A Matrix themed screensaver for IBM PC-XT class machines running IBM-DOS. Beta Version.

Hardware requirements:

• PC XT class machine
• MDA/Hercules card or compatible.

This first release is a short program that runs in text mode, to produce an effect similar to the Matrix rain from the popular movie "The Matrix". For the effect to look truly authentic, an IBM 5151 monitor or similar is recommended (A CRT with P39 phosphor). The program is a Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) class DOS program, that occupies 4.5Kb of system RAM once loaded (due to needing to allocate space to save the screen before it starts running the screensaver), and runs after 2 minutes of keyboard inactivity. As it stands, the program cannot be unloaded once in memory and will need to be rebooted (either hard reboot or CTRL+ALT+DEL) if you need that last 4Kb of RAM. To load the program once you download it, simply type SC at the command line. If you wish to run this code every time you boot your XT class machine, I recommend you load it from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

Features that are to come:

• Dynamic screen mode detection on run (not just on loading).
• Uninstall feature.
• Dynamically adjustable wait period for the screensaver to start.
• Register usage optimisation.

This program was written and tested on an IBM PC XT running IBM DOS 3.3 and assembled with MASM 4.

If any bugs are encountered (and it is extremely likely that bugs exist as this was written in roughly a couple of hours), please dont hesitate to fill in a bugfix request or contact me on my reddit u/ylli122 or by email at [email protected]

Consider this a beta test! Enjoy! :D