A/UX and the toolbox

[Kent Sandvik]

In article <1991Feb8.203339.23101 at nada.kth.se> d88-jwa at dront.nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) writes:
>
>Hi gurus !
>
>Let's say we don't want to tail-patch GetNextEvent nor any of its
>equivalents. Still we want to have a screen saver that wakes up
>on keyDowns. PostEvent isn't called for keyDOwns under A/UX, it
>seems. So how do you do ?
>
>Does anyone know ? Kent ?

The TN229 states that applications can't access the event queue under
A/UX, and patch the PostEvent mechanism. The event queue is deep deep
inside the kernel memory space.

There's a way to push in events under A/UX MultiFinder mode, and that is 
with AUXDispatch(). The A/UX Toolbox Macintosh ROM interface descibes
the various options with AUXDispatch (alas this is not included in the 
on-line manual...). In the case of posting events, it looks like:

AUXDispatch(AUX_POST_MODIFIED, p);
where p points at the Event Record (char *p). 

So in order to write the most portable Macintosh screen saver in the 
world you need to write a small snippet of A/UX code with AUXDispatch,
disasm the piece, and include it - after testing with Gestalt if the 
underlying system is A/UX 2.0 or higher - in the posting of event calls
for KeyDowns.

>Also, the man page for /mac/bin/launch(1) and the program itself
>are not very consistent.

I would like to know more about this.

Regards,
Kent Sandvik, MacDTS
-- 
Kent Sandvik, Apple Computer Inc, Developer Technical Support
NET:ksand at apple.com, AppleLink: KSAND  DISCLAIMER: Private mumbo-jumbo
Zippy++ says: "Read my lips, no more C++ syntax..."