Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!csri.toronto.edu!wayne
From: wayne@csri.toronto.edu (Wayne Hayes)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Graphics in Minix and which standard to chose.
Summary: What about the ANSI terminal standard?
Keywords: serial modem phone ANSI terminal standard display console graphics
Message-ID: <1990Oct13.140618.3982@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Date: 13 Oct 90 18:06:18 GMT
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 35

A friend of mine is a terminal program guru.  He tells me that the ANSI
terminal standard, which is a superset of full VT100, supports just about
everything you might want to have in tomorrow's terminals -- graphics,
fonts, bold, underline, italics, font sizes, colour, windows, 3-D scrolling
regions (the third dimension being overlapping windows), etc.  In other
words, it should be possible, in the future, to write a desktop publishing
program on a Unix box that uses ANSI terminal codes to drive a terminal over
your 56 Kbaud modem over your phone.  Or a really fancy word processor.  Or
a paint program.  Or a just plain really neat terminal program.  All driven
over a terminal.

To me, this looks like an ideal direction for Minix to go.  It's a superset
of VT100, which is basically what Minix uses for it's terminal output.
This means we can add things incrementally, which is the best way for a
user-supported system like Minix to grow.  At first it won't require any
more than what we already have in terminal drivers except in graphics
mode -- ie, it will look the same as the current Minix console to the
user, except a little slower because it's really in graphics mode.
_Then_, we can start to add all the nifty things that the ANSI standard
requires.  With this, we could even have Minix-to-Minix machine programs
that do all this nifty stuff over the serial line!

The next step would probably be to add simple windowing so we just have,
again, the same text except in multiple windows.  And of course mouse
support would go hand-in-hand with this.  Then cutting, pasting, etc,
then multiple fonts -- geez, this sounds like an incredible path!

Does anyone have any input, ideas, or counter-arguments?  Who says Minix
has to support what's already out there?

-- 
"Dad, what should I be when I grow up?"
"Honest." -- Robert M. Pirsig, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence_.

Wayne Hayes	INTERNET: wayne@csri.utoronto.ca	CompuServe: 72401,3525