Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 01:18:29 +0200
From: "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
Sender: halo1 AT zahav DOT net DOT il
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Message-Id: <1438-Sat11Nov2000011827+0200-eliz@is.elta.co.il>
X-Mailer: Emacs 20.6 (via feedmail 8.3.emacs20_6 I) and Blat ver 1.8.6
In-reply-to: <pe9o0tgaqa83nfsl1q9ji7o488mruvc678@4ax.com> (message from Damian
	Yerrick on Fri, 10 Nov 2000 16:45:47 GMT)
Subject: Re: cursor
References: <8udus7$jmh$1 AT lacerta DOT tiscalinet DOT it> <Pine DOT UW2 DOT 3 DOT 95 DOT 1001109204904 DOT 14458A-100000 AT bryggen DOT bgnett DOT no> <20001109143617 DOT A22025 AT kendall DOT sfbr DOT org> <3405-Fri10Nov2000110916+0200-eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il> <pe9o0tgaqa83nfsl1q9ji7o488mruvc678 AT 4ax DOT com>
Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com
X-Mailing-List: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com
Precedence: bulk

> 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.