On Vanilla, pause is activated after releasing the "break" key.
On Chocolate, pause is activated when pressing on the "break" key and it will repeat if the key is held.
On a real DOS system, pressing "break" activates pause as soon as the button is pressed, not when releasing it. This was tested with Doom v1.666 though.
Last edit: Alexandre-Xavier 2013-08-24
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When I test bugs I always use DOSBox, because my old PC is stored somewhere it's hard to get. When I say it's tested with Vanilla, it's tested with DOSBox. When you asked if it was the case with a real DOS machine, I brought out my old PC to test it.
You also said you can't reproduce it in DOSBox. I guess you used it on Linux. DOSBox may not emulate the pause key the same way on every OS, so that may be why we get all these different results. I always use it on Windows.
The most accurate behavior is the one I got on the real DOS system. Pressing break activates (or deactivate) pause as soon as the button is pressed. I can confirm it occurs with v1.9.
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Is this the case on real DOS systems? I can't reproduce it in DOSbox.
On a real DOS system, pressing "break" activates pause as soon as the button is pressed, not when releasing it. This was tested with Doom v1.666 though.
Last edit: Alexandre-Xavier 2013-08-24
Your latest comment contradicts the original bug report. I'm confused.
When I test bugs I always use DOSBox, because my old PC is stored somewhere it's hard to get. When I say it's tested with Vanilla, it's tested with DOSBox. When you asked if it was the case with a real DOS machine, I brought out my old PC to test it.
You also said you can't reproduce it in DOSBox. I guess you used it on Linux. DOSBox may not emulate the pause key the same way on every OS, so that may be why we get all these different results. I always use it on Windows.
The most accurate behavior is the one I got on the real DOS system. Pressing break activates (or deactivate) pause as soon as the button is pressed. I can confirm it occurs with v1.9.
SDL's behavior with the pause key is unfortunately system-specific.