Date:	Sat, 11 Nov 2000 01:18:29 +0200
From:	"Eli Zaretskii" <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
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To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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In-reply-to:	<pe9o0tgaqa83nfsl1q9ji7o488mruvc678@4ax.com> (message from Damian
	Yerrick on Fri, 10 Nov 2000 16:45:47 GMT)
Subject:	Re: cursor
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> From: Damian Yerrick <Bullcr_pd_yerrick AT hotmail DOT comRemoveBullcr_p>
> Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
> Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 16:45:47 GMT
> 
> How about telling BIOS to display "no cursor" and displaying the
> cursor with your own custom input code?

That's what I was suggesting at the beginning of this thread.  Looks
like we've made a full circle...

> It may sound tedious to some, but once it gets put into a Free
> library, it's tedious only once.

Sure, feel free to write it up and send the patches ;-)

Seriously, though: it's easy to write code that blinks a custom cursor
in an idle loop.  I even have somewhere working code that does this.

However, if you want the blinking to go on when the program does
something else, you need to use a timer or some other similar
technique that hooks the timer tick interrupt.  And that immediately
raises all kinds of ugly heads: a code that does that will conflict
with threading, with debugging support, with programs that hook the
timer for their own good, and it will crash on NT.

If I learned something from years of using DJGPP for general-purpose
code it's to stay away of hooking hardware interrupts.

Of course, if a custom-shape blinking cursor is deemed important
enough to go to all these lengths, by all means let's have it.

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