80-Bus News

So you have typed in the source, and as usual it has compiled first time (bliss), you link and load it to produce the .COM version, nothing new so far. Now you enter GENGRAF <filename><RET> and the utility will attach the GSX loader to your program. Your graphics program is now ready to run.

When run, the GSX loader gets the first look in as previously mentioned, loads GSX.SYS to create the GDOS interface, loads the assignment table and the first named device driver contained therein. The space now occupied by the device driver is now referred to as the GIOS, which lives just below the BDOS and its workmate the BIOS. Refer to ‘Nuts and bolts’ for more detail. The application program is moved down to 100h and executed.

The first command of any program will be GSX opcode 1 ‘open workstation’. This will inform the GDOS which of the available device drivers is to be used. If it is already in memory, entry one of the GIOS is called. If another driver is specified, it will be loaded into the GIOS area from disk. It can now be seen why the first entry in ASSIGN.SYS must be the name of the biggest driver available to the system, as GSX determines the amount of memory to allocate the GIOS solely from inquiring the size of this first named driver. If a subsequently loaded driver is bigger than the allocated GIOS size confusion will follow.

‘Open workstation’ calls the first entry in to the GIOS, and firstly informs the GIOS of any defaults that the application requires, such as line colour, marker type etc. More importantly though, this function returns to the CDOS information concerning the device that it is currently working with. On exit from open workstation the GDOS will have details contained in it on the exact capabilities of the device. These details include X and Y axis resolution, aspect ratios, no. of colours, available fonts, and more. In fact 57 16 bit values are returned to reflect the device specifications. Not only does the GDOS use this to prepare itself for the following commands, but this information is also available to the calling pogram if it needs it.

So they’re off!! Your much awaited graphics program will now spring into colourful life, and all the lines and circles etc whos coordinates you programmed inside the GSX 32k X 32k virtual frame size now appear on your screen or whatever, which may only be 640 X 288 for example. Whats more your circles are circular, because the GDOS has received information on the aspect ratio of your screen.

In the time taken for your display to plot, the GDOS has intercepted all calls to the BDOS in which the C register contains the value 115, any others it passes on to the BDOS as normal. The control array is interrogated to see if you wanted to open a new workstation, if so another device driver is loaded, if not all coordinates contained in the array PTSIN are scaled to device size and control is passed to the GIOS. So as you can see the job of the GIOS has been simplified as the device has been passed coordinates that it can understand.

If information has to be returned to the calling program, such as in the case of ‘Inquire input locator’, i.e. where is the graphics cursor now, device coordinates are returned to the GDOS and are likewise scaled before control is passed back.