Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!news
From: tcs@mailer.jhuapl.edu (Carl Schelin)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: What is Ansi.sys??
Message-ID: <1990Dec27.181717.6231@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>
Date: 27 Dec 90 18:17:17 GMT
References: <8069.2770a6a0@jetson.uh.edu> <1990Dec22.190906.6442@xrtll.uucp> <1990Dec26.131046.1236@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> <1990Dec27.025815.19617@xrtll.uucp>
Sender: news@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: Johns Hopkins University - Applied Physics Lab
Lines: 60

In article <1990Dec27.025815.19617@xrtll.uucp>, silver@xrtll.uucp (Hi Ho Silver) says:
>
>In article <1990Dec26.131046.1236@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> tcs@mailer.jhuapl.edu (Carl Schelin) writes:
>$I'm sorry, I must respond the the "not terribly" useful quote above. In '85 
>$I was working in a shop where I used a language called MegaBasic. It
>$was very nice (and doesn't work on my current system) and supported 
>$1 meg of program and data which no other basic at the time supported 
>$(at least on the PC and as far as I knew). It was very fast BUT had absolutly
>$no screen control to it. You had to use ANSI.Sys to clear the screen and
>$add color to any program along with locate for screen positioning.
>
>   Yes, there are programs that require ansi.sys; I've seen a couple of
>vi clones that do.  And some such programs may well be technically
>advanced.  But they're still few and far between.
>

Well, I'm definately not saying that they are the most advanced technically,
but I wouldn't call them not terribly useful either.


>
>$Also, as a former (can you ever be former) BBS Sysop, I used ANSI escape
>$sequences for all my screens. 
>
>   Those are handled by the user's comm software rather than by ansi.sys.
>
Hmmm, I don't know if that's true for all packages. I had a few calls from
people wondering why they had all these funny arrows on their screen.
Maybe there are a few modem packages that run the ANSI directly to the
screen rather than try to interpret them. It's been a while since I've been 
modeming... 

There are also the people out in BBS land who want to know how to create 
those type of screens. Why else would there be programs like AnsiAnimator
and TDoodle? I saw a 500k file where someone used an AnsiAnimator to 
create a movie. Very strange and definately not one of your more 
technical programs.

>
>$And, there is still the fancy prompt that awes the occasional user "how
>$did you DO that!?!"
>
>   Heck, I put a dollar sign in my prompt (to distinguish it from the usual
>COMMAND.COM prompt since I'm using my own homemade substitute) and that's
>enough to surprise most people :-)
>-- 
> __            __  _  | ...!nexus.yorku.edu!xrtll!silver |  always
>(__  | | |  | |_  |_) >----------------------------------< searching
> __) | |_ \/  |__ | \ | if you don't like my posts, type |    for
>_____________________/  find / -print|xargs cat|compress |   SNTF

I notice you didn't mention the third item at all. I assume that you are familiar
with programs that run on different platforms? 

:):):)

Still smiling

Carl Schelin
tcs@mailer.jhuapl.edu