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Modern Turbo Vision 2.0
- lastdong 5y agoFond memories :) great to see it on github!
- password4321 5y agoTUIs | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30704923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30704923: ~200 comments 3 days ago.
- password4321 5y agoFree Vision, with Unicode | https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Free_Vision#Unicode_version https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Free_Vision#Unicode_vers... > basically an improved Turbo Vision for Free Pascal https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30704923#30711820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30704923#30711820
- simonjgreen 5y agoWow, this is a throwback. I'm suddenly sat in front of my Amstrad PC as an early teenager poking around DOS tools I don't understand.
- pantulis 5y agoMy throwback is reading through sheets and sheets of continuous form paper printed with the Turbo Vision demos and being utterly unable the wrap my head around the object oriented code. Still I learned a lot by annotating that source code.
- bananaboy 5y agoHah I was just looking at this recently. I was looking for a C# version. I couldn't find anything nice though. There's this https://github.com/elw00d/consoleframework https://github.com/elw00d/consoleframework but it looks like it hasn't been updated in a long time.
- pantulis 5y agoHave you tried Miguel de Icaza's gui.cs? https://github.com/migueldeicaza/gui.cs https://github.com/migueldeicaza/gui.cs
- bananaboy 5y agoI looked at that but it didn't look enough like Turbo Vision for me :)
- v-yadli 5y agoC#? Tick. Console? Tick. TurboVision theme? Tick. (lol) https://github.com/jinek/Consolonia https://github.com/jinek/Consolonia > TUI (Text User Interface) (GUI Framework) implementation for Avalonia UI > Supports XAML, data bindings, animation, styling and the rest from Avalonia.
- the-dude 5y agoI bought a mouse specifically for this. It was a Genius and came with a holder which you could stick to the side of your monitor or to a wall. So you could store your mouse when not in use. I am not making this up.
- WalterGR 5y agoMouse holders are still manufactured, believe it or not.
- sdfjkl 5y agoIt also had a ball that you had to remove every third day or so and then clean the friction rollers inside the mouse which the ball was turning. All the dust the ball picked up transferred onto those rollers and coagulated into dense felt around them until they stopped turning. Mine had three buttons though!
- LilBytes 5y agoI found that incredibly satisfying to clean though!
- a_e_k 5y agoMy standard kit still includes a pair of fine-point forceps from my dad's lab that he gave to me for cleaning mice when I went off to college. It's been a long time since I used them for mice, but they're now really handy for charging ports.
- dual_dingo 5y agoGenius GM6000? I had that one and still use the cutting side of the combined mousepad/cutting mat that came with it.
- the-dude 5y agoGreen. Outstanding quality.
- owl57 5y agoI am confident that Turbo Vision can now meet many of the expectations of modern users and programmers. Probably needs help with porting to node.js though: https://github.com/magiblot/tvision/issues/27#issuecomment-848117280 https://github.com/magiblot/tvision/issues/27#issuecomment-8...
- sdfjkl 5y agoTurbo Vision is odd. It's a backport of a graphical UI (Windows 3.0) to text mode. It was exceptionally well done in both end user and developer ease of use and caught on. But I doubt it's the optimum for a text based UI, at least for most applications. Keep evolving!
- dual_dingo 5y agoIIRC both Windows and TV where modeled after the IBM Common User Access (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access) interface style, which was a somewhat big theme in the late 80s and early 90s.
- dugmartin 5y agoIts fun seeing some of the vestigial CUA key bindings in modern apps. The one I probably use the most is F5 in the browser to refresh the page. That is listed in your Wikipedia page: > If applicable to the page/screen in question F5 provides a refresh function;
- CRConrad 5y agoI still use the original CUA Ctrl-Ins / Shift-Ins / Shift-Del for Copy / Paste / Cut at least as often as the newfangled Macintosh-copied Ctrl-C/V/X. They still work in (most?) Windows apps even if they aren't advertised as shortcuts in the Edit menu.
- digisign 5y agoAlso influenced by the original Mac UI, which influenced Motif, which influenced later toolkits. It was a great time for standard interfaces, which has gotten worse since, imho.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago> But I doubt it's the optimum for a text based UI, at least for most applications. Why do you think so? When I came across the first Newt apps years later (Red Hat installer and tools) I was actually surprised how less user-friendly and intuitive these newer TUIs were wen compared to TV. One big advantage of TV was that it was consistent: when you learned how to use one app, you more or less knew how to use all other TV-based apps.
- tluyben2 5y agoNice work!
- magiblot 5y agoThank you very much!
- andrewshadura 5y agoUnfortunately, I'm afraid, since this is based on the actual source code of Turbo Vision, it's non-free, so it's unusable for open source projects.
- ilaksh 5y agoMan I hope you are wrong.. because I was literally planning to build an IDE for Algorand/Python/PyTEAL with this (I know, mentioning Algorand is an automatic downvote, oh well). You might be right.. but I am not sure. Could Borland really sue you or something, many years they release the full source code "as is", "provided gratuitously", "no support", "no updates"? I mean it doesn't explicitly say "public domain", but if someone built software using this and then Borland tried to claim ownership of it or something, would that not be some kind of trap? It seems like any reasonable court would not allow that.. I would like to believe anyway. DISCLAIMER AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY: Borland does not make or give any representation or warranty with respect to the usefulness or the efficiency of this software, it being understood that the degree of success with which equipment, software, modifications, and other materials can be applied to data processing is dependent upon many factors, many of which are not under Borland's control. ACCORDINGLY, THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS' WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING NO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NONINFRINGEMENT. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED GRATUITOUSLY AND, ACCORDINGLY, BORLAND SHALL NOT BE LIABLE UNDER ANY THEORY FOR ANY DAMAGES SUFFERED BY YOU OR ANY USER OF THE SOFTWARE. BORLAND WILL NOT SUPPORT THIS SOFTWARE AND IS UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO ISSUE UPDATES TO THIS SOFTWARE. WITHOUT LIMITING THE GENERALITY OF THE FOREGOING, NEITHER BORLAND NOR ITS SUPPLIERS SHALL BE LIABLE FOR (a) INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL OR INDIRECT DAMAGES OF ANY SORT, WHETHER ARISING IN TORT, CONTRACT OR OTHERWISE, EVEN IF BORLAND HAS BEEN INFORMED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES, OR (b) FOR ANY CLAIM BY ANY OTHER PARTY. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THIS LIMITATION AND EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. Use, duplication or disclosure by the Government is subject to restrictions set forth in subparagraphs (a) through (d) of the Commercial Computer-Restricted Rights clause at FAR 52.227-19 when applicable, or in subparagraph (c) (1) (ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software clause at DFARS 252.227-7013, and in similar clauses in the NASA AR Supplement. Contractor / manufacturer is Borland International, Inc., 100 Borland Way, Scotts Valley, CA 95066.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoBtw those text based interfaces are better than most gui/web interfaces of today.
- miohtama 5y agoWindows 95 was the peak of good UX, like the ancient Greek was the peak of statue crafting. Some things were better in the past.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoI kind of agree. I think that while it's getting a little bit bloated that xfce4 still pushes the right buttons for a gui for me. Simple, lots of good shortcuts by default, nice simple launcher, and you can tweak til your heart's content (but I don't really anymore). I love xfce4 combined with the whiskers launcher, it does what I need.
- toiletfuneral 5y ago
- rahoulb 5y agoPersonally I'd say MacOS 9 was the peak (ignoring its instability). Things like: * the filesystem root being the desktop - so you started navigation from the first thing you saw when you switched the computer on * the way the finder remembered the exact layout of your folder windows (if you've not experienced it, it's hard to explain why it's better - but Windows Explorer and the current Mac Finder are both file browsers, whereas the old Mac Finder *was* your desktop in whatever state you left it) * kernel extensions being switched on and off by dragging them in and out of the extensions folder These things made the GUI match the actual underlying system - whereas I always felt that Windows 95 onwards (and now OSX/macOS) hide the workings under pretty layers). Having said that I also used Turbo Vision in the olden days and it was fantastic.
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoWindows 95 was unreliable, NT Workstation 4.0 was better.
- dugmartin 5y agoTurbo Vision was very fun to use and I made a good bit of money contracting on small projects in grad school in the early 90s using it. It made writing text mode guis a breeze. Borland's later Object Windows Library (OWL) was, in my opinion, much clunkier but it was done in C++ compared to Turbo Vision's Pascal. Probably the most interesting app I did was a small quality control/stats app for this book: "Quality Control 4th Edition" (https://www.amazon.com/Quality-Control-Dale-H-Besterfield/dp/0135011159 https://www.amazon.com/Quality-Control-Dale-H-Besterfield/dp...). All the data entry used Turbo Vison and all the graphs and charts used BGI (Borland Graphics Interface). It was meant for student use but I found out later it was used by Jim Beam on their whiskey distillery production line.
- tssva 5y agoThere were Pascal and C++ versions of Turbo Vision. This version is based upon the C++ version Borland released into the public domain in 1997.
- pjmlp 5y agoTurbo Vision and OWL started as Turbo Pascal frameworks and were later ported to C++. Delphi continues this tradition, most VCL components are implemented in Delphi, even those shipped in C++ Builder.
- enriquto 5y agoIt reminds me of the great rhide, of djgpp fame. It was a similar project.
- magiblot 5y agoRHIDE uses this other Turbo Vision port: https://github.com/set-soft/tvision https://github.com/set-soft/tvision. It depends on the custom API extensions of that port, so it's not compatible with mine.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoThis was what I learned c++ on and I'm very nostalgic for those (mostly) care free days in college :)
- zozbot234 5y agoAIUI, the FreeDOS project still maintains DJGPP and RHIDE.
- michaelsbradley 5y agoSee also Final Cut: https://github.com/gansm/finalcut https://github.com/gansm/finalcut
- abotsis 5y agoThis is great! A Python wrapper would be awesome!
- jrm4 5y agoBroadly, love seeing projects like this. Entirely too much wheel reinvention going on, well, everywhere in software. Let's go back, see what worked pretty well for a long while, and just updated or rewrite it to similar specs. Any more things going on like this?
- nine_k 5y agoIt also worked under certain assumptions. - No concurrency whatsoever. - No Unicode support. - In particular, no wide characters support (Chinese, Japanese, emoji). Not that these are unsurmountable difficulties. But they need to be addressed before jumping to use the good old ways.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoDoesn't his comment about rewriting it answer all those questions though but keep the core of the principles of the software intact?
- wiz21c 5y agoI've already asked the question, but is there a way to embed this in a regular app ? I mean, if I want to have a "retro" like GUI but I don't want to bother my users with opening a terminal/console, can I embed this ? The thing I'm thinking about would be to extract the alacritty render code and make it a library... But that's sure not easy to do...
- qbasic_forever 5y agoIMHO I would pop a web view and load an HTML page with tui.css. It's seriously impressive looking and much easier to integrate in a modern gui system, electron app, etc.: https://github.com/vinibiavatti1/TuiCss https://github.com/vinibiavatti1/TuiCss
- bonzini 5y agoYou can use the vte library to embed a terminal in a GTK+ program. QEMU does it for example.
- kmstout 5y agoOr you could make a launcher for your app that (attempts to) determine whether it needs to launch a terminal and does the right thing. Something like my-beautiful-console-app ======================== #! /bin/bash if tty -s; then exec my-beautiful-console-app-for-realz "$@" else exec xterm -e my-beautiful-console-app-for-realz "$@" fi might be a start.
- pkaye 5y agoNow we replace it with fifty million JavaScript libraries for a web interface.
- qbasic_forever 5y agoWhy not both? https://github.com/vinibiavatti1/TuiCss https://github.com/vinibiavatti1/TuiCss
- rezaprima 5y agoIIRC C++'s TurboVision is port of Pascal's one. Like the #define Uses_TKeys line is from something like uses Tkeys in Pascal
- pjmlp 5y agoYes, Borland was always Turbo Pascal first (then C++), the same was with OWL, VCL and now FireMonkey. The difference being that with Delphi/C++ Builder that made C++ extensions to interop with Delphi's object model, as such it is even the same code and no longer a port like in TV and OWL predecessors.
- MrYellowP 5y agoW o W ! :O
- richardfey 5y agoThis is awesome! I would prefer to use it with Pascal though; will give it a try anyways!
- magiblot 5y agoIf you want Pascal, this might be what you want: https://wiki.freepascal.org/Free_Vision https://wiki.freepascal.org/Free_Vision
- digisign 5y agoThis looks awesome, but not packaged yet? For a decade or two I waited for a good CUA editor on Unix. One that took advantage of 1990s PC hardware. Like DOS Edit, but better. Built my own striped-down SET/RHIDE editor in the early 2000s, then hobbled along with "ne" from ~2010, but that niche was fully taken by micro a few years ago. Would love a friendly tvision-like competitor with real menus and dialogs. But what about the color palette? I see one screenshot with an extended palette, but the main shots that are using the original eight-color palette. Maybe nostalgia shots, ok. Was acceptable to have saturated dark blue and dark green backgrounds in ~1990 I suppose, that's all there was. But no longer. A micro/sublime-like dark grey color theme of at least 256 colors would attract new folks more effectively. Backgrounds should have a low-saturation imho.
- aghilmort 5y agofun memories -- that + monochrome channel adapter was first dual-monitor setup can actively recall using
- chajath 5y agoCan rhide be built with this new tv? If so that will be the only ide I'll use and I'll never leave
- magiblot 5y agoNo, it can't. RHIDE needs specifically this one: https://github.com/set-soft/tvision https://github.com/set-soft/tvision. If it may interest you, there's a precompiled RHIDE binary in https://github.com/set-soft/tvision/tree/master/rhide_bin/linux_32 https://github.com/set-soft/tvision/tree/master/rhide_bin/li....