accessing VDU memeory

[onthewaytoC]

hello all,
firstly i will have to thank u all for helping me out so far. i have a quick question here about the VDU memeory. i was writting a programm to read the data from the VDU. and the follwing code was my approch to do

#include<stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char *vdu=(char *)0xB8000000;
    int i;
    
    for(i=0;i<10;i++)
        printf("%c",*(vdu+i));
    
    getchar();
    return 0;
}

but when i do this i get a rum time error( from the microsoft windoows). i am just reading first 5 char from the memeory. can any one correct me please or guide me how to do that.

thank you ,

-onthewaytoC

[Salem]

Well unless your compiler is for DOS, and DOS is really your operating system, the chances of this working are slim.
Modern operating systems don't like you picking random absolute addresses.

How about starting with which OS and compiler you're using, and what you're really trying to do, then we can help.

Oh, if you're using some ancient fossil (say borland turbo-c) and your OS is say XP, then consider upgrading to a compiler for this century.

[onthewaytoC]

it was just a prob given in some book. the aim of this prog is to read the char from the memory and change the upper case letter to lower case and low to upper case

and i am using Dev-C++ on XP platform

-onthewaytoC

[Salem]

Your book is out of date.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de..._functions.asp

Try Adrianxw's console tutorial
http://www.adrianxw.dk/SoftwareSite/...Consoles1.html

[onthewaytoC]

thax very much salem it was interseting to go through the Adrianxw's console tutorial and i am still going through the tutorial, but a question interrupted me to post this question. well, if i am using some compiler like DEV-C++ on XP like what i am using now. i can call some of the API function to do the job. but the question still reamins how do u access the VDU memory if you are using something like GCC compiler on Linux platform which don't suppot any API function which does the job on windows.

thax very much

-onthewaytoC

[Salem]

Well you need a different API for working on Linux.

My initial thought is that you should be able to do something with the ncurses library.

Interestingly, there is also a windows port of ncurses, so if you want the same code to run on win32 and Linux, then ncurses is something you should look into.