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From: bazyar@ernie (Jawaid Bazyar)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: VT100- why?
Message-ID: <1991Jan15.072832.21995@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 15 Jan 91 07:28:32 GMT
References: <10975@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <1991Jan12.215222.13905@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1991Jan15.023927.18026@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
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In article <1991Jan15.023927.18026@ddsw1.MCS.COM> zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Sameer Parekh) writes:
>	But vt100 is inefficient, to move the cursor to a spot, it is
>ESC[ and then a number in ASCII so if it is two digits that it two bits
>and a ; and another number in ASCII and some ending character. (I forgot
>what.)

   Okay, so instead of 3 characters we have about 8 or 9 to move the cursor.
Curses on Unix was made to minimize cursor movement.  So this is really not
an issue.  BBSs with fancy MouseText pull down menus and such are so 
inefficiently written as to be laughable.  A TRUE Apple specific emulation
would encompass graphics, windows, menus, and the like.

>	If they used the ASCII VALUE for the numbers it would be much
>more efficient.  (And I THINK the terminals would not need as much programming.)
  Actually, interpreting the VT100 numeric codes takes less than 20 lines of
code in C.

>zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM

But for all you people still defending Proterm special, consider this.
VT100 was designed by many very intelligent, knowledgeable people over
the course of a decade.  PTSpecial was "invented" by a high school student.
Take your pick- I choose VT100 because it is orders of magnatude more robust.
Vt100 looks at line noise, blinks, and goes on with it's life.  PTSpecial
goes apeshit (pardon my French) with line noise.  That alone is reason
enough to use Vt100.

--
Jawaid Bazyar               | Being is Mathematics 
Senior/Computer Engineering | Love is Chemistry
bazyar@cs.uiuc.edu          | Sex is Physics
   Apple II Forever!        | Babies are engineering