On Tuesday, November 23, 2021 at 8:05:35 PM UTC+11, JJ wrote:
> > So if basic ANSI support had been embedded in MSDOS 2.0,
> > at the cost of presumably a few kb of RAM, and preferably
> > had directly manipulated video memory instead of using the
> > BIOS, the world would have been a different place?
> In DOS world, yes, I would think so.
>
> Linux is a good example, where there are relatively more softwares which
> take advantage ANSI escape sequence than DOS at the time DOS hasn't been
> taken over by Windows. And probably up to this day if compared with DOS and
> Windows 10 softwares combined.
The software would probably be portable at the source
code level to other environments like the Amiga if ANSI
escape sequences had been used. It wouldn't just be
DOS/8086.
BTW, another possibility would be for ANSI.SYS to be
auto-loaded when it is determined that the executable
needs it, like a DLL.
> That's for the ANSI part...
>
> Direct video memory access is an entirely different matter. MS-DOS 2.0 may
> be implemented to use direct memory access, but it will only recognize
> standard video modes. It won't recognize custom video modes unless VESA
> already exist at that time, and is already supported.
>
> Without VESA, there won't be a standard method to describe the configuration
> of a video mode. i.e. DOS and its softwares can't know if there are 15, 16,
> 24, and 32 bits pixel video mode. Or whether the video buffer is planar or
> linear, etc.
Sorry, why is any of this needed? What's wrong with 0xb0000
and 0xb8000?
The competition is only with the BIOS, not graphics.
BFN. Paul.