djb@wjh12.harvard.edu (David J. Birnbaum) (02/03/89)
The Hercules Plus Graphics card has a "48K ramfont mode" that enables users to store their own character sets in memory on the card. There are 12 sets of 256 characters (=3072) available. Software written to take advantage of the card can display any of these characters at the same time on the screen. Another user let me in on a little-known secret: ANSI color commands can be used to make ramfont character sets available to applications that are not specifically written for ramfont, as long as these applica- tions will use ANSI.SYS (if it is loaded). Numbering the screen fonts from 0 through 11, "prompt $E[34m" will call for font #1, "prompt $E[32m" will call for font #2. I refer to this as a little-known secret because even the Hercules Technical Support people, who are usually among the best in the business, had never heard of this feature. And, unfortunately, I have no idea which color commands will call for which font. The ones mentioned above I hit by trial and error. Apparently certain fonts (or certain fonts with certain attributes) require two colors to be specified. I would be very grateful if any user who has discovered this feature and who understands the mapping between ANSI commands and ramfont fonts could send me this information. If I learn anything interesting I will post it. (By the way, you need to load your fonts into the Hercules Plus card and set it for the 48K ramfont mode before any of this will work. These are both done with little programs Hercules includes with the card.) --David ====================================================================== David J. Birnbaum djb@wjh12.harvard.edu [Internet] 11 Adams Terrace djb@wjh12.uucp [UUCP] Cambridge, MA 02138 USA djb@harvunxw.bitnet [Bitnet] 617-492-8511 [voice] ======================================================================