C integral types [was Re: Semi-OT: Why Kids Can't use Computers] (fwd)

[Walter Dnes]

On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 05:01:13PM -0400, James Knott wrote
> Christopher Browne wrote:
> > Writing to the screen, on MS-DOS, was a lot worse than it ought to have
> > been :-(
> 
> As I recall, writing to the hardware tended to be the norm, because
> support in DOS was so bad or non-existent.

  There were 2 "fully supported" alternatives to poking bytes directly
to the screen.  The problem is that they were painfully slow, especially
on an under-powered 8088.  The first alternative was writing to screen
via BIOS calls.  It was definitely slower than direct pokes.  The other
alternative was writing to screen and positioning the cursor using ANSI
escape sequences.  BIOS was "slow", ANSI was "slowest".

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
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