[patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[Leon Breedt]

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Hi,

Attached is a patch to enforce a non-blinking, FreeBSD-syscons like
block cursor in console mode.

This is useful for laptop types, or people like me who really really
detest a blinking cursor.

NOTE: It disables the softcursor escape codes 
      (/usr/src/linux/Documentation/VGA-softcursor.txt), since I don't 
      ever want anything to change my cursor shape/style :)

It applies cleanly against 2.4.5, to use, select: 

'VGA block cursor (non-blinking) support' in the 'Console drivers'
section of menuconfig.

Have fun,

Leon.

-- 
lj breedt
coder

[-- Attachment #2: noblink-2.4.5.diff --]
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diff -uNr linux-2.4.5/arch/i386/config.in linux-2.4.5.nonblink/arch/i386/config.in
--- linux-2.4.5/arch/i386/config.in	Fri May 25 00:14:08 2001
+++ linux-2.4.5.nonblink/arch/i386/config.in	Fri Jun 15 16:03:32 2001
@@ -356,6 +356,9 @@
    mainmenu_option next_comment
    comment 'Console drivers'
    bool 'VGA text console' CONFIG_VGA_CONSOLE
+   if [ "$CONFIG_VGA_CONSOLE" = "y" ]; then
+      bool 'VGA block cursor (non-blinking) support' CONFIG_NON_BLINK_CURSOR
+   fi
    bool 'Video mode selection support' CONFIG_VIDEO_SELECT
    if [ "$CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL" = "y" ]; then
       tristate 'MDA text console (dual-headed) (EXPERIMENTAL)' CONFIG_MDA_CONSOLE
diff -uNr linux-2.4.5/drivers/char/console.c linux-2.4.5.nonblink/drivers/char/console.c
--- linux-2.4.5/drivers/char/console.c	Fri Feb  9 21:30:22 2001
+++ linux-2.4.5.nonblink/drivers/char/console.c	Fri Jun 15 15:47:58 2001
@@ -124,6 +124,11 @@
 #define DEFAULT_BELL_PITCH	750
 #define DEFAULT_BELL_DURATION	(HZ/8)
 
+/* 
+ * cursor_type value for non-blinking white block cursor
+ */
+#define CUR_NONBLINK 16748305
+
 extern void vcs_make_devfs (unsigned int index, int unregister);
 
 #ifndef MIN
@@ -1403,7 +1408,12 @@
 	kbd_table[currcons].ledflagstate = kbd_table[currcons].default_ledflagstate;
 	set_leds();
 
+#ifdef CONFIG_NON_BLINK_CURSOR
+	cursor_type = CUR_NONBLINK;
+#else
 	cursor_type = CUR_DEFAULT;
+#endif
+
 	complement_mask = s_complement_mask;
 
 	default_attr(currcons);
@@ -1595,6 +1605,7 @@
 			set_mode(currcons,0);
 			return;
 		case 'c':
+#ifndef CONFIG_NON_BLINK_CURSOR
 			if (ques) {
 				if (par[0])
 					cursor_type = par[0] | (par[1]<<8) | (par[2]<<16);
@@ -1602,6 +1613,7 @@
 					cursor_type = CUR_DEFAULT;
 				return;
 			}
+#endif
 			break;
 		case 'm':
 			if (ques) {
@@ -2445,6 +2457,9 @@
 	save_screen(currcons);
 	gotoxy(currcons,x,y);
 	csi_J(currcons, 0);
+#ifdef CONFIG_NON_BLINK_CURSOR
+	cursor_type = CUR_NONBLINK;
+#endif
 	update_screen(fg_console);
 	printk("Console: %s %s %dx%d",
 		can_do_color ? "colour" : "mono",

Re: [patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[Albert D. Cahalan]

Leon Breedt writes:

> Attached is a patch to enforce a non-blinking, FreeBSD-syscons like
> block cursor in console mode.
> 
> This is useful for laptop types, or people like me who really really
> detest a blinking cursor.
> 
> NOTE: It disables the softcursor escape codes 
>       (/usr/src/linux/Documentation/VGA-softcursor.txt), since I don't 
>       ever want anything to change my cursor shape/style :)

I've seen this 666 times too often.

Non-blinking cursors are just wrong. You need to patch your brain.
You really fucked up, because now apps can't restore your cursor
to proper behavior as defined by IBM.

The blinking cursor is implemented in your video hardware.
IBM knew what was right for you. Millions of people know that
the blinking cursor is good. It is so right that a proper GUI
will implement the blinking cursor even without hardware support.

Of course FreeBSD has a block cursor. It was easy to program,
and it seems nice to the pot-smoking hippies out in Berkeley.
FreeBSD doesn't define standards. FreeBSD breaks standards.
(zombie creation, "ps -ef", partition tables, pty allocation...)
Gee, kind of like Microsoft, except Microsoft got the cursor right!

Ever wonder why IBM supports Linux instead of FreeBSD? Hmmm?

Re: [patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[Daniel Phillips]

On Friday 15 June 2001 21:21, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
> Non-blinking cursors are just wrong. You need to patch your brain.
> You really fucked up, because now apps can't restore your cursor
> to proper behavior as defined by IBM.

Just one question Albert: why doesn't my mouse cursor blink? ;-)

--
Daniel

Re: [patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[Albert D. Cahalan]

Daniel Phillips writes:
> On Friday 15 June 2001 21:21, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:

>> Non-blinking cursors are just wrong. You need to patch your brain.
>> You really fucked up, because now apps can't restore your cursor
>> to proper behavior as defined by IBM.
>
> Just one question Albert: why doesn't my mouse cursor blink? ;-)

1. confusion with the text cursor, which should blink
2. need for continuous pixel-to-pixel accuracy with the mouse
3. you can wiggle your mouse as needed to find the mouse cursor

Apps do funny things when you try to wiggle the text cursor
with the arrow keys, and movement tends to be harshly constrained.
So the blinking is important.

Re: [patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[Daniel Phillips]

On Friday 15 June 2001 21:38, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
> Daniel Phillips writes:
> > On Friday 15 June 2001 21:21, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
> >> Non-blinking cursors are just wrong. You need to patch your brain.
> >> You really fucked up, because now apps can't restore your cursor
> >> to proper behavior as defined by IBM.
> >
> > Just one question Albert: why doesn't my mouse cursor blink? ;-)
>
> 1. confusion with the text cursor, which should blink
> 2. need for continuous pixel-to-pixel accuracy with the mouse
> 3. you can wiggle your mouse as needed to find the mouse cursor

4. It would be bloody annoying.

Some people find the blinking text cursor equally annoying, you appear to be 
trying to dictate what their options should be.

> Apps do funny things when you try to wiggle the text cursor
> with the arrow keys, and movement tends to be harshly constrained.
> So the blinking is important.

Ask the original poster if he's willing to take the risk of going with an xor 
cursor.  We are talking text mode, right?  No way to get rid of that blinking 
text cursor, ever.  Tell me, do you like having the colon blink on your alarm 
clock too?  Personally, I opened the thing up and put a piece of tape over it.

As I recall, one of the popular projects when the IBM PC first came out was 
trying to get the cursor to stop blinking.  No luck, IBM had hardwired in a
special trace to make sure you couldn't.  You could or two blink patterns 
together, but never get it to stop.  Since we are now in a position to 
dictate, why don't we continue that grand tradition.

IBM had lots of ideas about how computers should work.  Remember the keyboard 
keys that when CLACK CLACK CLACK.  Thank god they turned out to be too 
expensive to clone - nobody misses them now.

When people ask for such options it's not because they want to make *your* 
cursor stop blinking, it's because they want *theirs* to stop.

--
Daniel

Re: [patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[Josh Myer]

On Sat, 16 Jun 2001, Daniel Phillips wrote:

> Ask the original poster if he's willing to take the risk of going with an xor 
> cursor.  We are talking text mode, right?  No way to get rid of that blinking 
> text cursor, ever.  Tell me, do you like having the colon blink on your alarm 
> clock too?  Personally, I opened the thing up and put a piece of tape over it.
> 

Aha! A software weenie! A real hardware hacker would have snipped and
soldered it to VCC to get a constant (or add a switch for solid/blink =).


In any case, this strikes me as a matter of policy. I don't care one way
or the other, but if people want a solid cursor, it's not something that 
we can really deny them that (unless it's a binary-only driver for the
cursor, of course).

Anyway, this is a silly discusson in general, i figured i would throw in
my $0.02 (strong US cents!)

> IBM had lots of ideas about how computers should work.  Remember the keyboard 
> keys that when CLACK CLACK CLACK.  Thank god they turned out to be too 
> expensive to clone - nobody misses them now.
> 

  *CLACK CLACK CLACK* 
(posted with a Model M)
--
/jbm, but you can call me Josh. Really, you can.
 "When lasers are outlawed, only outlaws will have lasers"
  -- from http://www.altair.org/CO2laser.htm

Re: [patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[Daniel Phillips]

On Saturday 16 June 2001 02:03, Josh Myer wrote:
> Anyway, this is a silly discusson in general, i figured i would throw in
> my $0.02 (strong US cents!)

It's a slow news day ;-)
--
Daniel

Re: [patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[Erik Mouw]

On Sat, Jun 16, 2001 at 01:44:40AM +0200, Daniel Phillips wrote:
> IBM had lots of ideas about how computers should work.  Remember the keyboard 
> keys that when CLACK CLACK CLACK.  Thank god they turned out to be too 
> expensive to clone - nobody misses them now.

I actually like that kind of keyboards, they're extremely reliable and
are great to use.

Anyway, my point is that keyboards are a matter of taste, just like
blinking or non-blinking cursors are.


Erik

-- 
J.A.K. (Erik) Mouw, Information and Communication Theory Group, Department
of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Information Technology and Systems,
Delft University of Technology, PO BOX 5031,  2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-15-2783635  Fax: +31-15-2781843  Email: J.A.K.Mouw@its.tudelft.nl
WWW: http://www-ict.its.tudelft.nl/~erik/

Re: [patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[Leon Breedt]

On Fri, Jun 15, 2001 at 03:21:54PM -0400, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:

> Non-blinking cursors are just wrong. You need to patch your brain.
> You really fucked up, because now apps can't restore your cursor
> to proper behavior as defined by IBM.
I don't want them to, because I prefer non-blinking. It feels more
solid, kind of like driving a tank instead of a little dune buggy ;)

> The blinking cursor is implemented in your video hardware.
> IBM knew what was right for you. 
Uh, said hardware lets you disable the blinking. Maybe in a slightly
non-standard way, who cares?

> Of course FreeBSD has a block cursor. It was easy to program,
> and it seems nice to the pot-smoking hippies out in Berkeley.
> FreeBSD doesn't define standards. FreeBSD breaks standards.
> (zombie creation, "ps -ef", partition tables, pty allocation...)
It's all about choice, man. I want the choice to have certain
behaviour if I wish.

-- 
lj breedt
coder

Re: [patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[Mike Galbraith]

On Fri, 15 Jun 2001, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:

> Of course FreeBSD has a block cursor. It was easy to program,
> and it seems nice to the pot-smoking hippies out in Berkeley.
> FreeBSD doesn't define standards. FreeBSD breaks standards.
> (zombie creation, "ps -ef", partition tables, pty allocation...)
> Gee, kind of like Microsoft, except Microsoft got the cursor right!
>
> Ever wonder why IBM supports Linux instead of FreeBSD? Hmmm?

I bet it has more to do with growth curves than cursor style :)

	-Mike

Re: [patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[John R Lenton]

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On Sat, Jun 16, 2001 at 05:52:39AM +0200, Mike Galbraith wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Jun 2001, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
> > Ever wonder why IBM supports Linux instead of FreeBSD? Hmmm?
> 
> I bet it has more to do with growth curves than cursor style :)

don't kid yourself. cursor style is the #1 reason for OS adoption
in the US.

-- 
John Lenton (john@grulic.org.ar) -- Random fortune:
24 horas num dia, 24 cervejas numa caixa. Coincidência?

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Re: [patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> Attached is a patch to enforce a non-blinking, FreeBSD-syscons like
> block cursor in console mode.
> 
> This is useful for laptop types, or people like me who really really
> detest a blinking cursor.
> 
> NOTE: It disables the softcursor escape codes 
>       (/usr/src/linux/Documentation/VGA-softcursor.txt), since I don't 
>       ever want anything to change my cursor shape/style :)
> 
> It applies cleanly against 2.4.5, to use, select: 
> 
> 'VGA block cursor (non-blinking) support' in the 'Console drivers'
> section of menuconfig.

You want softcursor to be used after console reset. Ok. I want
non-standard pallete after console reset. Should I also add an option?

What could make sense would be "Escape sequence to do after console
reset". You could type there softcursor sequence to make it solid, and
I could type there sequence to change my pallete. Seems less ugly than 
special config option for each such feature.
								Pavel
-- 
I'm pavel@ucw.cz. "In my country we have almost anarchy and I don't care."
Panos Katsaloulis describing me w.r.t. patents at discuss@linmodems.org

Re: [patch] nonblinking VGA block cursor

[Petr Vandrovec]

On 15 Jun 01 at 21:34, Daniel Phillips wrote:
> On Friday 15 June 2001 21:21, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
> > Non-blinking cursors are just wrong. You need to patch your brain.
> > You really fucked up, because now apps can't restore your cursor
> > to proper behavior as defined by IBM.
> 
> Just one question Albert: why doesn't my mouse cursor blink? ;-)

Because of you can move mouse cursor - moving mouse usually does not
have serious side effect. Normal cursor cannot be moved without
sideeffects, so you cannot find it so easy.

If you want, just plug matrox into your laptop and use matroxfb. It
restarts cursor blinking cycle on each character printed to screen,
so while you are typing, you still see cursor, but if you stop typing,
cursor starts blinking...

Just my 0.02Kc.
                                        Best regards,
                                                Petr Vandrovec
                                                vandrove@vc.cvut.cz

[matroxfb has also noblink option because HPA wanted it. But it is
another story]