Re: [mcountd] typo

[Karl-Martin S. <ksk...@cs...>]

On Thu, 20 Jan 2000, Joe Bentley wrote:
> While we're on the subject of upgrades
>    1. it would be helpful to use ncurses. that way
>       there wouldn't be that distracting scroll up
>       every second

Indeed. My only concern is that this will very likely break the ELKS
support, but since I do not have my 8088 machine here, there aren't really
any i86 testing at all. I think I will remove all references to ELKS, this
can be added again later, anyway.

Do you know ncurses?

>    2. also it should use the environment variables
>       'LINES' and 'COLS', if available, to determine
>       the proper size to draw the letters and scale
>       them to fit the screen. I generally use a
>       140x44 window in X which makes the 80x25 look
>       really small

Interesting ideas, but how can the scaling be implemented?

>    3. a more natural specification of time would
>       simplify the invocation. eg '12:34' instead
>       of calling date on the command line

Just need to make a parser. Maybe I can use something from date?

>    4. the ability to end when the timer rolls over.
>       This would make it possible to use it as a
>       count-down timer for a shell script

Simple. I will also add the function to have it display only zeros at
roll-over.

>    5. and a marketing shift. As a 'millenial count
>       down' it had a single purpose which ( depending
>       on your perspective of the y2k vs y2k+1 debate )
>       either passed or will pass in only 300+ days.
>       But it can be billed as the 'count down timer
>       _for_ the millenium'. Which extends its apparent
>       life for another thousand years.

The name is actually kind of stupid... I'll add your comment to the
webpage.

>       For instance, I did not use it for counting down
>       on new year's eve, but I do use it for counting
>       down the time remaining on my ebay auctions.

I had planned to use it at new years eve. I was going to bring my 8088
laptop, which can withstand great impact, but failed to finish the port in
time.


 Karl

-- 
Karl-Martin Skontorp
E-Mail: <ksk...@cs...>
WWW: http://homepages.strath.ac.uk/~aeu99233/