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-
- Did you know that ... there is a lot of information that may
- be accessed from the ROM BIOS area in your IBM PC, regarding
- the operating characteristics and options found on your own
- IBM PC? After carefull analysis of data found in the IBM
- Technical Reference manual a summary of the most useful
- information and where/how it may be referenced has been
- prepared.
-
- By specifying a DEF SEG=&H40 in any BASIC program, it is
- possible to reference the following vectors (fields) in
- the ROM BIOS area by using a PEEK function and the following
- offsets from the current segment as defined by the DEF SEG
-
- statement.
- &H0 - RS232 Addresses on your IBM PC.
- This will allow you to tell how many (up to
- four) async cards are attached, if any.
- &H8 - Printer Addresses on your IBM PC.
- This will tell you what printer addresses,
- and how many (up to four) exist. Each is
- addressed by a two byte Hex value.
- &H10 - Equipment Flag.
- This field describes the setting of the
- options switches. It describes what optional
- devices are attached to the system. The
- following lists the bit-significance of this
-
- field:
- Bit 0 - indicates that there are diskette
- drives on the system.
- Bit 1 - not used.
- Bit 2,3 - Planar Ram Size (00=16K 10=32K 01=48K
- 11=64K)
- Bit 4,5 - Initial Video Mode (00=Unused
- 10=40x25 Color
- 01=80x25 Color
- 11=80x25 Mono)
- Bit 6,7 - Number of Diskette Drives (00=1 10=2
- 01=3 11=4) only if bit 0 = 1.
- Bit 8 - Unused
- 9,10,11 - Number of RS232 Cards attached
- Bit 12 - Game I/O Attached
- Bit 13 - Not used
- Bit 14,15 - Number of printers attached
- &H13 - Memory Size in K bytes.
- &H15 - I/O RAM Size in K bytes.
- &H17 - Keyboard Flag -- the following lists the masks
- set to describe current keyboard status:
- Byte 1;
- &H80 - Insert state active
- &H40 - Caps Lock State Has been toggled
- &H20 - Num Lock State has been toggled
- &H10 - Scroll Lock State has been toggled
- &H08 - Alternate Shift key depressed
- &H04 - Control Shift key depressed
- &H02 - Left Shift key depressed
- &H01 - Right Shift key depressed
- Byte 2;
- &H80 - Insert Key is depressed
- &H40 - Caps Lock Key is depressed
- &H20 - Num Lock Key is depressed
- &H10 - Scroll Lock key is depressed
- &H08 - Suspend key has been toggled
- &H49 - Current CRT mode
- &H00 - 40x25 BW
- &H01 - 40x25 Color
- &H02 - 80x25 BW
- &H03 - 80x25 Color
- &H04 - 320x200 Color
- &H05 - 320x200 BW
- &H06 - 640x200 BW
- &H07 - 80x25 B&W Card -- specialized use, used
- internal to the video routines.
- &H4A - Number of CRT columns
- &H50 - Cursor Position (one of eight)
- &H60 - Current cursor mode
- &H6C - Low word of Timer count
- &H6E - High word of Timer count
- &H71 - &H07 - Break key depressed
- &HFA6E - Beginning of character regen memory
- &HFF53 - PRTSC routine address