# HG changeset patch # User Eli Zaretskii # Date 952864439 0 # Node ID 3e652235df91934d45591678f749cd8cb9999d37 # Parent ce3bf4da00a928757ea701d8f02ebefae33a274e (MS-DOS Display) Explain the differences in cursor type control on MSDOS terminals. diff -r ce3bf4da00a9 -r 3e652235df91 man/msdog.texi --- a/man/msdog.texi Sun Mar 12 12:32:17 2000 +0000 +++ b/man/msdog.texi Sun Mar 12 12:33:59 2000 +0000 @@ -140,6 +140,26 @@ how Emacs displays glyphs and characters which aren't supported by the native font built into the DOS display. +@cindex cursor shape on MS-DOS + When Emacs starts, it changes the cursor shape to a solid box. This +is for compatibility with the Unix version, where the box cursor is the +default. This default shape can be changed to a bar by specifying the +@code{cursor-type} parameter in the variable @code{default-frame-alist} +(@pxref{Creating Frames}). The MS-DOS terminal doesn't support a +vertical-bar cursor, so the bar cursor is horizontal, and the its +@code{@var{width}} parameter, if specified by the frame parameters, +actually determines its height. As an extension, the bar cursor +specification can include the starting scan line of the cursor as well +as its width, like this: + +@example + '(cursor-type bar @var{width} . @var{start}) +@end example + +@noindent +In addition, if the @var{width} parameter is negative, the cursor bar +begins at the top of the character cell. + @cindex frames on MS-DOS Multiple frames (@pxref{Frames}) are supported on MS-DOS, but they all overlap, so you only see a single frame at any given moment. That