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Awesome! Reminds me of the good old days of QuickBasic and SCREEN 13, when you could write very small programs with fullscreen graphics. I still have not figur

Awesome! Reminds me of the good old days of QuickBasic and SCREEN 13, when you could write very small programs with fullscreen graphics. I still have not figured out how to do fullscreen graphics on my Mac.

Bhulapi 1y ago
My first experience with programming was with QuickBasic. You just brought back some memories, wish I still had all of those old programs around.
krackers 1y ago
>how to do fullscreen graphics on my Mac You can't, you don't have direct access to the framebuffer. Unless by "fullscreen" you just mean spanning from end-to-end in which case you can create an opengl or metal view and just set the fullscreen style mask.
- jebarker 1y ago
  > You can't, you don't have direct access to the framebuffer. Why is this the case? What would be the problem with allowing it?
  - krackers 1y ago
    It fits Apple's modus operandi to enforce things UI/UX wise, I assume in this case they don't want end-apps to be able to bypass the compositor (and e.g. prevent alerts from showing on the screen or whatnot). They used to allow it, but they removed the API after 10.6 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/GraphicsImaging/Conceptual/QuartzDisplayServicesConceptual/Articles/DisplayCapture.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Gr... I guess on modern macOS CGDisplayCapture() is the closest example that still works (although clearly there is still some compositing going on since the orange-dot microphone indicator still appears, and you can get the dock to appear over it if you activate mission control. I'm guessing it does the equivalent of a full-screen window but then tries to lock input somehow).
    - godelski 1y ago
      Apple Employees: Please push back against this behavior. It creates more problems than it solves[0] The philosophy really creates a lot of problems that end up just frustrating users. It's a really lazy form of "security". Here's a simple example of annoyance: if I have private relay enabled, then turning on my VPN causes an alert (will not dismiss automatically). The same thing happens when I turn it off! It is a fine default, but why can't I decide I want to have automatically dismiss? This is such a silly thing to do considering I can turn off Private Relay, without any privileges, and without any notifications! NOTHING IS BEING SOLVED except annoying users... There's TONS of stupid little bugs that normal people just get used to but have no reason for existing (you can always identify an iPhone user because "i" is never capitalized...) The philosophy only works if Apple is able to meet everybody's needs, but we're also talking about a company who took years to integrate a flashlight into their smartphone. It's okay that you can't create a perfect system. No one expects you to. It is also okay to set defaults and think about design, that's what people love you for (design). But none of this needs to come at a cost to "power users." I understand we're a small portion of users, but you need to understand that our efforts make your products better. Didn't see an issue with something? That's okay, you're not omniscient. But luckily there's millions of power users who will discover stuff and provide solutions. Even if these solutions are free, you still benefit! Because it makes peoples' experiences better! If it is a really good solution, you can directly integrate it into your product too! Everybody wins! Because designing computers is about designing an ecosystem. You design things people can build on top of! That's the whole fucking point of computers in the first place! Get your head out of your ass and make awesome products! [0] If any... [another example]: Why is it that my Airpods can only connect to one device, constantly switching from my Macbook to iPhone. This often creates unnecessary notifications. I want magic with my headphones. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to be playing Spotify on my computer, walk away from it with my phone in pocket, and have the source switch to my phone. I can pick up my phone and manually change the source. But in reality what happens is I pick up my phone and Spotify pauses because my headphones switched to my iPhone... If you open up access then you bet these things will be solved. I know it means people might be able to then seamlessly switch from their Macbook to their Android, but come on, do you really think you're going to convert them by making their lives harder? Just wait till they try an iPhone! It isn't a good experience... I'm speaking from mine...
  - CharlesW 1y ago
    > What would be the problem with allowing it? All software/hardware in the system (Core Animation, Retina scaling, HDR, Apple Silicon's GPUs) assumes an isolated/composited display model. A model where a modern rendering pipeline is optional would add major complexity, and would also prevent Apple from freely evolving its hardware, system software, and developer APIs. Additionally, a mandatory compositor blocks several classes of potential security threats, such as malware that could suppress or imitate system UI or silently spy on the user and their applications (at least without user permission).
  - eschaton 1y ago
    For one thing, on most modern systems there isn’t a framebuffer, there’s only a simulation of one created by GPU compositing. For another, security. Your application doesn’t get to scrape other applications’ windows and doesn’t get to put stuff in them, and they don’t get to do that to yours, unless properly entitled & signed. You can self-sign for development but for distribution that ensures malware can be blocked by having its signature revoked.
zozbot234 1y ago
> Awesome! Reminds me of the good old days of QuickBasic and SCREEN 13, when you could write very small programs with fullscreen graphics. That's a very inefficient approach nowadays. Modern hardware uses accelerated graphics throughout, including for simple 2D rendering the sort of which you would've written in QuickBasic back in the day. Even more complex 2D (where the 3D-render pipeline doesn't help as much) is generally best achieved by resorting to GPU-side compute, as seen e.g. in the Linebender Vello project. This is especially relevant at higher resolutions, color depths and frame rates, where the approach of pushing pixels via the CPU becomes even more clearly an unworkable one.
- immibis 1y ago
  CPUs are also not slower than they were in the days of software-rendered Quake, so you can render things in software if you don't want to add a whole bunch of complexity to your software stack.
  - phkahler 1y ago
    Yeah, a 4K display is about 8 megapixels so at 60fps you need to write 480M pixels per second. That's feasible with a single CPU depending on the complexity of the rendering. Multi-core can get more work done per pixel. You'd still be writing highly optimized code to render fairly simple things if they require a full screen update.
    - immibis 1y ago
      That's assuming you rewrite the whole screen every frame. Most productivity apps don't. Windows (and X11) had this whole infrastructure about managing dirty regions. Computers with GPUs are now fast enough to blast through recomputing the entire screen's contents every frame, but perhaps for efficiency reasons we still shouldn't?
queuebert 1y ago
I'm using that combo in a DOS emulator to teach my kids how to code. They love being able to draw right out of the box. And the best part is no distractions. No updates to apply, no popup notifications, and no crashes -- everything just works.

Bhulapi 1y ago

My first experience with programming was with QuickBasic. You just brought back some memories, wish I still had all of those old programs around.

krackers 1y ago

>how to do fullscreen graphics on my Mac You can't, you don't have direct access to the framebuffer. Unless by "fullscreen" you just mean spanning from end-to-end in which case you can create an opengl or metal view and just set the fullscreen style mask.

jebarker 1y ago
> You can't, you don't have direct access to the framebuffer. Why is this the case? What would be the problem with allowing it?
- krackers 1y ago
  It fits Apple's modus operandi to enforce things UI/UX wise, I assume in this case they don't want end-apps to be able to bypass the compositor (and e.g. prevent alerts from showing on the screen or whatnot). They used to allow it, but they removed the API after 10.6 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/GraphicsImaging/Conceptual/QuartzDisplayServicesConceptual/Articles/DisplayCapture.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Gr... I guess on modern macOS CGDisplayCapture() is the closest example that still works (although clearly there is still some compositing going on since the orange-dot microphone indicator still appears, and you can get the dock to appear over it if you activate mission control. I'm guessing it does the equivalent of a full-screen window but then tries to lock input somehow).
  - godelski 1y ago
    Apple Employees: Please push back against this behavior. It creates more problems than it solves[0] The philosophy really creates a lot of problems that end up just frustrating users. It's a really lazy form of "security". Here's a simple example of annoyance: if I have private relay enabled, then turning on my VPN causes an alert (will not dismiss automatically). The same thing happens when I turn it off! It is a fine default, but why can't I decide I want to have automatically dismiss? This is such a silly thing to do considering I can turn off Private Relay, without any privileges, and without any notifications! NOTHING IS BEING SOLVED except annoying users... There's TONS of stupid little bugs that normal people just get used to but have no reason for existing (you can always identify an iPhone user because "i" is never capitalized...) The philosophy only works if Apple is able to meet everybody's needs, but we're also talking about a company who took years to integrate a flashlight into their smartphone. It's okay that you can't create a perfect system. No one expects you to. It is also okay to set defaults and think about design, that's what people love you for (design). But none of this needs to come at a cost to "power users." I understand we're a small portion of users, but you need to understand that our efforts make your products better. Didn't see an issue with something? That's okay, you're not omniscient. But luckily there's millions of power users who will discover stuff and provide solutions. Even if these solutions are free, you still benefit! Because it makes peoples' experiences better! If it is a really good solution, you can directly integrate it into your product too! Everybody wins! Because designing computers is about designing an ecosystem. You design things people can build on top of! That's the whole fucking point of computers in the first place! Get your head out of your ass and make awesome products! [0] If any... [another example]: Why is it that my Airpods can only connect to one device, constantly switching from my Macbook to iPhone. This often creates unnecessary notifications. I want magic with my headphones. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to be playing Spotify on my computer, walk away from it with my phone in pocket, and have the source switch to my phone. I can pick up my phone and manually change the source. But in reality what happens is I pick up my phone and Spotify pauses because my headphones switched to my iPhone... If you open up access then you bet these things will be solved. I know it means people might be able to then seamlessly switch from their Macbook to their Android, but come on, do you really think you're going to convert them by making their lives harder? Just wait till they try an iPhone! It isn't a good experience... I'm speaking from mine...
- CharlesW 1y ago
  > What would be the problem with allowing it? All software/hardware in the system (Core Animation, Retina scaling, HDR, Apple Silicon's GPUs) assumes an isolated/composited display model. A model where a modern rendering pipeline is optional would add major complexity, and would also prevent Apple from freely evolving its hardware, system software, and developer APIs. Additionally, a mandatory compositor blocks several classes of potential security threats, such as malware that could suppress or imitate system UI or silently spy on the user and their applications (at least without user permission).
- eschaton 1y ago
  For one thing, on most modern systems there isn’t a framebuffer, there’s only a simulation of one created by GPU compositing. For another, security. Your application doesn’t get to scrape other applications’ windows and doesn’t get to put stuff in them, and they don’t get to do that to yours, unless properly entitled & signed. You can self-sign for development but for distribution that ensures malware can be blocked by having its signature revoked.

zozbot234 1y ago

> Awesome! Reminds me of the good old days of QuickBasic and SCREEN 13, when you could write very small programs with fullscreen graphics. That's a very inefficient approach nowadays. Modern hardware uses accelerated graphics throughout, including for simple 2D rendering the sort of which you would've written in QuickBasic back in the day. Even more complex 2D (where the 3D-render pipeline doesn't help as much) is generally best achieved by resorting to GPU-side compute, as seen e.g. in the Linebender Vello project. This is especially relevant at higher resolutions, color depths and frame rates, where the approach of pushing pixels via the CPU becomes even more clearly an unworkable one.

immibis 1y ago
CPUs are also not slower than they were in the days of software-rendered Quake, so you can render things in software if you don't want to add a whole bunch of complexity to your software stack.
- phkahler 1y ago
  Yeah, a 4K display is about 8 megapixels so at 60fps you need to write 480M pixels per second. That's feasible with a single CPU depending on the complexity of the rendering. Multi-core can get more work done per pixel. You'd still be writing highly optimized code to render fairly simple things if they require a full screen update.
  - immibis 1y ago
    That's assuming you rewrite the whole screen every frame. Most productivity apps don't. Windows (and X11) had this whole infrastructure about managing dirty regions. Computers with GPUs are now fast enough to blast through recomputing the entire screen's contents every frame, but perhaps for efficiency reasons we still shouldn't?

queuebert 1y ago

I'm using that combo in a DOS emulator to teach my kids how to code. They love being able to draw right out of the box. And the best part is no distractions. No updates to apply, no popup notifications, and no crashes -- everything just works.