Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!julian!uwovax!16012_3045
From: 16012_3045@uwovax.uwo.ca (Paul Gomme)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Detecting ANSI.SYS
Message-ID: <1978@uwovax.uwo.ca>
Date: 1 Apr 89 15:35:44 GMT
References: <1920@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Lines: 17
Organisation: Department of Economics, UWO, London, Ontario, Canada

In article <1920@dataio.Data-IO.COM>, bright@Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright) writes:
> I'm looking for a reliable and portable way of determining if ANSI.SYS or
> an equivalent driver (NANSI.SYS, FANSI.SYS, ANSI.COM, etc) is loaded.
> It should also work with versions of MSDOS that have ANSI.SYS built in
> (like the Japanese versions).

> My purpose is to write a portable program that can use ANSI stuff to dress
> up the screen, but will revert to a dumb line-by-line mode if it's not
> present.

Get the current cursor position (using ANSI control sequences).  Then move the
cursor (using ANSI control sequences), and get the cursor position.  If the
cursor isn't where you put it, ANSI.SYS isn't installed.  Only problem with
this technique is that if ANSI.SYS isn't installed, the user will see a bunch
of garbage.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Gomme        Bitnet:  gomme@uwovax.bitnet      ARPA:    gomme@uwo.ca