Re: Mach console

[Tomasz Wegrzanowski <maniek@beer.com>]

On Wed, Jul 26, 2000 at 08:59:23PM +0200, Juli-Manel Merino Vidal wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 26, 2000 at 03:08:20PM +0200, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> 
> > Mach terminal emulator's main task is printing boot-up messages.
> > Then, Hurd (userspace) terminal emulator should start.
> > It should, but there is no such thing yet,
> > look at Kalle's colortext for something that will become one
> > (it is _quite_ usable now).
> 
> Where is that colortext ?

http://stekt.oulu.fi/~tosi/gnu/colortext-0.3.tar.gz

> > Color support is quite easy to do, but it would need recompiling
> > Mach microkernel and many many reboots to test, and that's why nobody
> > tried.
> 
> Oh, you can use vmware under linux to try the mach kernel without
> needing to reboot all your computer.

If you have 128 MB you can.
With 64 MB minimal minimum.

> But... how should be implemented the color support?

Do you mean how as C code or how as where ?

where =

in userspace terminal emulator

C code (this is implementation-independent description, not how to patch Mach) =

a) add unsigned char atribute; to struct terminal
b) change it when you get \e[ * m escape sequences
c) modify output_char from 
  terminal->vga_text_framebuffer [position] = terminal->character;
  to 
  { 
    terminal->vga_text_framebuffer [position] = character;
    terminal->vga_text_framebuffer [position + 1] = terminal->attribute;
  }

easy, isn't it ?