10 Dec
2024
10 Dec
'24
5:17 a.m.
If this were my project, I would start by getting newlib going and then
seeing if I could use that to run an older (presumably more simple, with
fewer requirements) version of screen.
-Henry
On Mon, Dec 9, 2024, 22:04 Mike Katz <bitwiz(a)12bitsbest.com> wrote:
Overlapping would be amazing, different screen
quadrants at a minimum. I
am going to try to port Txwindows as that is the only package I could find
On Dec 9, 2024 8:40 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, 5 Dec 2024 at 20:26, Mike Katz via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Thank you.
Screen is a linux utility. I am writing this on a bare metal (no
operating system) ESP32 dev board.
Right now the program is text menu driven. I would like to enhance it
with textual windows.
The Txwindows package is perfect but over kill and will need some
hacking to work in my environment and it doesn't support the VT-100's
region scrolling so screen updates might be slow.
What might be helpful is if you could be more specific about what it is
you're trying to achieve. Do you want arbitrarily sized, overlapping
windows or do you just want the screen divided up into discrete segments?
-Henry
10 Dec
10 Dec
7:13 a.m.
New subject: VT-100 Text Windows library
If this were my project, I would read the VT100 manual and design and
implement a serial driver and basic text window library from scratch
running on the bare hardware. It wouldn't be more than 1000 lines of C,
more likely something like 500 lines. I am a retired embedded
software engineer and did these things for a living. I would budget 2 to 3
days including reading the manual.
Tom
On Tue, 10 Dec 2024, 1:27 pm Henry Bent via cctalk, <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
If this were my project, I would start by getting
newlib going and then
seeing if I could use that to run an older (presumably more simple, with
fewer requirements) version of screen.
-Henry
On Mon, Dec 9, 2024, 22:04 Mike Katz <bitwiz(a)12bitsbest.com> wrote:
Overlapping would be amazing, different screen
quadrants at a minimum. I
am going to try to port Txwindows as that is the only package I could
find
On Dec 9, 2024 8:40 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, 5 Dec 2024 at 20:26, Mike Katz via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
wrote:
Thank you.
Screen is a linux utility. I am writing this on a bare metal (no
operating system) ESP32 dev board.
Right now the program is text menu driven. I would like to enhance it
with textual windows.
The Txwindows package is perfect but over kill and will need some
hacking to work in my environment and it doesn't support the VT-100's
region scrolling so screen updates might be slow.
What might be helpful is if you could be more specific about what it is
you're trying to achieve. Do you want arbitrarily sized, overlapping
windows or do you just want the screen divided up into discrete segments?
-Henry
8:05 a.m.
New subject: VT-100 Text Windows library
On 2024-12-10 12:13 a.m., Tom Hunter via cctalk wrote:
If this were my project, I would read the VT100 manual
and design and
implement a serial driver and basic text window library from scratch
running on the bare hardware. It wouldn't be more than 1000 lines of C,
more likely something like 500 lines. I am a retired embedded
software engineer and did these things for a living. I would budget 2 to 3
days including reading the manual.
Tom
How may days using a assembler?
How many days to find the manual?
How many days to write a simple driver?
Joking aside, I wonder how bare metal the original project is?
Knowing what hardware is rather important, just to know what
will fit. Sounds like a OS is needed, not a just screen display software.
I am working on a bare metal machine here, just one step up from
toggling the bootstrap loader from the front panel. Once was ample.
Any one know the fine details of bit-banging a micro SD card, mostly
the reset sequence and where to sample or set CS_ , MSO , MSI and
clock. The boiler plate code is there, I just need Initialize data,
write 80 clocks, read byte, write byte routines, to reset the SD card.
Ben.
Another midnight snack a 1 AM.
11 Dec
11 Dec
10:16 a.m.
New subject: VT-100 Text Windows library
On 10/12/2024 07:13, Tom Hunter via cctalk wrote:
If this were my project, I would read the VT100 manual
and design and
implement a serial driver and basic text window library from scratch
running on the bare hardware. It wouldn't be more than 1000 lines of C,
more likely something like 500 lines. I am a retired embedded
software engineer and did these things for a living. I would budget 2 to 3
days including reading the manual.
Tom
I was wondering why no one else suggested this. I did something similar
for the memory mapped displays on my 6809 way back when....
.. as for doing it on a VT it might not be as simple as it sounds. If
you are going to allow side-by-side windows you will need to keep a copy
of the window text in memory and re-write each window every time you
want to scroll the windows.
Dave
On Tue, 10 Dec 2024, 1:27 pm Henry Bent via cctalk,
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
> If this were my project, I would start by getting newlib going and then
> seeing if I could use that to run an older (presumably more simple, with
> fewer requirements) version of screen.
>
> -Henry
>
> On Mon, Dec 9, 2024, 22:04 Mike Katz <bitwiz(a)12bitsbest.com> wrote:
>
>> Overlapping would be amazing, different screen quadrants at a minimum. I
>> am going to try to port Txwindows as that is the only package I could
> find
>> On Dec 9, 2024 8:40 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 5 Dec 2024 at 20:26, Mike Katz via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> Screen is a linux utility. I am writing this on a bare metal (no
>> operating system) ESP32 dev board.
>>
>> Right now the program is text menu driven. I would like to enhance it
>> with textual windows.
>>
>> The Txwindows package is perfect but over kill and will need some
>> hacking to work in my environment and it doesn't support the VT-100's
>> region scrolling so screen updates might be slow.
>>
>>
>> What might be helpful is if you could be more specific about what it is
>> you're trying to achieve. Do you want arbitrarily sized, overlapping
>> windows or do you just want the screen divided up into discrete segments?
>>
>> -Henry
>>
>>
>>
6:58 p.m.
New subject: VT-100 Text Windows library
David,
Were you using a Gimix Video Board per chance?
I worked for Gimix in 1980/1981.
There was a very good screen based editor called the Programma Improved
Editor (Pie) written by John F. Wakerly that made excellent use of the
Gimix Video Board. There was also a version for serial terminals.
One nice thing about the VT-100 is that you can scroll a region without
affecting other regions on the display. A well written driver that
takes this into account can be fairly fast even at 9600 board.
My goal here is to improve the application and not to write an entire
VT-100 windowing package.
The Txwindows package is more than I need but I am going to take the
linux version of it and see if I can get it working via a serial port on
a Raspberry Pi. I will convert all of the printf() and fwrite() calls
to my output routine.
Since the code was designed to run on Windows/Linux/OS2 it also has a
bunch of sprintf() calls. In general I avoid printf()/scanf() like the
plague because they are big and slow and I have found that i rarely need
that level of sophisticated output formatting in an embedded system.
I have written a set of functions (input and output) that fulfill most
of my text formatting needs. I will put it up on git one of these days.
Thank you,
Mike
On 12/11/2024 4:16 AM, David Wade via cctalk wrote:
On 10/12/2024 07:13, Tom Hunter via cctalk wrote:
If this were my project, I would read the VT100
manual and design and
implement a serial driver and basic text window library from scratch
running on the bare hardware. It wouldn't be more than 1000 lines of C,
more likely something like 500 lines. I am a retired embedded
software engineer and did these things for a living. I would budget 2
to 3
days including reading the manual.
Tom
I was wondering why no one else suggested this. I did something
similar for the memory mapped displays on my 6809 way back when....
.. as for doing it on a VT it might not be as simple as it sounds. If
you are going to allow side-by-side windows you will need to keep a
copy of the window text in memory and re-write each window every time
you want to scroll the windows.
Dave
On Tue, 10 Dec 2024, 1:27 pm Henry Bent via
cctalk,
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
> If this were my project, I would start by getting newlib going and then
> seeing if I could use that to run an older (presumably more simple,
> with
> fewer requirements) version of screen.
>
> -Henry
>
> On Mon, Dec 9, 2024, 22:04 Mike Katz <bitwiz(a)12bitsbest.com> wrote:
>
>> Overlapping would be amazing, different screen quadrants at a
>> minimum. I
>> am going to try to port Txwindows as that is the only package I could
> find
>> On Dec 9, 2024 8:40 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 5 Dec 2024 at 20:26, Mike Katz via cctalk
>> <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> Screen is a linux utility. I am writing this on a bare metal (no
>> operating system) ESP32 dev board.
>>
>> Right now the program is text menu driven. I would like to enhance it
>> with textual windows.
>>
>> The Txwindows package is perfect but over kill and will need some
>> hacking to work in my environment and it doesn't support the VT-100's
>> region scrolling so screen updates might be slow.
>>
>>
>> What might be helpful is if you could be more specific about what
>> it is
>> you're trying to achieve. Do you want arbitrarily sized, overlapping
>> windows or do you just want the screen divided up into discrete
>> segments?
>>
>> -Henry
>>
>>
>>
8:16 p.m.
New subject: VT-100 Text Windows library
Mike, you might want to just write the vt stuff from scratch.
The vt uses escape sequences for control and there’s really not much to it as the terminal
will do all the work for you.
We used to do it using DEC DIBOL to do data entry in fields from RSTS. The MCBA
Accounting programs written in DIBOL do that. Might take a look at the code. They sold you
the source code so it’s available online somewhere.
I’ll have to look.
Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 11, 2024, at 10:58, Mike Katz via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
David,
Were you using a Gimix Video Board per chance?
I worked for Gimix in 1980/1981.
There was a very good screen based editor called the Programma Improved Editor (Pie)
written by John F. Wakerly that made excellent use of the Gimix Video Board. There was
also a version for serial terminals.
One nice thing about the VT-100 is that you can scroll a region without affecting other
regions on the display. A well written driver that takes this into account can be fairly
fast even at 9600 board.
My goal here is to improve the application and not to write an entire VT-100 windowing
package.
The Txwindows package is more than I need but I am going to take the linux version of it
and see if I can get it working via a serial port on a Raspberry Pi. I will convert all
of the printf() and fwrite() calls to my output routine.
Since the code was designed to run on Windows/Linux/OS2 it also has a bunch of sprintf()
calls. In general I avoid printf()/scanf() like the plague because they are big and slow
and I have found that i rarely need that level of sophisticated output formatting in an
embedded system.
I have written a set of functions (input and output) that fulfill most of my text
formatting needs. I will put it up on git one of these days.
Thank you,
Mike
On 12/11/2024 4:16 AM, David Wade via cctalk
wrote:
On 10/12/2024 07:13, Tom Hunter via cctalk
wrote:
If this were my project, I would read the VT100 manual and design and
implement a serial driver and basic text window library from scratch
running on the bare hardware. It wouldn't be more than 1000 lines of C,
more likely something like 500 lines. I am a retired embedded
software engineer and did these things for a living. I would budget 2 to 3
days including reading the manual.
Tom
I was wondering why no one else suggested this. I did something similar for the
memory mapped displays on my 6809 way back when....
.. as for doing it on a VT it might not be as simple as it sounds. If you are going to
allow side-by-side windows you will need to keep a copy of the window text in memory and
re-write each window every time you want to scroll the windows.
Dave
On Tue, 10 Dec 2024, 1:27 pm Henry Bent via
cctalk, <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
> If this were my project, I would start by getting newlib going and then
> seeing if I could use that to run an older (presumably more simple, with
> fewer requirements) version of screen.
>
> -Henry
>
> On Mon, Dec 9, 2024, 22:04 Mike Katz <bitwiz(a)12bitsbest.com> wrote:
>
>> Overlapping would be amazing, different screen quadrants at a minimum. I
>> am going to try to port Txwindows as that is the only package I could
> find
>> On Dec 9, 2024 8:40 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 5 Dec 2024 at 20:26, Mike Katz via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> Screen is a linux utility. I am writing this on a bare metal (no
>> operating system) ESP32 dev board.
>>
>> Right now the program is text menu driven. I would like to enhance it
>> with textual windows.
>>
>> The Txwindows package is perfect but over kill and will need some
>> hacking to work in my environment and it doesn't support the VT-100's
>> region scrolling so screen updates might be slow.
>>
>>
>> What might be helpful is if you could be more specific about what it is
>> you're trying to achieve. Do you want arbitrarily sized, overlapping
>> windows or do you just want the screen divided up into discrete segments?
>>
>> -Henry
>>
>>
>>
10 Dec
10 Dec
8:29 p.m.
New subject: VT-100 Text Windows library
Most of the functionality of Newlib is either in the GCC standard
libraries or, in this case, built into the Arduino environment.
I really dislike the arduino environment but the base code that I am
using is written in it.
I also almost never use printf/scanf and its derivatives in embedded
code because printf/scanf are among the biggest space hogs in the C
library. I have written my own set of text input and output routines
that replaces all of the printf/scanf functionality that I need in an
embedded system.
Thank you for your advice. I will look into screen, if I an find it.
Mike
On 12/9/2024 11:17 PM, Henry Bent wrote:
If this were my project, I would start by getting
newlib going and
then seeing if I could use that to run an older (presumably more
simple, with fewer requirements) version of screen.
-Henry
On Mon, Dec 9, 2024, 22:04 Mike Katz <bitwiz(a)12bitsbest.com> wrote:
Overlapping would be amazing, different screen quadrants at a
minimum. I am going to try to port Txwindows as that is the only
package I could find
On Dec 9, 2024 8:40 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, 5 Dec 2024 at 20:26, Mike Katz via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Thank you.
Screen is a linux utility. I am writing this on a bare
metal (no
operating system) ESP32 dev board.
Right now the program is text menu driven. I would like
to enhance it
with textual windows.
The Txwindows package is perfect but over kill and will
need some
hacking to work in my environment and it doesn't support
the VT-100's
region scrolling so screen updates might be slow.
What might be helpful is if you could be more specific about
what it is you're trying to achieve. Do you want arbitrarily
sized, overlapping windows or do you just want the screen
divided up into discrete segments?
-Henry
8:42 p.m.
New subject: VT-100 Text Windows library
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/screen/
Looks like version 3.9 was when they added split-screen support.
-Henry
On Tue, 10 Dec 2024 at 15:29, Mike Katz <bitwiz(a)12bitsbest.com> wrote:
Most of the functionality of Newlib is either in the
GCC standard
libraries or, in this case, built into the Arduino environment.
I really dislike the arduino environment but the base code that I am using
is written in it.
I also almost never use printf/scanf and its derivatives in embedded code
because printf/scanf are among the biggest space hogs in the C library. I
have written my own set of text input and output routines that replaces all
of the printf/scanf functionality that I need in an embedded system.
Thank you for your advice. I will look into screen, if I an find it.
Mike
On 12/9/2024 11:17 PM, Henry Bent wrote:
If this were my project, I would start by getting newlib going and then
seeing if I could use that to run an older (presumably more simple, with
fewer requirements) version of screen.
-Henry
On Mon, Dec 9, 2024, 22:04 Mike Katz <bitwiz(a)12bitsbest.com> wrote:
Overlapping would be amazing, different screen
quadrants at a minimum. I
am going to try to port Txwindows as that is the only package I could find
On Dec 9, 2024 8:40 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, 5 Dec 2024 at 20:26, Mike Katz via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Thank you.
Screen is a linux utility. I am writing this on a bare metal (no
operating system) ESP32 dev board.
Right now the program is text menu driven. I would like to enhance it
with textual windows.
The Txwindows package is perfect but over kill and will need some
hacking to work in my environment and it doesn't support the VT-100's
region scrolling so screen updates might be slow.
What might be helpful is if you could be more specific about what it is
you're trying to achieve. Do you want arbitrarily sized, overlapping
windows or do you just want the screen divided up into discrete segments?
-Henry
8:54 p.m.
New subject: VT-100 Text Windows library
Screen is primarily for multiple shells on a single VT-100 with
independent tasks/shells running in each window.
Since I'm not running an operating system and I really don't need
multiple tasks this doesn't look like it will meet my needs.
TxWindows looks the best of what I have found. I will have to try their
Linux version and see if i can pull out all of the operating system
stuff so that it runs with nothing more than a serial port driver.
https://ecsoft2.org/txwindows-library
Thank you...
On 12/10/2024 2:42 PM, Henry Bent wrote:
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/screen/
Looks like version 3.9 was when they added split-screen support.
-Henry
On Tue, 10 Dec 2024 at 15:29, Mike Katz <bitwiz(a)12bitsbest.com> wrote:
Most of the functionality of Newlib is either in the GCC standard
libraries or, in this case, built into the Arduino environment.
I really dislike the arduino environment but the base code that I
am using is written in it.
I also almost never use printf/scanf and its derivatives in
embedded code because printf/scanf are among the biggest space
hogs in the C library. I have written my own set of text input
and output routines that replaces all of the printf/scanf
functionality that I need in an embedded system.
Thank you for your advice. I will look into screen, if I an find it.
Mike
On 12/9/2024 11:17 PM, Henry Bent wrote:
If this were my project, I would start by
getting newlib going
and then seeing if I could use that to run an older (presumably
more simple, with fewer requirements) version of screen.
-Henry
On Mon, Dec 9, 2024, 22:04 Mike Katz <bitwiz(a)12bitsbest.com> wrote:
Overlapping would be amazing, different screen quadrants at a
minimum. I am going to try to port Txwindows as that is the
only package I could find
On Dec 9, 2024 8:40 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On Thu, 5 Dec 2024 at 20:26, Mike Katz via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Thank you.
Screen is a linux utility. I am writing this on a
bare metal (no
operating system) ESP32 dev board.
Right now the program is text menu driven. I would
like to enhance it
with textual windows.
The Txwindows package is perfect but over kill and
will need some
hacking to work in my environment and it doesn't
support the VT-100's
region scrolling so screen updates might be slow.
What might be helpful is if you could be more specific
about what it is you're trying to achieve. Do you want
arbitrarily sized, overlapping windows or do you just
want the screen divided up into discrete segments?
-Henry
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