Re: [Freedos-user] Making fdapm-aware programs

[Eric A. <e....@jp...>]

Hi!

> Is there a way to add code to make old QB45-compiled programs aware of fdapm?

Design-wise, the point is rather behaving in a way that fdapm
will understand, but not explicitly telling things to fdapm...

> A simple INKEY$ sends the computer use from 3%-4% to 100%!

According to the help of PowerBasic (sorry, first search result)
www.powerbasic.com/support/help/pbcc/inkey_function.htm INKEY$
does not do much: It checks whether a key is in the buffer and
then immediately returns, either with or without key. PowerBasic
also allows gathering mouse events that way, which I find exotic.

http://www.qbasicstation.com/index.php?c=t_adv&t=106 sounds quite
similar. I think it is not the INKEY$ which uses 100% CPU but the
fact that you probably do something as fast as possible between
the moments where you check for a key? Unless you actually wanted
to do that, use a call that WAITS for a key and then returns it.

For example you could use INPUT$(1) and wait for exactly one key:
www.qbasicstation.com/index.php?c=t_adv&t=107 Alternatively, you
could explicitly sleep / wait for a short time each time when an
INKEY$ call returned nothing and you (but not fdapm) knows that
you are actually just idle, waiting for some key to be pressed.

That way, FDAPM and others may be able to know that your program
is NOT busy with anything but is just waiting for a keypress and
will be able to put the CPU in idle state. In the case of virtual
machines, "idle CPU" means that the virtual machine will use less
processing time on your real CPU in the host operating system :-)

> there is a newer FreeBASIC, but I can't compile some sources inside FB

Note that FreeBASIC has some command line option to switch
it to a more QuickBasic style syntax, as far as I remember.

Eric