00123: Displaying 132 columns

Title:

Displaying 132 columns

Description:

The DOS 32-bit ports of BBx are designed to be very flexible when it comes to screen resolution. In the past, the 16-bit DOS ports have managed the video settings by forcing a screen mode via the terminal alias line. The 386 products were designed to use whatever video mode the workstation is using. This is the reason the 386 products no longer use the driver= and mode= modes on the terminal alias lines. Today’s video cards can supply a huge range of modes, but tend to be somewhat proprietary in their methods. In other words, since we’ve moved past the VGA standard, video card manufacturers have incorporated higher resolution modes. The problem is that the different chipsets used require different software to change the video modes. Therefore, in order to ensure that BBx will work properly regardless of the make and type of the video card, we no longer force a specific video mode for the terminal. This results in the terminal alias line being much more generic, but requires that you set the video mode manually via the software provided by your video card manufacturer. This is the only way that that will allow BBx to be able to address all available video modes provided by your card, without having to create/support a huge library of all available video cards, their screen modes and drivers. 

Resolution:

1) Set video to the desired mode. This will usually be 132×44 or 132×25. The way that you accomplish this is by using the specific drivers and programs that are bundled with your video card. 

2) Run BBx. 

3) By default, the initial window is always 80×25. To access all 132 columns, simply print a large window and use that from then on. Example: 

>print ‘window'(0,0,132,44,”Test Window”) 

Last Modified: 12/24/1997 Product: PRO/5 Operating System: MS Dos, Novell

BASIS structures five components of their technology into the BBx Generations.