Most of us see the text cursor all day long. Yet unlike the mouse
pointer which most windowing systems allow us to customise to a
significant degree, we generally have no control over the text cursor.

Some people find blinking cursors disturbing and unpleasant.
It seems to me that users should have some control over the text
cursor, in particular whether it blinks and if it does how
fast. Here's the current state of play as far as I know it:

Linux with X    Usually does not blink; but Tk programs default to a
                blinking text cursor in text boxes.
Brent Welch pointed out to me that using insertOffTime:0 in the
 .Xdefaults file will switch off text cursor blink for all Tk programs.
(If using Tk under another OS, e.g. Windows, you'll need to set
insertOffTime in all the source files since there's no equivalent of
 .Xdefaults.)

Linux without X On PC's there is no choice, text cursor blink is
                generated by hardware.
? Does anyone know a solution for this ?

Windows 3.x     Choice of speed but no off.
Windows 95      Choice of speed but no off.
Windows NT 3.51 Choice of speed but no off.
I wrote a free tiny (6K) exe available in noblink2.zip
from SimTel or WinSite which stops text cursor blink in most cases,
including DOS boxes that aren't full screen (not NT).
? Is there a better, i.e. works in all cases, program than mine ?

MSDOS           There is no choice, text cursor blink is generated
                by hardware.
SimTel has some programs, e.g. blink.com, which can switch it off but
most have problems of one kind or another since they are generally TSRs
and mess with video memory.
? Does anyone know a solution for this ?

MacOS           I haven't used a Mac for years, but last time I did it
                had the choice of slow/medium/fast but no off.
? Is blink off now an option: if not, is there a solution for this ?

VT100           Users of "dumb" terminals are usually best off: all
                that I've used offer any combination of blink on/off
                and underline or block shape.
? Will/do the new NC (Network Computers) have the choice ?

I hope that eventually purveyors of commercial OSs like MacOS and
Windows, purveyors of commercial and non-commercial X based OS's, as
well as hardware manufacturers will provide the choice of blink on/off
for text cursors.
? Does anyone know how we can get the message across to OS vendors and
hardware manufacturers ?
? Do any PCs or graphics cards already offer this facility ?

? Is there any way of finding out how many people would prefer the
choice since numbers count for commercial concerns ?

(An email copy of any reply would be appreciated.)
Thanks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~__~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Mark Summerfield  m/..\m  ausum...@swan.ac.uk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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