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1. Tube🌞Time (tubetime@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 25-Sep-2023 23:58:56 JST Tube🌞Time

   quite a few DOS programs had text-based GUIs. few were more advanced than Norton Desktop (and associated utilities). Check out the graphical mouse cursor which can smoothly span multiple characters!

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Monday, 25-Sep-2023 23:58:54 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Lee Cremeans

     @lee4hmz @tubetime
     yeah... the cursor can overlap at most 4 text characters, so presumably they just reserve 4 unused characters and keep dynamically remapping them as the cursor moves. I bet with some careful text layout you could observe it in action.

   • Lee Cremeans (lee4hmz@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 25-Sep-2023 23:58:56 JST Lee Cremeans

     in reply to

     @tubetime I always wondered how they did that. I figured it had something to do with the way EGA/VGA handle fonts, but I never learned the specifics.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Sep-2023 00:50:21 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Lee Cremeans

     @lee4hmz @tubetime
     hmm. They do remap some of the characters, but I don't see any of them changing with the mouse cursor moving.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Sep-2023 00:53:15 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Lee Cremeans

     @lee4hmz @tubetime
     oh, I bet they're tricky.
     maybe they erase those characters on the screen to avoid the glitches that'd happen?