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From: art@MITRE.ARPA (Art McClinton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec.micro
Subject: Re: DEC Rainbow info wanted
Message-ID: <8711121729.AA14737@mitre.arpa>
Date: Thu, 12-Nov-87 12:29:41 EST
Article-I.D.: mitre.8711121729.AA14737
Posted: Thu Nov 12 12:29:41 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Nov-87 20:51:06 EST
References: <2216@sputnik.COM>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The MITRE Corp., Washington, D.C.
Lines: 69

Craig

This is a very appropriate use of the net.

1) You can not control the color on the screen of the rainbow as you can on
the IBM PC.  I however have fed the green signal to both green, blue and red
to allow the color to be white.  It is also possible to mix it in to fewer to
get other colors.  

2) The ANSI line drawing charaters are the lower case characters when the
character set is ANSI graphics.  This can be performed by sending an 
escape sequence to the screen.

3) The I drive is a separate IBM PC compatible drive.  The net has had some
information concerning the replacement of the RX50 with a quad density 
double sided drive.  I can forward that message if you want.  

4) Used controllers are now becoming available.  Also the CHS contoller is
reported to be a reasonable solution.


 
     
*
*---Art
*
*Arthur T. McClinton Jr.     ARPA: ART@MITRE.ARPA
*Mitre Corporation MS-Z305   Phone: 703-883-6356
*1820 Dolley Madison Blvd    Internal Mitre: ART@MWVMS or M10319@MWVM
*McLean, Va. 22102           DECUS DCS: MCCLINTON
*

  =-=- This note is in response to yours which follows -=-=

Wanted:  Information on DEC Rainbow

I operate a DEC RB 100+ with ram full-up, graphics, color monitor, and 10
MByte disk, as well as having the dubious privilege of owning a similar, but
diskless 100B at home.  Lately I have been using the machine a lot more, which
has led to attempts at more understanding.  I would greatly appreciate help
on the following questions:

1.  Is there a way to change screen foreground and background color attribute,
such as with ANSI escape sequences?  The IBM usage is {ESC}[nnm, where nn from
30-37 is foreground and 40-47 is background, but the rainbow doesn't
understand this.

2.  Is there a convenient way to type the DEC line graphic characters to the
screen?  Again, with an IBM, ALT-nnn ( on the keypad) will yield the decimal
character nnn.

3.  How different is the RX-50 drive interface from a standard 360 kB drive?
In other words, what does the commercially available IDrive do to make a
standard drive play?  I would like to put a 1/2 height 360 kB floppy and a 20
M hard disk on my machine at home at _minimum_ cost.  (Drives are cheap, the
controllers seem prohibitive.)

Incidently, I use WordPerfect (as do most of the ~150 Rainbow users at this
site).  I recently received a new newsletter from WordPerfect Corp, which
didn't mention support for our favorite doorstop.  However, after a phone call
I am awaiting an update to the faster version and will report if it arrives and
works.  The slow version is 4.2 release date 12/22/86; the new one supposedly
4.2 rel. date 9/8/87.

ps.  This is my first posting.  If you think it an inappropriate use of the
net, please let me know via email.
-- 
Craig Johnston (salt@tc.fluke.com), John Fluke Mfg. Co., Everett, WA, USA
{uw-beaver,lbl-csam,hplsla,ssc-vax,microsoft,sun,allegra,...}!fluke!salt