08-13-2023, 07:08 AM
Can't I/O ports be used for this sort of thing?
But there's a big catch. Must use 16-bit compiler like BASCOM or Microsoft BASIC, or a competing product like Power BASIC. QB64's authors only cared about catching manipulations of the EGA "bit planes" and a couple other things. They are emulated because M$ changed everything in WindowsXP 32-bit, threw out the ports system, and also disallowed access to the ancient BIOS and MS-DOS interrupts.
What I figure is, use the I/O port to read the status. If one is extra sure there is data waiting, then use INPUT$(). (shrugs)
I should have studied better what was going on with RS-232 and other stuff with serial and parallel ports way back then.
But there's a big catch. Must use 16-bit compiler like BASCOM or Microsoft BASIC, or a competing product like Power BASIC. QB64's authors only cared about catching manipulations of the EGA "bit planes" and a couple other things. They are emulated because M$ changed everything in WindowsXP 32-bit, threw out the ports system, and also disallowed access to the ancient BIOS and MS-DOS interrupts.
What I figure is, use the I/O port to read the status. If one is extra sure there is data waiting, then use INPUT$(). (shrugs)
I should have studied better what was going on with RS-232 and other stuff with serial and parallel ports way back then.