Re: How XyWrite handles keystrokes {VPC report}

["Steve Crutchfield" SCRUTCH@xxxxxxxx]

Pardon me for jumping in mid-topic, but how about running XyDOS in VPC
DOS window? VPC comes with a free, pre-configured PCDOS 2002 disk image.
I started that up, told VPC to "Share" my E: drive where I have XyDOS
installed, and XyDOS ran quite nicely - much better, in fact, than under
Windows2000.

Steve Crutchfield

Deputy Director for Staff Analysis and Communications
USDA Economic Research Service
1800 M Street NW Room 2164N
Washington, DC, 20036
(202) 694 5406
scrutch@xxxxxxxx

Visit the ERS Website: http://www.ers.usda.gov


>>> holmgren@xxxxxxxx 10/23/03 02:10PM >>>
** Reply to message from "Martin J. Osborne"
 on
Thu, 23 Oct 2003 13:10:27 -0400


> There is still an overrun when using the cursor and
> PgDn/PgUp keys (the action continues to be performed after the key is

> released), for example.

That's probably just keyboard buffer overflow -- the buffer is
unloading
everything stored in it. When you "hold down" a key like PgUp|PgDn,
you may be
putting dozens or hundreds of instances of that command into the
buffer. In
W2K and WXP, XyWrite executes much faster than the Desktop DOS window
is able
to update the display. I often make global search&replace text
changes, via an
XPL program, to every file in a specific directory -- generally around
700 or
800 files. The command executes in about 10 seconds (which I consider
amazing
-- 700 files opened, changed, and stored!), but the display keeps
updating for
a second or two after the command has ended. If you perform the same
operation
in a full screen session, you notice two things: 1) execution and
window
updating stay exactly in synch, and 2) execution is significantly
slower.
Clearly, this has to do with the emulation that goes on in a Desktop
window,
and the complexity of updating the GUI display -- not trivial.

When you get right down to it, who cares. We're lucky to have Desktop
DOS
windows at all. It's NOT the way XyWrite was designed to be run.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
-----------------------------