Summary
The text console provides a simple method for input and output via text, using
INPUT/
LINPUT and
PRINT. The console also provides basic formatting options such as changing the location of printed text and setting colors/backgrounds for each character. The console also automatically scrolls if too much text is printed.
Interface
Commands
ACLS | Clears the text console and several other things |
CLS | Clears the text console, as well as lower screen text. |
LOCATE | Sets the current text cursor position. |
COLOR | Sets the foreground color palette and background color for text. |
PRINT | Prints text to the screen. |
INPUT | Gets user input and stores the result into one or more variables. |
LINPUT | Gets user input and stores the result into a variable. |
Functions
CHKCHR | Read a character from the console. |
System Variables
CSRX | The current X location of the cursor |
CSRY | The current Y location of the cursor |
TABSTEP | The current number of spaces in one tab |
Resources
BGF0U | This is the font resource used. |
BGD0U | This is used for COLOR backgrounds |
SPS1U | This contains the text cursors used for INPUT and LINPUT |
Additional Information
The text console itself is rendered in the same way as the background layers are, as two 64x64 tilemaps with 4-bit color 8x8 pixel tiles. The foreground layer is used for the text characters, and the background layer is used for the
COLOR background setting.
Unlike the background layers, the text console cannot be moved, so only the upper-left 32x24 tile region visible is used.
The text layer uses
BGF resources; the background layer uses
BGD resources. It is possible to print characters not in
BGF0 by loading a
MEM containing those characters, which allows you to access a sort of "
BGF1" containing the editor line-number characters and some other extras.
The text background layer uses either
BGD0U tile 0 (transparent, used for background color 0) or tile 15 (solid tile of color 15 of background palette). It is possible to redefine these tiles using
LOAD or
CHRSET to change the background tile used.
While it is possible to read the normal set of
CHR$(0) to
CHR$(255) characters using
CHKCHR, it is not possible to distinguish the "extra" characters such as the line-number characters - the codes returned will still be in the 0-255 range. It is not possible to read the foreground or background colors from the console, or the currently set foreground or background color.
