Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!fluke!kurt
From: kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.datacomm
Subject: Re: Prodigy
Keywords: garbage, trash net, hellfire
Message-ID: <1991Feb26.172417.4575@tc.fluke.COM>
Date: 26 Feb 91 17:24:17 GMT
References: <1991Feb23.220538.22577@osceola.cs.ucf.edu> <1907@public.BTR.COM> <1991Feb25.061811.6612@infonode.ingr.com>
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 19

I hear that Prodigy uses NAPLPS, an ANSI standard for videotext that
virtually no one else is using.  If this is true, the standard can be had
cheaply from ANSI.  There was also an extensive Byte magazine article about
it in 1983 (six parts).

1.  Does anyone have a working NAPLPS interpreter?
2.  Does Prodigy ALWAYS display the ads in the same part of the screen?  It
    would be sooooo easy to not update that part of the screen, based on my
    cursory inspection of NAPLPS.
3.  It would still be problematical to extract useful data from the NAPLPS
    character stream for storage.
4.  Do you sign an agreement not to reverse-engineer the byte stream when
    you get Prodigy? (probably shouldn't say this too loud...)
5.  It can't possibly be a crime to disable the commercials.  Otherwise we'd
    be a nation of jailbirds (what with remote controls, vcr's and all).

Could there be a revenge more ultimate than building an ad-free prodigy
display for the amiga and then making the sources available to PC and mac
users?