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Text Screen in QB4.5/VBDOS?

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 10:50 am
by Harry Potter
Namely, how do I create one? I know I can use the COLOR command to set the text color and PRINT to display the text. However, I see a lot of old DOS Shareware games which display an ad screen at exit. PRINT and COLOR aren't enough to create such a screen. How do I write such a screen, and how do I display it at program exit?

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 6:36 pm
by T'lon Nanaki
honestly I've never had a need for any thing to be done after my codes exit, so I'll try to come up with an explanation based on what I've observed in a lot of the demos I've played over the years

in a lot of the older dos based games (DOOM for example) those ad screens were done in text mode (screen 0), but in some of the later ones (for example the original Desent ) would display a full screen graphic.

my best guess for the latter is that they most likly had the bitmap (whatever format it was saved as) stored within the exe (i've done some experementing with "attaching" extra data to an exe and then reading it) and had it display after the program was told to exit.

My best thought for implementing such a thing would be to either play around with either a sub that displays your exit "ad" (or whatever your gonna do with it) or to make a secondary program that does the ad and set all of this up into a batch file that runs the second program after the first exits.

hope this helps ( or at least gives u an idea or two)
please let me know if it did :)

Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 11:45 am
by Harry Potter
This gives me ideas. Of course, ASCII text with color is good enough. I mean I used it with Template Creator for DOS to advertize works-in-progress. I could use a VGA16 graphics screen with a lot of work, but I want to do text. Are there any programs to edit and display text screens in QB4.5/VBDOS? If necessary, I can create a .COM program to display the screen such that the QB4.5/VBDOS--or even C/C++--code can run at exit.

Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 11:51 am
by T'lon Nanaki
well I'm always pleased to hear that I helped get creativity flowing
GOOD LUCK!
:)

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:43 am
by Harry Potter
Okay...so: How do I create the text screen? I could use 256Paint to draw a VGA256 screen, but I want a text screen. Also, what about a VGA16 or EGA hi-res screen?