26 Mar
2007
26 Mar
'07
10:59 p.m.
On 26 Mar 2007 at 16:14, Dave McGuire wrote:
For early PC editors, having to go through the BIOS
is the big
display update bottleneck. Some programs achieved very fast screen
updates by writing directly to the display memory. The venerable
list.com comes to mind.
...which brings to mind Jim's comment on WordStar. IIRC, there were
two versions of WS for DOS. One that used normal terminal I/O and
one that used direct screen I/O. Of course, the display matters a
lot on a PC-XT; CGA can't be updated without snow nearly as quickly
as MDA/Herc.
I do have a WS 4.00 for MS-DOS, which I didn't see in your list.
It's the direct-write version.
Going from the sublime to the ridiculous...
You could always run Windows and Notepad. (Windows will run from a
floppy if configured that way). Note that I'm talking about 1985
Windows that runs on a PC with CGA/Herc/EGA. VGA hadn't been
invented yet.
Cheers,
Chuck