Re: XyWrite & Windows 2000

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to note from "Martin J. Osborne" 
on Mon, 23 Sep 2002 22:56:11 -0400

> The slowness is well-describe by Paul Breeze: what is supposed to
> appear on the screen appears jerkily. When holding down the
> cursor-down key, for example, the cursor doesn't move for a
> fraction of a second, then skips down several lines, then
> momentarily stops or slow down again, then again goes down
> several lines rapidly.

Hmmm. Now that you describe it that way, I see what you mean.
Happens in XP too, I just checked. Hmmm. I work almost all the time
in full-screen VGA. That's what XyWrite was designed for, so that's
the way I use it. Occasionally I go into a window just to have some
simultaneity with other windows, but... never paid real attention to
the way it works in windowed mode.

I might quibble with the word "slow". Emulation is slow to begin
with, for sure. But to me, it looks too fast -- as if the processor
is getting ahead of the screen display (a plausible explanation for
the behavior), or the video isn't getting an equal time slice.

Look, let's not abandon hope; the fact that Microsoft support gave
up, doesn't mean it's insurmountable. In fact, it doesn't mean
diddly. If M$ wanted to fix this, they could; and if they don't,
others can. It's an odd coincidence, but I've been corresponding
with an old acquaintance of mine, David Thomas, who I think was a
XyWriter long ago, but who anyway wrote a late-80s utility called
Tame that I used 10-12 years ago (to prevent the ancient but ongoing
"100% CPU utilization bug" for old DOS apps like Xy, which think they
own the machine). David still maintains Tame; it has evolved into
something quite sophisticated. He's been working on precisely these
DOS keyboard problems recently. He's developing a product that
overcomes this particular bug (unreleased, but I just tried it, & it
works: smooth key action).

So give this a few days to simmer. (A few hours at least?)

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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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