I'm just writing a few VERY simple programs, indeed when I create a new project, I select "Simple Program." The screen created uses text only. What I am wanting to know is how to save a portion of the screen write over it and then restore it later on. Simple to do in Turbo Pascal in the 1980s when I last programmed regularly.
I first want to make sure I understood your request correctly. You want to save the _text_ that is someplace on the screen, write some new _text_ where the original text was and then restore the original text, is this correct ?
if that is correct then, if you want a solution that is Windows only then, it's fairly easy to do because Windows gives you access to the screen buffer, you can read it, overwrite any portion you want and later restore the original text (which you should have saved somewhere) or, you can create a secondary screen buffer where you write whatever temporary text you want to display.
I don't know if Lazarus has "cushy" functions to do the above but, it can be done with reasonable ease using the Windows API (if you don't mind programming to the API.)
HTH.