Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/3/84; site garfield.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!garfield!howard From: howard@garfield.UUCP (Howard . Campbell) Newsgroups: net.misc Subject: A Few Original Prompts... and More To Come! Message-ID: <1680@garfield.UUCP> Date: Mon, 22-Oct-84 17:32:30 EDT Article-I.D.: garfield.1680 Posted: Mon Oct 22 17:32:30 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 25-Oct-84 22:01:42 EDT Reply-To: howard@garfield.UUCP (Howard . Campbell) Organization: Memorial U. of Nfld. C.S. Dept., St. John's Lines: 65 Keywords: prompts vt100 XL87 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Funny prompts? Well, try these one's out! Actually, there is a sort of evolution of prompts, in my case, and here they are! One of my first prompts was: set prompt = " \! \___ " Which, for me, produces 128 \___ ^ cursor sits here. ( or blinks, depending whether you are on a vt100 or other cursor blinking terminal ... ) Then, one day, I thought, well, let's get a bit more wild... and came up with this.... ( Try it out and see! ) set prompt="\E[[2;1f\\!\E[2;75f\\!\E[24;1f = " Note, the escape codes here are for vt100s, and to make the prompt work, you have to make \E a true escape character, as well as convert the escape code to what will work for whatever terminal you'd be using. /* In case someone doesn't know about vt100s, `\E[a;bf' puts the cursor at line a, column f. */ Well, that just was not enough. When I should have been typing in an assignment, (or some other important but less enthralling duty) I got adventurous (and creative, too, I guess...) and produced: set prompt="\E[2;1f\\!\E[2;75f\\!\E[24;1f->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H --> " Well, same applies for this prompt as the one above, this prompt will only work when you pop into your favourite editor and convert the \Es to real ^[s, as well as converting the escape codes. Too, here you must convert the two-character ^Hs to the real thing. My experience is with vt100 and XL87s, and the backspace character works fine with these terminals, but I suspect there may be terminals which will not handle it properly. Well, I think I'll stop here, and let you net-people digest these wonderful creations. ( How vain, eh!?! Actually, around here, some people absolutely barf when they see these things, but often people think them to be quite cute at first. ) Myself, I've several prompts, the rest of which I'll post later. These others are even more bizarre, and rather interesting to behold for the first time. I find, though, that one ignores them after awhile. Still, I much prefer them to the terribly ( to me! ) plain '%'. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Howard Campbell at: --------------------------------------------------------------- {akgua, allegra, dalcs!dreacad, ihnp4, utcsrgv}!garfield!howard Memorial University of Newfoundland ---------------------------------------------------------------