, tiny bandwidth, etc.

Yeah, why did we ever stop using it as default for everything. I grow weary of graphics and options with said graphics.

Re: VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

#115

Post by stjohnswarts » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

ravar wrote: post #69

submeta wrote: post #20

I came here expecting an article about my beloved Emacs ;)

serious question about exwm, how do you deal with a broken .emacs, and what about when you hang emacs?

I would suggest keeping around some versions :) I use git for this very reason locally when I'm futzing with settings, it's immeasurably handy for experimenters and config file junkies.

Re: VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

#116

Post by 7thaccount » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #106

cstross wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Powershell. But Microsoft ported Powershell to run on UNIX/Linux, so ...

I know the difference between PowerShell and CMD. And I know Microsoft ported PowerShell to Linux. You're not paying attention. Command Prompt is also on display: https://dice.netxs.online/cloud/vtm/mde_banner.png

Yep, I'm in the same boat as you. Part of it just looked like Linux running Powershell, but CMD threw me off.

Re: VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

#117

Post by stjohnswarts » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #8

mysterydip wrote: post #4

Glad to see someone made this to save me the time! I've wondered if a TUI could replace some desktops for low end or embedded systems, or something to use on remoting into a datacenter etc.

Drawing text is the most expensive in a GUI.

I suggest running this on a server vs xfce/lxde/some other low overhead windows environment and get back with us on the overall load on the machine vs graphics. Holistically this is going to be a much smaller footprint.

Re: VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

#118

Post by stjohnswarts » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

raintrees wrote: post #66

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…

It was very common on some of the old vt220(etc) terminals to have menus and windows and such. However I never saw anything like this :) . Can't imagine those 9600 baud terminals having fun with all of this haha

Re: VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

#119

Post by ilaksh » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

rudolfwinestock wrote: post #88

Related: The MGR Window System https://hack.org/mc/mgr/ “MGR provides each client window with: curses-like terminal control functions, graphics primitives such as line and circle drawing; facilities for manipulating bitmaps, fonts, icons, and pop-up menus; commands to reshape and position windows; and a message passing facility enabling client programs to rendezvous and exchange messages.” Essentially, each window wa…

Love it! I have a strange desire to try to make that work in WASM over HTTP/2 and hack in MGR server hyperlinks.

Re: VTM: A Text-Based Desktop Environment

#120

Post by moron4hire » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

7thaccount wrote: post #116

moron4hire wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the difference between PowerShell and CMD. And I know Microsoft ported PowerShell to Linux. You're not paying attention. Command Prompt is also on display: https://dice.netxs.online/cloud/vtm/mde_banner.png

Yep, I'm in the same boat as you. Part of it just looked like Linux running Powershell, but CMD threw me off.

When PowerShell runs on Linux, it doesn't show a "C:/" prompt. This is clearly running on Windows with WSL or Cygwin for the Unix tools.