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From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.terminals,sco.opendesktop,comp.unix.programmer
Subject: Re: Why magic cookies? (was: Alternate character modes...)
Message-ID: <10701@scolex.sco.COM>
Date: 10 Mar 91 04:40:41 GMT
References: <1991Mar09.215153.27776@eecs.wsu.edu>
Sender: news@sco.COM
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
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In article <1991Mar09.215153.27776@eecs.wsu.edu> rnelson@yoda.UUCP (Roger Nelson) writes:
>1. Why did terminal manufactures go with magic cookies?  The magic cookies
>   make display attributes useless.

Because memory was expensive, and saving memory by making the attributes
take up a screen position helped the situation.  (They got one byte per
character on the screen; the most common method, nowadays, is to have each
character on the screen take up two bytes:  one for the character, one for
the display attributes.)

-- 
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Sean Eric Fagan  | "*Never* knock on Death's door:  ring the bell and 
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