Re: A86: apology and asm question!

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Re: A86: apology and asm question!


In a message dated 1/24/00 1:15:17 PM Mountain Standard Time, 
diego@freenet.nether.net writes:

> We are all familiar with virtual pets, but somewhat cooler are something i
>  learned about recently (yes, I know they're old) are Screen Mates/Desktop
>  Buddies/Whatever you want to call them.  They interact with the user and
>  his/her desktop, but are not dependent for care/feeding/etc.  They're
>  adorable if that sways you any, but I would be interested in programming
>  one for assembly.  Is it feasable to have one running as a TSR at the home
>  screen?  I have played around with user interrupts (Built in TI-OS for
>  this purpose should be good) but found it hard to have the TI-OS coexist
>  peacefully with something displaying on the screen while being able to
>  perform math functions, etc.  So I do know that a combination user
>  interrupt and sqrt key (but i don't know exactly how to use those) could
>  achieve a little animated character on the desktop, with the sqrt key
>  detecting key presses to activate/deactivate.  And i know the curXapp can
>  be checked to make sure we are at the homescreen.  But I have had trouble
>  in the  past detecting menus that pop up at the bottom and having the
>  input keep going to the bottom of the screen.  Is there a way to decrease
>  the size of the text input as if a menu was opened (IE: when you hit
>  program, your text goes up a line and you are left with only 7 lines of
>  input).  Then the character could dwell in the bottom line and hang
>  around, and if it's possible to detect more free space on the home screen
>  (less lines of input used) it could roam around more freely.  There could
>  also be a screensaver mode... therefore, may possibilities, and anyone who
>  would like to collaborate on the project can contact me.  But the bottom
>  line comes down to detecting and "faking" in a way an open menu to
>  decrease the lines of text input at the homescreen.  Any help or
>  suggestions are welcome.  And this could help with another idea, of having
>  a taskbar on the home screen (like the icky start bar in windows).  That'd
>  be cool...

I do know that on the 85 there are a couple of places in RAM keeping the 
starting and ending rows for the screen to scroll at (cursor rows, not vid 
mem rows)...I could look up the location on the 85, but that wouldn't help 
many 86 users, I'd s'pose ;)  Anyway, might wanna play around with that...

JayEll
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