Cursor Blink Rate
Richard Luff
I have an issue with the console screen on a SCO Unix 5.0.4
installation. Please don't laugh but my client complains that the rate
at which the cursor flashes on the main console screen is so fast it
causes the operator a headache. Looking around my office at the various
SCO servers I see quite a differential in the speed of the cursor but I
can't find any commands to control it (terminfo / termcap) etc. Can
anyone offer any guidance?
Thanks and regards
Richard
Tony Lawrence
http://aplawrence.com/Bofcusm/1151.html
http://aplawrence.com/Bofcusm/1158.html
http://aplawrence.com/Bofcusm/1270.html
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Tony Lawrence
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Richard Luff
Unfortunately, It's not scoterm nor will I ever be good enough to
address a controller card directly. I've looked on your ftp for the
"setcur" binary but I cannot locate it.
I'm pretty useless huh!
Richard
Tony Lawrence
> Thanks for the response.
>
> Unfortunately, It's not scoterm nor will I ever be good enough to
> address a controller card directly. I've looked on your ftp for the
> "setcur" binary but I cannot locate it.
It never was on my site, it was on JPR's, but it isn't there now, sorry.
It doesn't set the blink rate anyway, but sometimes changing the
appearance will satisfy folks.
Jean-Pierre Radley
| Richard Luff wrote:
| > Thanks for the response.
| >
| > Unfortunately, It's not scoterm nor will I ever be good enough to
| > address a controller card directly. I've looked on your ftp for the
| > "setcur" binary but I cannot locate it.
|
| It never was on my site, it was on JPR's, but it isn't there now, sorry.
|
| It doesn't set the blink rate anyway, but sometimes changing the
| appearance will satisfy folks.
Don't know why it went away, but the source code is now back in my ftp
directories.
--
JP
Richard Luff
to change the cursor size but to no satisfaction. It seems there is
absolutely no way I can achieve what I want.
Thank you for your help anyway.
Regards
Bela Lubkin
It seems you're talking about the text console. If so, a program could
be written using the information in:
http://aplawrence.com/Bofcusm/1158.html
which, on _some_ video boards, would allow a small amount of control
over this. The hardware only offers two blink rates; this hypothetical
program would give you the ability to switch between them. One is twice
as fast as the other.
It's likely that the difference your client sees comes down to how the
BIOS (motherboard or video board BIOS) on each machine is programming
the cursor. It's most likely in the video board BIOS. You could verify
this by swapping video boards between two machines. (This would
probably aggravate the X11 system on both machines, but if they only use
text mode then that won't matter.) You could then buy boards with the
desired characteristic -- an unusual selection key, but if that's what
they need, that's what they need...
Of course it would be a lot less hassle and a lot cheaper just to write
the necessary program -- if indeed it helps at all.
... and ...
I'm not sure, and I'm not at a console right now, but it looks like the
console ANSI escape sequence `ESC [ = ss ; ee C' might do the trick.
"ss" and "ee" are the start and end lines of the cursor, normally small
integers like 0 or 12. If I'm reading things right, the two high bits
of one of the parameters (not sure which one) feed directly into those
bits of the CRTC. So try adding 128 or 192 to the desired value, e.g.:
ESC [ = 128 ; 12 C
You'll need to figure out the desired start/end lines, then add in the
128 or 192; also figure out whether it's the 1st or 2nd parameter that
counts (if either).
This might be FAQ material _after_ we've actually figured it out...
>Bela<