[SD-User] Re: Running in full-screen mode

[Martin Davies G0HDB]

On 20 Jul 2004 at 9:23, sd-user-request at contesting.com wrote:

> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 19:52:22 +0100
> From: "Paul O'Kane" <pokane at ei5di.com>
> Subject: Re: [SD-User] Running SD/Win progs in full-screen mode
> To: <sd-user at contesting.com>
> 
> There's nothing in the code for SD and SDI that will prevent
> you doing this, but there may be hardware/software issues
> depending on your PC and its particular version of Windows.
> 
> Try these steps in sequence.
> 
> 1.  In SD, use the BORDER command to set border to 0.
>     The default is 1, whick looks better in a window.
>     If you don't do this, Win98 is likely to give the
>     "Program must be run in a window" message - later
>     version of Windows will switch to full-screen, but
>     you may lose the end of some lines (with a border of
>     1, the line length is 82 characters rather than 80).
> 
> 2.  You can then toggle between full-screen and window
>     with Alt-Enter (hold down Alt and press Enter/Return)
 
> With any luck, you should now have full-screen and SD will
> look like it used to under DOS.  There may be a few
> differences.
> 
> 1.  The colours may look different - use the COLOUR command
>     until you get a combination that looks OK.  The colours,
>     and especially the background colour, will not be
>     exactly the same as you would have seen in DOS.
> 
> 2.  Your machine may seem to run slowly - this is more
>     likely in full-screen mode (with its 25x80 character grid)
>     than in a Window.
> 
> 3.  The cursor may be less visible, or invisible.
> 
> 4.  The program may run quite happily for a while, and then
>     the PC will freeze.
> 
> You may be lucky, and not notice any of these side-effects.
> I only mention them because I've seen them all at one time or
> another.

Hi Paul, thanks for all the suggestions.  I've tried various approaches but I 
still can't get SD and SDI for Windows to behave themselves under Win98SE 
on my system.  I can make them run in full-screen mode by using the 
BORDER command as you suggest but I then suffer various adverse effects 
such as lockups.  I've tried new video drivers, to no avail.  It looks like my 
hardware (a PCChips M571 mobo with inbuilt graphics based on the SiS 
5598 chipset), WIn98SE and your software aren't wholly compatible with 
each other!
 
> In general, I no longer try to run SD full-screen. I use the
> Fonts option within Properties (after right-clicking the logo
> at the top LHS of SD's window) to select the largest font,
> and the corresponding window, that will fit on my screen.

The monitor (an IBM 8513) on my radio PC only has a 12" screen so I need 
to run full-screen to be able to read the characters without using a magnifier - 
my eyesight ain't what it used to be :-)))

Is there any fundamental reason why I can't run last year's SDI program 
(V10.03 I think) under DOS, using the latest SDIOTA.CTY and IOTA.REF 
files?  Are there any bugs or funnies that are likely to affect my probably very 
limited, and non-serious, participation in the IOTA contest?

--
73, Martin G0HDB