Executive Settings Control Interface Program
The #0 processor always runs at 7.15 MHz and runs only a few built-in programs one of these the Executive Settings Control Interface Program is the primary user interface for the control of screen allotments and keyboard macros as well as a few other functions. This program communicates with the Executive Supervisory Program which is always running in the background after startup.
This program puts it's display in the bottom 30ish pixels of the VGA and Composite screens.
Normal Full Screen modes are:
For modes F00 to F04 Three Lines of 8x8px Text are rendered in the interface program, while Modes F05 to F07 render only two lines of 12x12px text to avoid readability problems from to small text.
- Pixel 225 to 255 if in Composite mode F00 = 320x240
- Pixel 450 to 480 if in Composite mode F01 = 640x480
- Pixel 450 to 480 if in VGA mode F02 = 640x480
- Pixel 546 to 576 if in Composite mode F03 = 720x576
- Pixel 570 to 600 in SVGA mode F04 = 800x600
- Pixel 690 to 720 in SVGA mode F05 = 960x720
- Pixel 690 to 720 in SVGA mode F06 =1024x720
- Pixel 690 to 720 in SVGA mode F07 =1280x720
To access these lines you need to press the "FOCUS KEY" to change the keyboard focus until the Executive Settings Command Line is seen at the bottom with a flashing cursor.
In this example the Blue Status line turned on. Click the FOCUS key icon below and note the next two lines that reflect what the bottom of the CoCo5 screen would show.
Especially note that the status line's first information is the current CPU that has keyboard focus
So we see from the status line that CPU #2 has focus this means that if we type now it will go to the screen belonging to CPU#2 in the bottom right of the screen.
If we clickthe focus button again then CPU #3 that controls the top left screen will get the focus.
So if (Starting from a focus on CPU#2) we had typed SHAREINGTHE KEYBORD we would see.
Note how we have what we typed spread out between the two screen groups.
Note also that both cursors will still flash because these two CPU's are runing in parallel and what the focus key determines is which gets keyboard input sent to it.
To see how the FOCUS key changes focus click the key below and see how the status info changes.
There are two other ways to change focus
[SHIFT][FOCUS] changes focus just as the [FOCUS] key does but in reverse
so where
[FOCUS] pressed multiple times would move the keyboard focus from CPU #2
to #3 to #0 to #1 to #2
[SHIFT][FOCUS] pressed multiple times would move the keyboard focus from
CPU #2 to #1 to #0 to #3 to #2
The other way to change Focus is to use the SYSTEM MOUSE to DOUBLE CLICK on a window putting that window in FOCUS.
All System Commands are given to the system through one of three interfaces.
There are Several Command Lines these are:
Click the following links to see a partial list of the main commands for each of these interfaces.