Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!decwrl!nsc!pyramid!athertn!paul
From: paul@athertn.Atherton.COM (Paul Sander)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: ANSI is not IBM (was Re: Agate)
Summary: IBM's characters are not the same as ANSI's
Message-ID: <24526@athertn.Atherton.COM>
Date: 29 May 90 01:12:34 GMT
References: <13128@wpi.wpi.edu> <12591@netcom.UUCP>
Reply-To: paul@Atherton.COM (Paul Sander)
Organization: Atherton Technology, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 40

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.
-- 
Paul Sander        (408) 734-9822  | Wisdom is beyond price, my son.  Be
paul@Atherton.COM                  | grateful that you have it.
{decwrl,pyramid,sun}!athertn!paul  | -- Imperius, in "Ladyhawk"