rickc@iddic.UUCP (05/24/84)
Well, the results are in: there are some terminals on the net that crash with ANSI X3.64 control sequences. So, it is unreasonable to randomly pepper articles with these sequences. HOWEVER, A PROPOSAL: that the subject headers of articles that contain the word ANSI to alert those whose terminals die to use the 'n' key, much like the 'rot13' in jokes. OBVIOUSLY, do NOT use such sequences in subject lines. FURTHERMORE, use only the 'select graphic rendition' command - these would be the most useful commands. Specifically: <ESC>[0 (normal),<ESC>[1 (bold),<ESC>[4 (underscore),<ESC>[5 (blink), and <ESC>[7 (reverse video). I KNOW that there are those who will be upset because there will be some articles that they cannot read without going through some contortions; however, do we have to be universally limited to the lowest common denominator? Will it be impossible to try new ideas on the net? Rick Coates tektronix!iddic!rickc
dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (06/03/84)
~| From: rickc@iddic.UUCP
~| A PROPOSAL: that the subject headers of articles that contain
~| the word ANSI to alert those whose terminals die to use the 'n' key,
~| much like the 'rot13' in jokes. OBVIOUSLY, do NOT use such sequences in
~| subject lines.
~|
Still no good. Not everyone has time to read the headers that carefully.
And the "rn" program even displays the first page of text of the item
along with the header, on fast terminals.
~| FURTHERMORE, use only the 'select graphic rendition' command
~| - these would be the most useful commands. Specifically:
~| <ESC>[0 (normal),<ESC>[1 (bold),<ESC>[4 (underscore),<ESC>[5 (blink),
~| and <ESC>[7 (reverse video).
~|
How about transmitting "^[" to indicate <ESC>? That way, if some other
(e.g., old) news software is interpreting it, it won't do any harm.
However, there's the problem that you wouldn't be able to transmit
the sequence ^[ in a news posting - such as C code posted to net.sources.
~| I KNOW that there are those who will be upset because there will be some
~| articles that they cannot read without going through some contortions;
~| however, do we have to be universally limited to the lowest common denominator?
~| Will it be impossible to try new ideas on the net?
I guess we *all* have to \survive/ with CONVENTIONAL methods
of h i g h l i g h t i n g for now!
Dave Sherman
--
dave at Toronto (CSnet)
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!dave