DOS Screen Modes, ANSI.SYS, and Padding

[Raven]

I've not messed with this much, so I need some help.

I tried to locate an ANSI.SYS and ended up borking my system (I can get a boot disk and fix it soon enough).. The reason for this, is that I wanted to try to use the mode command to change screen modes.

Perhaps this is, or is not, necessary to solve my root problem though.

I have a PCI card with composite output (as well as a few others) and I want to use my DOS box with my Commodore monitor (I don't have a Commodore to use it with, lol..). This much works fine, but since the monitor's screen is so rounded, bits of text get cut off. As well, since the display was designed for the larger fonts of the Commodore 64, the text appears blurred.

I want to change screen modes to something with a C64-size or roundabout font, and I'd like to pad the screen. In case I'm not clear what I mean by "pad", it's something the Commodore itself actually did, avoiding this problem (note the border around the screen contents themselves).

You can see it in this picture:

As for the font/screen modes, I know this is possible with some small programs available on the internet, which I am currently unable to locate again.. :/

I know that ANSI.SYS and mode.com can be used to achieve this effect as well, so if anyone has a tutorial on this, and/or download for ANSI.SYS I'd appreciate that.

 

[Ole Juul]

I don't think you can actually do any harm to your systym with ANSI.SYS. You must have done something else. It's just a line in you config.sys and you can put it in or take it out. Nothing else if effected. On a related note, most DOS folks ditch ANSI.SYS for faster smaller and better. Try NANSI.SYS - you'll like it. YMMV.

I take it you're new to DOS since you left out the most important part - what DOS are you using? PTS, DR, IBM? If you're using Microsoft 6.* like many people do here if they're on "newer" machines, then type "HELP MODE" to bring up all the information you need. This, of course, is assuming that you have the help files from the original distribution. If not, typing "MODE /?" brings up a cheat sheet.

Regarding the area of screen usage: that is not a software problem. Try adjusting the monitor scan width and height. If there are no external pots, look inside. It's a standard adjustment.

Good luck!

 

[modem7]

If there are no external pots, look inside.

Only look inside if you are aware of the dangers.

 

[Raven]

The reason that ANSI.SYS borked my system is that I'm using QEMM and it decides to crash the system whenever it doesn't like something in config.sys. I have since repaired it with a boot disk, and loaded NANSI.SYS (which I had looked at before, but decided to not bother with). I then tried to use mode.com, which promptly informed me that ANSI.SYS must be loaded. I figured out a wierd undocumented syntax for mode based on the line "MODE CO80", which I assume just means 80 column, that is you can also do "MODE CO40"... That worked without ANSI.SYS, but rendered things unusable (perhaps if I can get ANSI.SYS up I can find a mode that won't cut off tons of parts of any programs I run)...

I'm running MS-DOS 6.22, though the only reasons I didn't mention this are that it is the most common DOS platform, and I didn't think it was relevant to this issue..

I've opened monitors before and adjusted internal POTS, but I'd rather do a software fix for this since I also use this commodore monitor for other things and they work just fine with it. I don't want to adjust internal POTS whenever I want to change systems..

 

[Ole Juul]

"Mode co80" is the usual way to switch. Also "mode mono" will give you 80 lines of mono. I often run both a mono and a colour screen so I find those commands a quick way to switch between the two. I'm not that familiar with CGA but with colour disabled you should be able to do "bw40" and "bw80" on a CGA as well. I guess you already know, but the choices for number of lines is 25, 43, and 50 even though some monitors might not support 43 and 50.

My comment about the screen adjustment was because in my experience when the scan goes too close to (or beyond) the edge, it has always been due to the hardware. I've got a number of monitors where the adjustment is on the front. Perhaps you have some special situation. I seem to remember coming across a couple of adaptors that effected scan width but I'm not sure. Anyway, what do I know?

I just had a search of some old drives for a program like you described in your first post. No go. I'm sure I've seen something that adds a border. Maybe garbo has something. I'll look again tomorrow.

 

[Ole Juul]

The program I was thinking of is called border. It sets a border to any colour you like but I'm not sure it will have the effect you want on your system. Give it a try and hopefully it's what you were looking for.