How I got Mario in That Editor - And how Norton Got 🐁

[@acdarc]

"Twelvety-eight thousand" sums up Bisqwit's coding. If it's more efficient and quicker to say or do, then use it.

[@MikeDawson1]

I had to rewind because I thought I was going crazy

[@sunday87]

@@MikeDawson1 Yeah same :-D

[@kingreinhold9905]

1:29 😂

[@bengt-goranpersson5125]

Also - 9:43

[@Potts1966]

I had to rewind too, what a brilliant way to say 128,000.

[@Kawa-oneechan]

I too put considerable effort in revealing the Norton UI font, so it's heartening to see someone else manage it.

[@Bisqwit]

How did you do it? If I may ask.

[@aidenator00]

@@Bisqwit I'm assuming Norton hid their font UI to prevent copy cats? I'd like to hear how both of you accomplished it!

[@Bisqwit]

@@aidenator00 I think "preventing copy cats" was infinitesimally low on their list of priorities. It was just a matter of not providing a glitchy experience to users.

[@Kawa-oneechan]

@@Bisqwit SideKick 2.0 was the key, letting me switch to a character table *while* running Norton Desktop.

[@Bisqwit]

@Kawa Thank you for replying eventually! I did this in dosbox-debug, which lets me edit the graphics memory while the program is running.

[@evildojo666]

I've missed your content bro, you're a constant inspiration!

[@TDOLLA]

man, this really gets my inner child excited. I spent so much time in DOS and Qbasic and wanted so badly to just make my terminal and text editors look cool, I preferred DOS to Windows. This channel is basically what I dreamed about back then, just amazing

[@paolotestoni4250]

Same ❤️

[@antonnym214]

Kiitos tästä erittäin mukavasta mielenosoituksesta ja onnea suomalaisille uudelle vuodelle.

[@Bisqwit]

Mielenosoitus = protest (as in, a rally full with picket signs, megaphones and speeches; literal meaning is evince one’s opinion). Doubtful you meant that.

[@fabioazevedo2048]

10:52 - "But naturally, I anticipated them anticipating my trick..." - Amazing! I would love to go to the same lectures as you at university only to see some more tricks anticipated! I wish you all the best learning (or teaching) experiences there!

[@Bisqwit]

It was a reference to the Curse of Fatal Death. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qqHCd6prpKmAl9E EDIT: updated link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eqCQqHeGpKhpfa8m10s

[@gonzalochervet8127]

I just read your comment when he was saying that while scrolling the comments down lol

[@Ikkepop]

I know the why and how, but still fun to listen to you talk about it XD it just fans the flames of my nostalgia I miss your videos man...

[@Bisqwit]

I am glad to hear that!

[@Baegus]

Now that was fascinating! I sorta knew how text mode works, but I had no idea about the cursor trickery or the fact that Scream Tracker runs in text mode.

[@djpeterson7479]

"note: 1 + 1 = 2" Thanks, Bisqwit. The math was starting to throw me ;) Also, great to see you posting videos again! I love your content!

[@robin_be]

Great piece of history and explanation, thank you. Wishing you success in your studies!

[@marsereverlyn]

Bisqwit is back. 😭 What a great way to end the year.

[@ericzhill]

If I remember correctly, when you set a password on one of the Norton tools, it modifies its own exe towards the end with a substitution cipher and prompts for a password when started. I clearly remember decoding that cipher to figure out the substitution table. When you didn't have a password set, the actual bytes corresponded to NOPASSWORDISSET!. The maximum length of the password was exactly 15, so you couldn't get that last exclamation mark in there by just typing a password.

[@AT-zr9tv]

So happy you're back! We've missed you. I hope you are well man.

[@cyberkexx]

CGA too has that register bit that allows to choose between 16 background colors and blinking. Actually, it is set to be 16 colors by default, and it is MS-DOS that toggles it to blinking.

[@maxmuster7003]

mov ax,1003 ; vga? mov bx,1 ; = 1 blink if bit 7 attribut byte is set with 8 background colors or = 0 for intensity for 16 background colors int 10

[@Waccoon]

I have to admit the text-based cursor is pretty clever, though the "feel" of almost all cursors in text mode back then was pretty terrible. I'm designing an 8-bit computer, and I just decided to add two sprites -- one for the mouse cursor and one for the text caret. As long as the sprites are simple enough, the extra hardware isn't a big deal. I'll consider reserving some characters for use with the text-based desktop UI.

[@Bisqwit]

Out of curiosity, what are you designing a 8-bit computer for?

[@Waccoon]

@@Bisqwit It's just a hobby retro machine, designed to run with 64K DRAMs from the 80's. I'm new to system design, so it's probably not that good, but it's a nice learning experience. It all started with my fascination with the differences between RISC and CISC, and my frustration with the 64K memory limit of the Z80 I was originally using. So, I decided to make my own hybrid CPU with a linear address space that can do computes on loads, but cannot modify memory in-place like most CISC processors can. That makes it about as powerful as a 68000, but costs about the same as a Z80/6809. My ISA and CPU simulator aren't finished yet, so the rest of the machine is a bit up in the air. www.ninechime.com/cougar/

[@Bisqwit]

Thank you for your answer. I wish you luck and more fun with your project!

[@SpaceyCortex]

Good seeing and hearing from you again.

[@x86VileR]

EGA/VGA can be set up to have two fonts active simultaneously- in this mode attribute bit 3 doubles as "character select". So Norton didn't really have to sacrifice characters from the main font. My own editor 'Fontraption' exploits this to let you edit every character without disrupting the UI (sources are available). And BTW, technically CGA and MDA both came first, since they were both available at the PC's launch. :) Happy new year!

[@Bisqwit]

Yes, you can do that at the cost of losing high-intensity colors - which I think they didn’t want to do, as they used bright white everywhere in their UI. They didn’t also want to use high-intensity everywhere, because then black text wouldn’t work. Thanks for commenting and happy new year!

[@paulwratt]

.. and remembering most people could not afford the CGA at its launch, that loss of an intensity bit (eventually) would have decimated the mono software market too ;)

[@techgeeknzl]

Since they were using EGA/VGA text mode anyway, they could have used a carefully-selected 8-colour custom palette; or perhaps even deliberately avoided disabling high-intensity; or maybe even a combination of both. With sufficient effort, Norton's UI could have befuddled even the best geeks.

[@Bisqwit]

Maybe. But they didn’t have three centuries worth of geekdom to obsess over the implementation details; they had a product that had to be put to market.

[@PlayAccordion]

Never knew they would need to do so much work to even show the mouse cursor over text. Awesome video! Thank You!

[@patrickbateman455]

The legend is back.

[@xyzzy3000]

Very nice.

[@arttumarttinen5408]

There are always a pleasure to watch! It's intriguing to see how these old systems worked, even if such workarounds aren't needed anymore there's value in learning about them.

[@HaKazzaz]

Great explanation on something I just took for granted Good luck with your studies, hope to see more awesome content

[@EasyBCLS]

I know nothing of computers or coding, I just like watching and listening to smart people

[@li86197]

it's actually quite impressive what some old software did accomplish with such limited resources. the efficiency was not an additional good, but a need. nice video as always, keep up the good work and good luck in your studies!

[@kech-agmaio8620]

Bisqwits the only KZbin with over 100k subs that I know to read and either like or respond to almost every single comment! So awesome

[@XDjUanZInHO]

Very glad you got into university, wish you a nice course bro, your videos are amazing and we missed their simplicity on the exposure and reading

[@paolotestoni4250]

Oh my, thank you so much. I was wondering how the hell that was possibile (I mean the smooth mouse moving in text mode) since mid 90's. I had a suspect how the trick was done but I was not sure I was right until now. 12 years old me is very happy now. Thank you muchly!!! ❤️

[@gldev8191]

your videos never fail to inspire bisqwit, never stop creating content!

[@CutieFakeKirby]

I like how he said "person" to avoid copyright claims xD, also this video is pretty informative, might use it sometime! And I think they made Norton systeminfo look like this to make it similar to windows 3.11

[@chimebirdplayer3327]

You know things about PCs and DOS that I wish I had learned when I was a student at NYIT. I had no idea you could change the font that's used in text mode; it gives me the idea for some projects that I wish I had time to try myself. Oh, and thanks for introducing me to Kdenlive.

[@Bisqwit]

Thank you for writing. Yeah, there is so much I also wish that I knew back in the day. A chance to sort of redeem or relive my past is one of the reasons I am doing these videos, too.

[@VytenisNarusis]

Great video! Never knew about the trick, it's really interesting to see the ingenuity of programmers at play like this. Best of luck with your studies!

[@StuartTaylorEsquire]

First time KZbin's algorithm suggested something I actually want to watch and I was not disappointed. A great way to start 2022, thank you. Subscribed.

[@Bisqwit]

Thank you, and a have a nice new year!

[@juliushowlett7247]

The content of your videos is so amazing - I'm floored by your ingenuity in getting the mouse to work. Good luck with your studies.

[@Bisqwit]

Thanks, although you maybe misunderstood something because Norton tools are made by Symantec, not by me. The mouse cursor thing was specific to Norton tools.

[@juliushowlett4916]

@@Bisqwit Ah, I re-watched in non-2x-time and now I see it's a Norton thing. Yeash, I need to slow it down! Always a joy to go through the comments on these vids too... your channel attracts a sophisticated audience!

[@hell7sing]

Missed your content! This is pretty cool information! I’m always impressed with the detail that you go through and your presentation of information is very clear! Awesome job!

[@PJBoyYT]

Lots of love Bisqwit, you're a great p e r s o n

[@wolfattackx]

I just love your videos. Good luck with your studies.

[@Bisqwit]

Thank you!

[@Mautar55]

Ooooh boy! How good is to see you again.

[@dingolovethrob]

Absolutely superb work as ALWAYS sir. Have a fantastic 2022. Make sure you maintain a good mix of work and play at your university, - can't work all the time, your mind needs rest too. You're an inspiration.

[@razeezar]

A few months ago, I went to open up QB for the first time in many years. As I recall, it was actually with the purpose to follow along with one of your videos in which you prototyped some 3D rotation in QB. Good fun! Of course, the cursor in QB (Same as ms-dos's text editor etc.) doesn't apply this same trick to for the mouse cursor - Instead, providing a somewhat 'quantized' experience, that constrains the cursor to specific character positions. In any case, I was expecting that going back to this IDE would be like putting on an old pair of jeans. Mostly it was, however I was surprised at how tricky it felt to use the mouse. Back in the day, it used to feel so comfy and intuitive!

[@GLAKJack]

Glad to see you posting again!

[@ahmetcanaksu6821]

I been always fan of terminal gui's. I loved the magic behind the cursor

[@GiveAcademy]

I can 100% relate to university and life eating up all the time! i will finally be finished in may of 2022.. I love your content and will be a member forever! :) I always look forward to new content and I am always rewatching older videos to see what else I can learn! :) Thank you!

[@Bisqwit]

Thank you for your heartfelt comment (and your support)! Now, I could adjust my schedule and avail more free time to myself, but reasons explained in other comments are why I am speedrunning through it.

[@GiveAcademy]

@@Bisqwit For sure... there are always potential sacrifices.. however.. priorities are important for the long game. :)

[@ConfuSomu]

Thank you for this video! This was very interesting to learn. Good luck in your studies!

[@mousefad3673]

Happy New Year Bisquit. Your videos are brilliant!

[@abeard1]

I find videos like this super relaxing. Please keep going!

[@JuusoAlasuutari]

Happy to hear you're studying! Of course that sort of thing takes priority over youtube. Toivottavasti kaikki sujuu hyvin, pidä kivaa siellä.

[@pdrg]

Super video, I love learning cool new stuff about things I never imagined I would ever be able to understand at the time!

[@vuufke4327]

this guy goes to uni?? it's uni that needs to go to him

[@aliets]

I cannot believe he actually did it. I've been waiting for this specific video for so long... THANK YOU BISQWIT

[@victorgabr]

I have Missed you, bro! love your videos... It points to what I dreamed to achieve while learning "Turbo Pascal" on MSDOS, such nostalgia.

[@blastpipezj6937]

I'm fascinated by all the clever tricks developers used back in ye olden days. They had such limited resources but could still do so much cool stuff.

[@MrBrax]

Very clever trick! Interesting how it's fast enough for a full refresh rate.

[@gurbanliye]

Happy New Year, and Welcome back. We have missed you.

[@EximiusDux]

It's nice to see a new video by Bisqwit. The videos have such a unique style to them.

[@neon-rust]

Awesome walkthrough! Even though I mostly knew how it was done since early home computers also use the same "trick" for graphics, e.g. C64 etc. Good lock with your studies!

[@Bisqwit]

Thank you for watching and commenting even if the information was nothing new to you!

[@neon-rust]

@@Bisqwit Always! One has to support one's favourite creators ;) (especially now when the video frequency has decreased)

[@unforgettable31]

When Bisqwit releasing a video is bigger hype than New Year’s eve. 😀

[@xSIXAX]

I saw your comment on the heated blanked cat Video and instantly saw that you uploaded a Video. This is quite funny

[@MissNorington]

One of the most difficult, yet, most widespread VGA text mode hack is the splash screen for Windows 95. To be able to utilize multiple tricks at the same time, Interrupt timer (interrupt 8 for priority over even Windows 95 VxD drivers!), text mode scrolling emulation, faking bios services saying it is text mode when it is graphics mode, ModeX 320x400 upper page to not erase text mode memory, and the biggest hack: To not allow text to show up in VGA graphics mode (the info about that one is unknown to most). All those things, and still, it worked on every 90s PC!

[@Bisqwit]

I didn’t know it has that many hacks. I knew that it used the 320x400 tweaked Mode-X, but do you have a source on those other aspects? I am interested.

[@MissNorington]

@@Bisqwit The main reason the logo is using 320x400 is because 400 scan lines is the same as VGA text mode (720x400) and that allows many monitors to not blank the screen while switching back to text mode for code page setup (or when pressing Esc at any time). The setup of 320x400 is optimized for code size (using mode 13h|80h to not clear video memory to remember the text at B800h). The visible graphics page is set to A000h:8000h so that most of the text (obviously page 0 and a few more) are not overwritten, and that the logo can be restored again when win.com is executed (using a check sum to see if video memory was altered). During this setup, a few of the VGA/EGA registers are altered to not allow any drawing (I don't know, this stuff is not even in Michael Abrash's book), which is probably why the text is not being drawn/scrolled. All animation is done with palette animation during interrupt 8h and is even waiting for the bus (being very compatible with most compatible hardware). Seriously, I have too much info on everything related to this, and source code as well. If you are interested, I'll find a way to talk to you. Another thing is the blue screen in Windows 9X which is text mode, but under a few buggy conditions can have a fully working graphics mouse cursor! It is the only time I have seen the blinking text mode cursor and a graphics mouse cursor at the same time, overlapping (in VGA mode 3h, and it is and should be completely impossible).

[@SianaGearz]

I don't understand, but now I need to know!

[@Bisqwit]

For the record, I am still waiting for this more information.

[@MissNorington]

@@Bisqwit I was able to provide a lot of the information said in doslogo's 16 million color boot screen video, where we tried to get the same functionality but using VESA VBE instead of VGA (which required some crazy hacking of video memory). Hopefully you can search and find it easily. After all, VESA is very limited, and not the same on every hardware, compared to VGA's programmable registers, so text mode is really dealt with differently on different hardware outside the VGA

[@TTPF_]

Happy new year Bisqwit! And I wish you a great luck for the university! :)

[@samieb4712]

I am so happy there's another Bisqwit video

[@maxmuster7003]

CGA 0-3 character blocks VGA 0-7 character blocks We can use 2 character set at once. Example: We can set some user character with int 1100 to block 0 (default character set) and we can set some other character to block 1 to the same ASCII number. And then we can make the character of block 1 visible with int 10 ax=1103 bl=84 + with using color attribut bit 3 of the text screen with the character. If bit 3 is set the character of block 1 is visible and if bit 3 is not set block 0 is visible, but with the limit of 8 foreground colors.

[@therealchonk]

Great to see you again.

[@ilmarinen79]

Great to see another video from you, always so unique and fascinating. Have a happy new year and good luck with the university speed run challenge!

[@kekz0r]

Thank you for your video! It's so informative and sweet to watch.

[@grproteus]

What an awesome video, thank you for taking the time to make it!

[@starc0w]

That was awesome! ☺Thx Bisqwit and a happy new year!💫

[@LogicEu]

Mr Bisqwit, thank you for an amazingly inspiring video.

[@FoxBlocksHere]

What an interesting video! I loved how professional the presentation was, too! It sucks that you have to censor Mario's name, though. If only Nintendo weren't so bad. Also, thanks so much for contributing something to the Kdenlive project (in this case, I'm referring to your CRT filter)! I use Kdenlive myself, and sometimes it can be tough to use due to being a small open-source project, years behind in development compared to the commercial editors out there. It helps to know there are still people out there helping it improve!

[@Bisqwit]

Thanks, but the CRT filter was not made as a part of the kdenlive project. I postprocessed the video offline, and added the modified video as a clip to kdenlive. (Though technically, I could also do it in the way you suggest, if I spent time researching how to do that. Since it works on single frames at a time, there’s no reason why it couldn’t do that.)

[@FoxBlocksHere]

@@Bisqwit Oh, sorry for misunderstanding.

[@shaunclarke94]

That was fascinating. I'd always wondered this back in the day. Great video.

[@pheonixmusic664]

the editing and the humor, it send me off haha, great job bisqwit

[@jussila3]

Ei minkään maan käryä näistä mutta videoita on mukava seurata! Kiitos!

[@Bisqwit]

Kiitos itsellesi.

[@user-rv5mp4jm6p]

I just found your channel today ... your content is absolutely amazing!!!! Thank you!

[@kartik4792]

Mind-blowing!! Idea of animated fonts is really cool. Would try to implement them for my editor.

[@alexwolski3344]

A new video!!! I love tricks like these. Keep it up!

[@tecsmith_info]

Happy new year @Bisqwit - it's great to see you posting again, and best of luck in your studies!

[@woahhhhhh9571]

babe wake up new bisqwit upload

[@bar10dr]

You are awesome. Hope you have a great 2022.

[@DenisSoiMi]

Nice to hear you again. Happy new year!

[@LangleyNA]

"Person" sounds like censorship. Like that USSR leader that was painted out of a photograph. "Person." Er'body loves you, Bisqwit. Happy festivites, best wishes in 2022! Life is strange!

[@CurrentlyObsessively]

The idea of you taking Introduction to Programming makes me laugh. I am 100% certain you could teach every programming course at my college without a book.

[@nokkreload]

New video!!! Nice gift new year! Happy new year Bisqwit!!

[@ArnaudMEURET]

Love your new intro anim too!

[@Elias07070]

Good video as always Bisqwit!!!

[@VanosTurbo]

Yes you are back! Awesome explanation!

[@DevDungeon]

Amazing information and well explained!

[@koviniskaciukas]

Very good stuff. Such a short video but I bet it took enormous amount of time to produce.

[@travelthetropics6190]

Great video! I was playing around with pure DOS even with my RTX GPU, VGA mode works perfectly. But had some issues with other old modes. It got 12000 time more memory than my first VGA card. lol

[@donCreat0r]

6:34 in fact you may have 512 symbols at the same time if you limit to 8 background colors and your graphics adapter will use that freed bit to choose between one of two loaded fonts. Supported by any VGA, AFAIK.

[@Bisqwit]

Indeed. However, Symantec wanted to have both black (not high-intensity) and bright blue (yes, high-intensity) as well as bright white on the screen at the same time, so this option was out of the window. It is also out of window for my editor which does syntax highlighting and likewise uses a number of colors, both bright and not-bright.

[@donCreat0r]

@@Bisqwit oh. you're right. it's 8 text (foreground) color limitation, not background. it was soooo long time ago I've played with the text mode in DOS :)

[@piratesephiroth]

wth bisquik, youtube never stops recommending me this even though I already watched it

[@Bisqwit]

It sometimes happens to me too, with various videos.

[@PASTRAMIKick]

It's not Mario guys, it's Grand Dad

[@sneakyshadoo22]

This is too old to be Grand Dad; this is Great Dad! AKA: Fortran kzbin.info/www/bejne/m3qldoJpidd0ec0

[@MikkoOnBass]

New Bisqwit video? Why tf wasn't I notified?! That bell button is getting slapped immediately.

[@AlbiaSoft]

Thank you for this interesting video! We really appreciate your time and dedication to share your knowledge. Thank you Joel! 👍👍👍

[@sajjadjawadkadhim303]

nice to see you back bro

[@jockey101]

Thank you bisqwit

[@NightpireVideos]

I always learn something new when watching your videos, they are inspiring.

[@saccharineboi]

This is brilliant. Thank you!

[@darealshinji]

Good old PERSON from the Super PERSON Brothers

[@herbiehusker1889]

I've wondered this for years

[@tonym5857]

Hello B. is good to see you here. Great video again thank you. Happy holydays and I can t imagine your schedule with amount of courses with exams, homework, investigation. I d like someday you share more in details your courses. Regards.

[@thefastjojo]

missed you, your content is the best!

[@AetCount]

Every video you make is a gift to us. Please, take the time you need for your studies. We'll be here when you have free time to post something :)