Re: [RFD] "Pseudo-tty" interface for Windows and other systems

Ray Chason <chasonr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:f7ljf30jfp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

chuckcar wrote:

Ray Chason <chasonr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:f7jf4g01kqc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

Windows Vista, it seems, doesn't support full-screen text mode.
Pressing Alt-Enter gives an error box. (An MS-DOS program that
tries to use graphics is terminated at the attempt to do so.)


You realize that those two sentences are completely different things
right?

On NT, 2000 and XP, an MS-DOS program that sets a graphics mode is
immediately switched to full screen and given exclusive access to the
video hardware; no attempt is made to emulate a VGA. This doesn't
work on Vista, because Vista doesn't do full screen. Yes, that means
you can't play the MS-DOS NetHack in tiled mode on Vista; you can only
do text mode.

What happens if you run just the command prompt and then hit
alt-enter?

You get an error box, just like I said.

(I don't now and won't every use VISTA for any number of reasons -
primarily that there comes a point where dumbing down an OS reaches a
critical point where some things just can't be done).

I got caught in a rainstorm a few weeks back and apparently some water
got into my laptop; when I pressed the power button, the little green
light would come on but nothing else would happen. WTF, it was three
years old and the CPU fan was noisy and the lid wouldn't stand up on
its own. Went shopping for a new laptop, and all of them have Vista.
But I'm a Penguinista anyway.

I know that some players prefer text to tiles. The graphical front
end for Windows can show a text map; but would it be worthwhile to
create a "pseudo-tty" port that would operate as a windowed program,
but duplicate the look of the traditional text-mode interface?

This *would* theoretically work, but is a) overkill and b) fighting in
the wrong direction. What you need (if all the above is so) is a
proper text command prompt.

Unfortunately, Windows is not an open source product. What you call a
"proper text command prompt" might amount to something that displays a
command prompt but runs as a windowed program, and emulates a full-
screen look in response to Alt-Enter. But that would basically amount
to a free-standing pseudo-TTY like I'm proposing here. NetHack would
still have to be modified to use whatever API such a program would
present, and a NetHack so modified would only work with the new
command prompt.

You *might* try getting djgpp and installing it to
see if you can run nethack under bash.

Doesn't work. See above. You can't do MS-DOS graphics on Vista,
unless you use something like QEMU.


I call it ANSI graphics - MS-DOS graphics to me means *real* bitmap
graphics. But that's beside the point. I'm just making absolutely sure that
you are talking about the former and *not* the later above.


Such a port need not be limited to Windows, of course.

You mean VISTA of course. Windows is a generic term of which Microsoft
produces several implementations of and aren't the only people that
produces a GUI.

I'd like to do a pseudo-TTY for X11 as well. But it's Windows, and
especially Vista (which can't do real full screen), that needs it the
most.

The Win32 console API is just plain inadequate, at least if you want
both a mouse and proper support for non-US locales.

Personally I would drop the mouse support - silly idea to begin with and it
doesn't do *near* as much as gpm does in linux anyways.

Nhraykey.dll
tries to deal with this issue, but does so by working some
undocumented magic (it tosses bogus key events into the queue so the
API calls don't block at the wrong time). And then there's bug
W343-3, which is really a problem in NT-based Windows, including
Vista; the WriteConsoleOutputCharacterA call breaks if the configured
locale does not use a West European character set. A pseudo-TTY port
would have none of these issues.

Also, a pseudo-TTY would have firm control over font selection, and
could properly support IBMgraphics regardless of the locale. Box
drawing could be improved by trapping the relevant characters and
issuing line drawing primitives instead (many fonts don't join the box
drawing glyphs, and the result is quite ugly). We also would not be
limited to the 15 colors of the true TTY interface. Would you like to
see a mind flayer drawn in a brighter purple than a dwarf king? (I
don't plan to implement this in the first release.)

Finally, a pseudo-TTY port could coexist peacefully with the existing
Win32 port in a single binary, without need of separate NetHack and
NetHackW executables. Just set it up in your config file and away you
go.

Sounds like it's time to fire up the Penguin and play kill bill... Man what
a dumb move - not supporting a simple text dos window. Forget about
graphics in a window, Bill let that ship go with Millenium, just a simple
*real* dos screen for f's sake. Maybe try 2000? Anyways this has got OT a
bit. I'm sure there are people here who would like a *real* port of nethack
to VISTA, so by all means do so. Shame about djgpp, I guess they've got
more work to do now thanks to Bill.

--
(setq (chuck nil) car(chuck) )
.

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