Text mode toys

[Eamonn Sullivan]

On 10/10/05, Grant Edwards <grante at visi.com> wrote:
> On 2005-10-09, John Richard Moser <nigelenki at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > This is just a hypothetical, but what kinds of things can
> > feasibly be done without X?
>
> Anything that doesn't require graphics. I'm assuming by
> "without X" you mean without bitmapped graphics -- otherwise
> you can always run another bit-mapped graphics windowing
> system.
>
> > Most of "Anything" is possible of course but truly to what
> > degree can we take things, just to inspire some thought?
> >
> > Considering that Midnight Commander acts like Norton Total
> > Commander, and that we can do a few other nice things like
> > with MP3Blaster, I'd think that it'd be possible to make a
> > text mode interface similar to the GUI interfaces.
>
> Sure, It's been done.  Back in around '87 or'88, there was a
> text-mode, windowing, multi-tasking DOS extension that was used
> by quite a few people at one place I worked.  I don't remember
> what it was called.

I believe you're thinking of DESQview by Quarterdeck. Gosh, that
brings back memories.

-Eamonn