Method and apparatus for operating text mode software in a graphics mode environment

摘要

A method and apparatus which allows U.S. software applications which write directly to the video text RAM area to run in a purely graphics mode operating system environment such as Japanese mode of DOS/V. Memory management software includes an option which reserves main memory at system initialization for receiving the text RAM area in IBM PC compatible systems. A software driver periodically checks to determine if anything has changed in the text RAM area using the "dirty" bits associated with the page table entries in the 386 paging mechanism. If new data has been written to this area, the driver converts the ASCII data written to this area to graphics based characters which are then displayed onto the computer screen.