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Konamiman / Nextor

A disk operating system for MSX computers, forked from MSX-DOS 2.31
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Improvements on the driver initialization/message display procedure #30

Open Konamiman opened 5 years ago

Konamiman commented 5 years ago

1) On MSX2 or higher, just before doing the round of the 2nd calls to the devices DRV_INIT routines, Nextor should call the subROM's SDFSCR routine to set the screen parameters from the RTC 2) After each 2nd call to the DRV_INIT returns, Nextor should check INTFLG to see if the STOP key was pressed, and pause the flow accordingly. A new press of the STOP key would allow the boot to continue. This feature would be used help the user to pause the boot sequence to read any messages. 3) There should be a standard function on each driver to show the version and copyright info of the driver. A standardized CALL function from Nextor (CALL DRVINFO maybe?) would call this function for each driver, and they would print such info on screen. 4) Write some coding etiquette for drivers, explaining that the driver shouldn't change screen parameters, clear the screen or add unnecessary delays unless some error has occurred.

Originally proposed via email by FRS

Eugeny1 commented 4 years ago

I would disagree on the points listed here.

  1. Nextor is system formware, and by itself must not change anything in the system except the devices it drives. Changing screen mode must not be a task for the system software. If driver designer will want to do something to the screen, it will be his/her responsibility for the user experience.
  2. Again, Nextor is not an application software, and adding thingies must not be a proper way. If driver wants to display its copyright message (or in general anything it wants), it can do it in DRV_INIT call.
  3. Standardization and guidelines are always good, and here you are going to restrict driver developers labelling them as not following "etiquette". One of the cases when screen change may be desired is when driver initializes on startup and needs to put formatted information about its initialization onto the screen (e.g. changing 32-char mode to 40 char mode for this purpose).