PLANC-SCREEN-H — PLANC Screen Handling Library (no confirmed ND article number)¶

Status: IN-PROGRESS — real floppy decoded, real PLANC interface + real .PICT screen-picture format recovered; no ND article number found

Field	Value
ND article number	not identified — floppy volume name is simply `PLANC-SCREEN-H`, no ND-XXXXX number found anywhere on it
Product name	PLANC screen-handling library (working name only)
Functional category	Language Tools / UI building
CPU target	ND-100 (PLANC)
Related products	A third, real, concrete answer to "how do I build a UI on ND hardware" alongside VTM (VTM-TERMINAL-INTERFACES.md) and NSHS (ND-10013) — this floppy's `%HEADING`/`@position`/`@size`/`@field-defaults` `.PICT` file format looks like the same "screen picture" concept NSHS's PI sheet describes, strongly suggesting this is NSHS's PLANC interface library, not a separate product — not confirmed either way.

What is known — real floppy, decoded¶

Floppy PLANC-SCREEN-H (downloaded via NDwiki, imaged by Torfinn "Tingo" Ingolfsen, dated 1986-1987 per file timestamps) mounts cleanly:

DEMO-SCREEN:SYMB       real PLANC demo source — see below
PLANC-GEN-A00:PROG     a compiled "PLANC-GEN" program (generator? not decoded further)
INTERF:NRF             the compiled interface library
SUM:PICT               a real screen-picture definition file — see below
SUM:SYMB               PLANC source for the SUM demo (not opened)
SCREEN:SYMB            the real PLANC IMPORT/interface declaration — see below
INTERF-1B:BRF          1-bank runtime (see TWO-BANK-PROGRAMS.md)
INTERF-2B:BRF          2-bank runtime

The real PLANC call interface — `SCREEN:SYMB`, verbatim¶

Source: byte-for-byte decode (byte & 0x7F), in full — 926 bytes. [decoded from real file]

IMPORT (ROUTINE VOID,VOID(INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER,BYTES,BYTES):bytdis)
IMPORT (ROUTINE VOID,BYTES(INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER,BYTES READ WRITE,BYTES):bytacc)
IMPORT (ROUTINE VOID,VOID(INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER4,BYTES):intdis)
IMPORT (ROUTINE VOID,BYTES(INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER4 READ WRITE,BYTES):intacc)
IMPORT (ROUTINE VOID,VOID(INTEGER,INTEGER,BYTE,INTEGER,INTEGER,REAL8,BYTES):realdis)
IMPORT (ROUTINE VOID,BYTES(INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER,REAL8 READ WRITE,BYTES):realacc)
IMPORT (ROUTINE VOID,VOID(INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER,BYTES):frame)
IMPORT (ROUTINE VOID,VOID(INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER):fullbar)
IMPORT (ROUTINE VOID,VOID(INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER):sparsebar)
IMPORT (ROUTINE VOID,VOID:blankscreen)
IMPORT (ROUTINE VOID,VOID(INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER,INTEGER):blankarea)
IMPORT (ROUTINE VOID,VOID:resetscreen)

Reading it: ten real callable routines. bytdis/bytacc, intdis/intacc, realdis/ realacc are display/access pairs for byte-string, integer, and real fields respectively (dis = display a field's current value read-only, acc = access — display and let the user edit, returning the new value). frame/fullbar/sparsebar draw box frames and progress-bar-style fills. blankscreen/blankarea/resetscreen are screen-clearing primitives.

A real demo program — `DEMO-SCREEN:SYMB`, header comment verbatim¶

MODULE xxx
%==========================================================%
% D E M O   -   PLANC SCREEN HANDLING                      %
%                                                          %
% Vtm, mon-call-lib,planc-lib must be loaded               %
% together with this program                               %
%==========================================================%
$INCLUDE screen

Confirms this library is built on top of VTM (Vtm... must be loaded together with this program) — consistent with every other UI-building path documented in this catalog (VTM is the common low-level substrate; NSHS, UNIQUE, and this PLANC library are all higher-level layers over it).

The real screen-picture file format — `SUM:PICT`, verbatim¶

Source: byte-for-byte decode, in full. [decoded from real file]

%HEADING
@picture sum-demo,i
%CONTROL
@position 1,35
@size 8,13
@in-frame heading remarks
@field-defaults prompt
%DEFINITIONS
@start

 *** SUM ***

 A   :  $$$$ @1
 B   :  $$$$ @2

 SUM : $$$$$ @3

@end
%ATTRIBUTES
@1 a underline
@2 b underline control add
@+    DISPLAY_FIELDS
@3 sum o low-intensity not-prompt

Reading it: a .PICT file has four %-prefixed sections. %HEADING names the picture (@picture sum-demo,i — i likely a version/type letter). %CONTROL sets screen position/size (@position row,col, @size height,width) and framing options (@in-frame, @field-defaults). %DEFINITIONS is the actual screen layout between @start/@end — a fixed-format field with $$$$ placeholders, each tagged @N to link it to an %ATTRIBUTES entry. %ATTRIBUTES maps each @N field to a program variable name (a, b, sum) plus display attributes (underline, low-intensity, not-prompt = display-only) and control flags (control add — likely marks this field as one the DISPLAY_FIELDS group updates automatically, e.g. a computed sum). This is a genuinely different (and more compact) picture DSL than either VTM's raw API or UNIQUE's start-form/start-fields convention — a real fourth documented UI-definition syntax for this catalog.

Installation procedure — INFERRED, NOT VERIFIED¶

No PD/PI sheet, no :MODE/:BATC install script exists for this product. Nothing below is sourced from an install document — it is reconstructed from the floppy's own file layout, the demo program's header comment, and the verified installation pattern of the closest documented sibling product, ND-211464. Treat every step as a working hypothesis to test on a real system, not a transcribed procedure.

1. Prerequisites — install these first, separately: - VTM terminal tables for your target terminal(s) — see ND-211464 (verified procedure), ND-210455, ND-10459, or ND-10465 depending on terminal model. This product's floppy carries no VTM tables of its own — unlike FOCUS, which bundles its own. - mon-call-lib — product ND-210913. Install procedure now verified (transcribed from NDWiki; primary PD-sheet PDF still pending) — copy MON-CALL-NAMES-A:DATA to SYSTEM, the other three files anywhere with public read access. - planc-lib — not a separate product to install; treated in this catalog as a resident system library already present under (LIBRARIES) wherever PLANC itself is installed (see PLANC-UI-VTM-GUIDE.md §4 for the full reasoning) — inferred, not confirmed by a manual. - The base PLANC compiler, ND-10309.

2. Copy the floppy's files to SYSTEM or your own working user — the same plain-copy approach every small library floppy in this catalog uses when no installer program exists (e.g. ND-210913's mon-call-lib floppy). No installer :PROG/:MODE/:BATC was found on this floppy to run instead.

3. Pick the runtime matching your program's bank model — INTERF-1B:BRF (1-bank) or INTERF-2B:BRF (2-bank), see TWO-BANK-PROGRAMS.md. (INTERF:NRF is the ND-500 equivalent, format-consistent with the ND-100 choice being per-program rather than per-installation.)

4. Compile your program with $INCLUDE screen (the interface declared in SCREEN:SYMB), then link it against the chosen INTERF-*B:BRF, your VTM array file, mon-call-lib, and planc-lib — see PLANC-UI-VTM-GUIDE.md §4 for the concrete LOAD-SEGMENT/NRL shape (also inferred, not a verified transcript).

5. If using a .PICT-declared screen, run it through PLANC-GEN-A00:PROG first to produce a :PGEN PLANC source file, then $INCLUDE that generated file and call the picture's name-derived routine directly — see PLANC-UI-VTM-GUIDE.md §6 for the fully decoded example of this step.

Documentation¶

No PD sheet, no PI sheet, no ND article number located.

Provenance & open items¶

Source: one real floppy image (8_nd_f17b_planc-screen-h.img.gz), mounted and decoded in this session (ndtool -x -p for extraction, byte & 0x7F for de-parity on SCREEN:SYMB, DEMO-SCREEN:SYMB's header, SUM:PICT, and SUM:SYMB, all in full).
PLANC-GEN-A00:PROG is identified by strings (a real .PICT-to-PLANC-source generator, confirmed by strings referencing @PICTURE/@REPORT input and emitting FRAME(...) calls) but not disassembled — its exact command-line dialogue is unknown.
The relationship to ND-10013 NSHS, and now also to ND-10188 FOCUS, remains unconfirmed — see the full comparison in PLANC-VTM-UI-CATALOG.md §8.
The install procedure above has not been run live on any real or emulated SINTRAN system.

Parent: ../README.md (Software catalog)