Re: list of chars to introduce in future c

From	BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c
Subject	Re: list of chars to introduce in future c
Date	2019-02-17 16:02 -0600
Organization	albasani.net
Message-ID	<q4clmi$3fc$1@news.albasani.net> (permalink)
References	(11 earlier) <SbT9E.535245$AD1.195800@fx05.am4> <q49u5c$9r0$1@news.albasani.net> <hL0aE.1224457$3si.1092901@fx08.am4> <q4b0jn$695$1@news.albasani.net> <2TgaE.456098$9F1.69770@fx39.am4>

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On 2/17/2019 11:30 AM, Bart wrote:
> On 17/02/2019 06:56, BGB wrote:
>> On 2/16/2019 5:10 PM, Bart wrote:
> 
>>> You mean text that acts like a large string constant within source code?
>>>
>>
>> Yeah, rather than being like:
>> string str=
>>    "first line\n"
>>    "second line\n"
>>    "third line\n";
>>
>> It is possible to write:
>> string str="""
>> first line
>> second line
>> third line
>> """;
>>
>> If dealing with needing to have random paragraph-sized blobs of text 
>> and similar, this can be pretty useful.
> 
> I use such a feature on a big scale, with sometimes dozens of files with 
> 100s of KB added in to a project (eg. library sources).
> 
> But I can see that being able to directly paste in smaller blocks would 
> also be useful. (So yet another feature to consider.)
> 
> I can see also your point about indentation (from your links): is it 
> possible that the same amount of indent used for the """s can be 
> disregarded for the body of the text? (Although there will be the usual 
> issues with tabs vs spaces.)
> 

I had considered this, but implicit formatting-sensitive parsing is 
something I would prefer to avoid if possible.

Sorta passable in Python (since the whole language basically works this 
way), but is sort-of out-of-place with a C-family syntax.

>> Note that the streamed console would be capable of color-cell graphics 
>> modes. Which are more funky than conventional bitmapped framebuffer 
>> graphics, but require a lot less VRAM (ex: 320x200 in 16K or 32K, or 
>> 640x400 in 64K).
>>
>> Going much lower than this (eg: 4K or 8K) basically limits one to 
>> either reduced-resolution color-cells or drawing "graphics" via 
>> character cells (eg: CP437 or PETSCII or similar).
> 
> (8KB for graphics isn't so bad. The first graphics board I built had 8KB 
> static ram (mapped as 16K 4-bit nibbles), which could display 128x128x4 
> greyscale, or 256x256 mono. Not bad for the time. (The greyscale was 
> used for TV capture, and the mono for 3D graphics, among a bunch of 
> other stuff.)
> > I'm not sure how it would compare now to my HD colour monitor, but it
> was a million times easier to program that 16KB memory-mapped display 
> than doing it via Windows' APIs. Lots of things were.
> 
> Personally, I would stay clear of cell-mapped graphics (ie. defining the 
> character cells of a text display) unless that was the only possibility.)
> 

For a CNC UI, generally it would more need to be 640x400 (or higher), 
with primarily textual contents. Typically, most graphical elements 
would be things like border-lines (around flat colored regions) and 
similar, many of which can also be done via character cells and/or 
attribute flags.

Typically, things like reverse color and blinking text are also useful, ...

Sometimes, it is also useful to display things like wireframe graphics 
(say, if you want to plot out the path taken by a cutting tool).

So, unlike a game, actual graphics are typically a small minority of the UI.

On actual (big commercial style) CNC machines, typically the UI is 
driven via a specialized keyboard interface, frequently with also with 
jog-wheels and similar. These are typically on a control-panel with a 
monitor, typically mounted onto the CNC machine via a swivel-arm.

On the machines I have dealt-with (mostly Haas and Fanuc), the main 
display was either a CRT or LCD, generally with multi-colored text 
(reminiscent of many MS-DOS era applications), but which also included 
some graphical elements and capabilities.

Typically there was no mouse or pointy/clicky, just sort of a funky 
keyboard with a lot of buttons (and usually the keyboard would only 
include a subset of the letters; other letters would require hitting a 
shift-key or similar, *). Also, typically they would beep every time a 
key is hit (sorta like a microwave oven).

*: Imagine, instead of like a PC keyboard, they cram *all* of the 
letters into a 4x4 keypad or similar (so, like half the letters require 
shifting). A lot of the other keys are effectively F-keys, or used for 
various menus or similar (or are big special buttons like "cycle start" 
or an E-stop).

Granted, still slightly less annoying than trying to type on a 
flip-phone (or with the on-screen keyboard on Android).

A lot of the PC-based programs (eg: FlashCUT and Mach and similar) use 
Windows-style GUIs running on a PC (which generally plug into a 
interface box via USB, which in turn controls the various motors).

In my case, I am using a PC as well, but mostly that is because 
otherwise I would need a screen and keyboard for the RasPi (if I do a 
kit, if people want a keyboard and monitor for the RasPi, they will 
probably need to provide this themselves).

The main alternative is basically using a PC, and probably streaming the 
UI from the RasPi (probably via UDP).

However, A full bitmap display would mean something more akin to VNC, 
which is fairly slow and takes a bit more CPU power to stream (VNC into 
a RasPi is pretty laggy and eats a lot of CPU power).

So, a character cell based UI (more like that on a Haas or Fanuc based 
machine) makes a bit of sense for the use-case. One can fit a full 
640x400 graphical display in roughly 64K of VRAM, and most textual 
updates will only need to stream deltas for the part of the framebuffer 
corresponding to the character-cell contents (roughly 8K in my design).

The existing display interface is actually capable of graphics 
(sufficient to display Doom and Quake in 320x200), but this generally 
requires transcoding to color-cell from a bitmapped framebuffer, which I 
don't really want to do for the CNC.

Trying to draw bitmapped-style directly into the color-cell framebuffer 
is a little bit-twiddly though, and at 640x400 is effectively limited to 
monochrome (but with a choice of foreground/background color for the 
various character cells).

Granted, if the host PC has a mouse, I could at least support 
pointy/clicky on some of the on-screen buttons (or using the scroll 
wheel on the mouse as a jog wheel).

Or such...

Thread

list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-13 03:16 -0800
  Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-13 04:56 -0800
    Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-13 05:16 -0800
  Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-13 15:43 +0100
    Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-13 09:55 -0800
      Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-13 11:05 -0800
      Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-13 20:29 +0100
      Re: list of chars to introduce in future c "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> - 2019-02-13 20:33 +0100
        Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-13 12:08 -0800
      Re: list of chars to introduce in future c John Bode <jfbode1029@gmail.com> - 2019-02-13 12:02 -0800
        Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-13 12:16 -0800
          Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-14 09:34 +0100
            Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-14 02:04 -0800
              Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-14 02:08 -0800
              Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-14 11:28 +0100
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-14 02:38 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-14 14:54 +0100
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-14 06:39 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-14 16:26 +0100
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-14 02:49 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-14 02:59 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-14 03:10 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-14 03:34 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-15 05:25 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-02-15 13:54 +0000
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-15 06:07 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-15 06:10 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-15 06:14 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-15 06:18 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-15 06:22 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-02-15 14:24 +0000
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-15 06:32 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-15 06:39 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-02-15 14:47 +0000
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-15 07:32 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-02-15 15:56 +0000
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-15 08:18 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-15 17:10 +0100
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2019-02-14 12:20 -0800
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-14 21:32 +0100
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-14 13:52 -0800
              Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-14 02:31 -0800
    Re: list of chars to introduce in future c BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2019-02-13 12:48 -0600
      Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-14 09:45 +0100
        Re: list of chars to introduce in future c BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2019-02-14 04:06 -0600
          Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-14 11:39 +0100
            Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-02-14 14:34 +0000
              Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-14 16:31 +0100
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2019-02-14 14:39 -0600
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-02-14 23:48 +0000
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-15 09:20 +0100
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-02-15 11:09 +0000
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-15 17:25 +0100
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-02-15 16:46 +0000
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-15 18:05 +0100
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2019-02-17 14:45 -0600
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2019-02-15 10:51 -0800
            Re: list of chars to introduce in future c BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2019-02-14 13:59 -0600
              Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-14 21:36 +0100
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2019-02-15 00:47 -0600
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-15 09:26 +0100
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2019-02-15 14:15 -0600
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-02-16 01:36 +0000
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2019-02-16 01:25 -0600
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-02-16 12:17 +0000
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2019-02-16 15:08 -0600
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-02-16 23:10 +0000
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2019-02-17 00:56 -0600
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-02-17 17:30 +0000
                Re: list of chars to introduce in future c BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2019-02-17 16:02 -0600
          Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2019-02-14 13:49 +0000
    Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2019-02-14 09:08 +0100
      Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-14 09:56 +0100
        Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2019-02-14 11:06 +0100
          Re: list of chars to introduce in future c David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-02-14 15:01 +0100
  Re: list of chars to introduce in future c mark.bluemel@gmail.com - 2019-02-15 05:30 -0800
    Re: list of chars to introduce in future c fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2019-02-15 05:42 -0800
  Re: list of chars to introduce in future c Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2019-02-15 18:19 -0600

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