[comp.sys.apple2] ANSI is not IBM

paul@athertn.Atherton.COM (Paul Sander) (05/29/90)

In article <12591@netcom.UUCP> lyle@netcom.UUCP (Lyle Fong) writes:
>Well.. AGATE is a potentially good product, but currently, it really lacks
>many features.  VT100 is NOT IBM-ANSI..  It is more of a subset of ANSI.
>If you run AGATE, and call a IBM board, any color code will screw up
>the screen.. either with wierd numbers and characters or clear the entire
>screen to unreadable lengths..

[ Additional blasts of AGATE omitted ]

For the record, none of IBM's code pages* (there are several) are ANSI,
even the ones that aren't EBCDIC.  Even IBM admits this.  The standard
code page and escape sequences adopted by ANSI are a subset of the old
VT100 code page and escape sequences.  That means that to be ANSI compliant,
it need not understand any of IBM's special characters or escape sequences
(which change colors, etc.).

>A friend of mine, however, is currently working on a IIgs specific ANSI program.I've seen the beta version, and it really is impressive..  all the IBM
>characters, color.. and all.

[ Implementation details omitted ]

No, he's not writing a program that understands ANSI.  He's writing a program
that understands one of IBM's many code pages and some set of escape sequences.
By the way, IBM's code pages on the PC and its clones and decendants have
changed over the years.  I think your friend will find that if he connects to
a PC, he'll see subtle differences in the characters as compared to the XT,
AT, RT, PS/2, and clones.

>Lyle

* By the way, "code page" is (according to IBM's National Language Support
  Centre in Toronto) the mapping between a character set (e.g. "0123ABCdef"
  and so on) and the way the implementation represents it.  Any ASCII chart
  is one such code page.

Disclaimer:  I've never used AGATE.
-- 
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ericm@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Eric Mulholland) (05/29/90)

>In article <12591@netcom.UUCP> lyle@netcom.UUCP (Lyle Fong) writes:
>>Well.. AGATE is a potentially good product, but currently, it really lacks
>>many features.  VT100 is NOT IBM-ANSI..  It is more of a subset of ANSI.

When I messed with using vt100 on an ansi ibm bbs, the only problem I
came accross is the save/restore cursor codes are different.  And the
bbs I'm thinking of, used them often, probibly because of the way it
stored its graphic images.

>>If you run AGATE, and call a IBM board, any color code will screw up

After reading the first message of this thread, I downloaded agate to
see what it was like.  It uses double hi-res, black and white mode for
its display.  It took me awhile to find apple-4 sets 2400 bps.  I never
did find keys to set parity.  So if you call somewhere that uses parity,
better not count on a readable display.  A local bbs has a multi-color
graphic and agate handled it without any problems, except for not seeing
color.  It did filter out the color commands for me.  As far as speed
goes, it does keep up with 2400 nicely.

In article <24526@athertn.Atherton.COM> paul@Atherton.COM (Paul Sander) writes:
>No, he's not writing a program that understands ANSI.  He's writing a program
>that understands one of IBM's many code pages and some set of escape sequences.

If you have a list of the ANSI escape codes, I'd like to get them.  I have
a communication program I wrote that I would like to add the extra codes
in.  I hope to convert this program to a cda sometime this summer before
I let it loose on everyone.  Currently it's a prodos 8 application.

>By the way, IBM's code pages on the PC and its clones and decendants have
>changed over the years.  I think your friend will find that if he connects to
>a PC, he'll see subtle differences in the characters as compared to the XT,
>AT, RT, PS/2, and clones.

How has it changed?  Certain graphic characters change slightly or change
a lot?  What do I need to watch out for?

New address below.
-- 
     ____
 Y_,_|[]|   Eric Mulholland
{|_|_|__|   ericm@sage.cc.purdue.edu
//oo--OO    ...!pur-ee!sage.cc!ericm

lyle@netcom.UUCP (Lyle Fong) (05/30/90)

Hmm..  never knew that those IBM characters weren't ANSI..  but.. it has been
used interchangably on almost all IBM BBS's..  so..  So, then.. what IS
the ANSI standard?  But.. going back to the original subject, AGATE is not
worth the trouble..  it does not achieve anything ProTERM or another 
term program with VT-100 can achieve..  does have some ANSI characters, but
only a small sub-set of them.

Lyle

-- 

- America Online - Lyle Fong
- OggNET         - Corned Beef (#317/Dragon's Lair)

mquinn@pro-gsplus.cts.com (Michael Quinn) (05/31/90)

In-Reply-To: message from paul@athertn.Atherton.COM

I think what he was referring to was the 'adopted ANSI standard' used by most
IBM bullitin boards.
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