Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.2645
Posted: Sun Nov 24 13:52:33 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 25-Nov-85 21:24:51 EST
Followup-To: net.micro.ti
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Texas at Austin
Lines: 49

[all followups go to net.micro.ti]

I am trying to write some video-intensive software for TI Portable
PC's, without having access to a TI Technical Reference Manual.
I have absolutely *no* documentation on the BIOS, and I desperately
need to be able to:

  (1)	Put together graphics primitives for Microsoft Fortran 3.2.

  (2)	Write a useable terminal emulator.  All I've tried so far,
	all PD, have been relatively major failures *as terminal emulators*,
	and my one attempt to write one in compiled BASIC, though
	successful, was not very practical.

  (3)	Patch the MIX Text Editor so it can update the screen without
	having to go through the (awful) ANSI screen driver.

We're also interested in making some fast 8087 routines that we can call
from compiled basic to do things like 3-d graphics rotations, matrix
multiplication, etc.

I am willing to share any and all work I do with anyone who is willing to
provide me with technical information that will help me complete the above
projects.

Essentially, I need to know what BIOS interrupts will allow me to:

  (1)	Do text-things to the display, like locate the cursor,
	clear the TEXT screen, change the character color, underline,
	blink, etc.  Knowing something about the memory map of the
	display would be invaluable.

  (2)	Do graphic-things, like clear the GRAPHICS bitplane(s), set a
	pixel with a specific color, draw a line *without* having
	to go through the interrupt (I need to know how the graphics
	memory is laid out).

I'll be happy to post summaries of work in progress, as well as the sources
(and uuenoded binaries, if desired) of whatever I come up with.

I'm really kind of suprised and disappointed at the lack of traffic
through net.micro.ti; I thought there were more users out there, and
it's not a bad machine.  I am cross-posting this (gasp!) to net.micro
in hopes of catching any users who don't subscribe or don't know about
the group.

Thanks in advance,

Larry