Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!sunic!tut!ra!chyde!ts
From: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi LASK)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Block Cursor on PC
Keywords: Block cursor on pc laptop
Message-ID: <802@chyde.uwasa.fi>
Date: 29 Sep 89 05:16:11 GMT
References: <369@timer1.UUCP>
Reply-To: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi LASK)
Organization: U of Vaasa, Finland
Lines: 33

In article <369@timer1.UUCP> fritz@timer1.UUCP (fritz) writes:
>I have a zenith 286 laptop and have difficulty seeing the underscore
>cursor.  I want to make it a block.  The only way I think I can change
>this is to modify the cursor_start and cursor_stop registers.  
>Does anyone know how to do this?  Alternatives?

This is a very tricky problem.  Changing the cursor size is not
difficult perse, but many programs will change it back to square one
(pardon the pun).  Eg if you are using CED or some other
command-line editor (dosedit,...) in the background, the change will
be only temporary. 

As to changing the cursor size, this is indeed done using
interrupts.  For example, Norton & Wilton, New Peter Norton
Programmer's Guige for the IBM PC and PS/2, and INTER489.ARC
information files contain more on this subjects.  And so do
innumerable books on Turbo Pascal and C.  A good one on TP is
O'Briens, Turbo Pascal, The Complete Reference, although the best
cursor routines have been embedded in Dr.Dobb's Journal. 
Furthermore, if you use Turbo Pascal, you can get the procedure
CURSOR by yours truly, which will change the cursor size.  It is
contained in the /pd/ts/tspas14.arc package, which is avilable by
anynymous ftp from our site. 

What one really needs here is a *RESIDENT* program that keeps on
changing the cursor size to be large.  Perhaps I should consider
writing such a beast myself, because I have this same problem with
my Zenith Z-181 laptop. 

...................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi                                (Site 128.214.12.3)
School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland
Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: vakk::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun