How I got Mario in That Editor - And how Norton Got 🐁 

I had to rewind because I thought I was going crazy

@@MikeDawson1 Yeah same :-D

1:29 😂

Also - 9:43

I had to rewind too, what a brilliant way to say 128,000.

How did you do it? If I may ask.

@@Bisqwit I'm assuming Norton hid their font UI to prevent copy cats? I'd like to hear how both of you accomplished it!

@@aidenator00 I think "preventing copy cats" was infinitesimally low on their list of priorities. It was just a matter of not providing a glitchy experience to users.

@@Bisqwit SideKick 2.0 was the key, letting me switch to a character table *while* running Norton Desktop.

@Kawa Thank you for replying eventually! I did this in dosbox-debug, which lets me edit the graphics memory while the program is running.

It was a reference to the Curse of Fatal Death. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tp_Fw5oDMao.html EDIT: updated link: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Do-wDPoC6GM.htmlm10s

I just read your comment when he was saying that while scrolling the comments down lol

Same ❤️

I am glad to hear that!

Out of curiosity, what are you designing a 8-bit computer for?

@@Bisqwit It's just a hobby retro machine, designed to run with 64K DRAMs from the 80's. I'm new to system design, so it's probably not that good, but it's a nice learning experience. It all started with my fascination with the differences between RISC and CISC, and my frustration with the 64K memory limit of the Z80 I was originally using. So, I decided to make my own hybrid CPU with a linear address space that can do computes on loads, but cannot modify memory in-place like most CISC processors can. That makes it about as powerful as a 68000, but costs about the same as a Z80/6809. My ISA and CPU simulator aren't finished yet, so the rest of the machine is a bit up in the air. www.ninechime.com/cougar/

Thank you for your answer. I wish you luck and more fun with your project!

Very nice.

Yes, you can do that at the cost of losing high-intensity colors - which I think they didn’t want to do, as they used bright white everywhere in their UI. They didn’t also want to use high-intensity everywhere, because then black text wouldn’t work. Thanks for commenting and happy new year!

.. and remembering most people could not afford the CGA at its launch, that loss of an intensity bit (eventually) would have decimated the mono software market too ;)

Since they were using EGA/VGA text mode anyway, they could have used a carefully-selected 8-colour custom palette; or perhaps even deliberately avoided disabling high-intensity; or maybe even a combination of both. With sufficient effort, Norton's UI could have befuddled even the best geeks.

Maybe. But they didn’t have three centuries worth of geekdom to obsess over the implementation details; they had a product that had to be put to market.

Mielenosoitus = protest (as in, a rally full with picket signs, megaphones and speeches; literal meaning is evince one’s opinion). Doubtful you meant that.

Thank you for writing. Yeah, there is so much I also wish that I knew back in the day. A chance to sort of redeem or relive my past is one of the reasons I am doing these videos, too.

The courses listed on that screen are only those that I have completed already.

@@Bisqwit ah, job well done

@@Bisqwit did you pass Mathematic for Physics? Why so low grade?

There are three Mathematics for Physicists courses. I completed the first one (got 2/5), abandoned the second and didn’t go for the third one. The course is essentially a crash course of a subset of university mathematics for those who major in physics. I major in mathematics. Basically that set of courses speedruns through mathematics topics at _way_ _way_ faster pace than I am prepared to put effort into, given that I am also doing a heap of other courses simultaneously. I am majoring in mathematics, so I will learn the stuff eventually, at my own pace.

The courses marked with the pen&paper symbol 📝 I completed directly with a general exam without attending any classes.

mov ax,1003 ; vga? mov bx,1 ; = 1 blink if bit 7 attribut byte is set with 8 background colors or = 0 for intensity for 16 background colors int 10

Thank you for watching and commenting even if the information was nothing new to you!

@@Bisqwit Always! One has to support one's favourite creators ;) (especially now when the video frequency has decreased)

Thanks, although you maybe misunderstood something because Norton tools are made by Symantec, not by me. The mouse cursor thing was specific to Norton tools.

@@Bisqwit Ah, I re-watched in non-2x-time and now I see it's a Norton thing. Yeash, I need to slow it down! Always a joy to go through the comments on these vids too... your channel attracts a sophisticated audience!

Thank you!

I didn’t know it has that many hacks. I knew that it used the 320x400 tweaked Mode-X, but do you have a source on those other aspects? I am interested.

@@Bisqwit The main reason the logo is using 320x400 is because 400 scan lines is the same as VGA text mode (720x400) and that allows many monitors to not blank the screen while switching back to text mode for code page setup (or when pressing Esc at any time). The setup of 320x400 is optimized for code size (using mode 13h|80h to not clear video memory to remember the text at B800h). The visible graphics page is set to A000h:8000h so that most of the text (obviously page 0 and a few more) are not overwritten, and that the logo can be restored again when win.com is executed (using a check sum to see if video memory was altered). During this setup, a few of the VGA/EGA registers are altered to not allow any drawing (I don't know, this stuff is not even in Michael Abrash's book), which is probably why the text is not being drawn/scrolled. All animation is done with palette animation during interrupt 8h and is even waiting for the bus (being very compatible with most compatible hardware). Seriously, I have too much info on everything related to this, and source code as well. If you are interested, I'll find a way to talk to you. Another thing is the blue screen in Windows 9X which is text mode, but under a few buggy conditions can have a fully working graphics mouse cursor! It is the only time I have seen the blinking text mode cursor and a graphics mouse cursor at the same time, overlapping (in VGA mode 3h, and it is and should be completely impossible).

I don't understand, but now I need to know!

For the record, I am still waiting for this more information.

@@Bisqwit I was able to provide a lot of the information said in doslogo's 16 million color boot screen video, where we tried to get the same functionality but using VESA VBE instead of VGA (which required some crazy hacking of video memory). Hopefully you can search and find it easily. After all, VESA is very limited, and not the same on every hardware, compared to VGA's programmable registers, so text mode is really dealt with differently on different hardware outside the VGA

Most of the courses have massive participant lists, so the teachers don’t particularly have opportunities to notice individual students. In some cases, the curriculum is also rather demotivating and pushes talents down to a common level. However, after only the first period, I got an offer to be a (paid) supervisor on the course _Introduction to Databases._ I accepted the offer effective the next period. I think, chances are the same could have also happened on the two programming courses, if I had taken them normally instead of substituting both with general exams.

Thank you for your heartfelt comment (and your support)! Now, I could adjust my schedule and avail more free time to myself, but reasons explained in other comments are why I am speedrunning through it.

@@Bisqwit For sure... there are always potential sacrifices.. however.. priorities are important for the long game. :)

This is too old to be Grand Dad; this is Great Dad! AKA: Fortran ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eIBEO3TrACk.html

Thank you, and a have a nice new year!

Indeed. However, Symantec wanted to have both black (not high-intensity) and bright blue (yes, high-intensity) as well as bright white on the screen at the same time, so this option was out of the window. It is also out of window for my editor which does syntax highlighting and likewise uses a number of colors, both bright and not-bright.

@@Bisqwit oh. you're right. it's 8 text (foreground) color limitation, not background. it was soooo long time ago I've played with the text mode in DOS :)

Linux, all browsers, VS Code, and the new Microsoft Terminal (the one that's only in the ms store) all support UTF-8 as the default. In libraries I write, I just enforce UTF-8 as the only option, and use the OS conversion functions when I have to send/recv strings to the OS.

You get a similar effect as when pointing a video camera at its monitor. Except, because it’s binary bitmap and not analog, you don’t get swirly rainbows, but the principle is the same.

Well, Toyota was originally just a company that made sewing machines and looms (and they actually still make those). Nokia was a company that makes rubber tires and rubber boots. (And they actually still do, albeit as an offshoot company.) At least IBM was sort of in the business!

@@Bisqwit And nobody remembers Nintendo for their Hanafuda decks. The unlikely happens really quite a lot!

Clkones dude, clones is why we have IBM compatible as a defacto standard, due to the fact IBM did _not_ copyright their machine and used off-the-shelf parts - funny that, who would have thought such a business model could prosper, indefinitely :)

Most DOS programs that used a mouse had a block cursor that just swapped the foreground and background colors of whatever cell the mouse cursor would be on. It would move by cell granularity, not by pixel granularity.

@@Bisqwit yeah, like norton commander et al. this one was simple and much more common.

In the words of GLaDOS, we do what we must, because we can.

It sometimes happens to me too, with various videos.