Title screen for HLA Adventure? Need help designing one
dun...@yahoo.com
would be interested in designing an ASCII multi-colored
title screen for my game HLA Adventure?
One featuring a dragon, with perhaps a castle and a small
hillside with trees in the background?
I will, of course, credit your work in both the source
code of HLA Adventure and the game itself.
Please e-mail a screen design to me at: dun...@yahoo.com
The website for HLA Adventure is located at:
http://members.tripod.com/~panks/hlaadv.html
Thanks!
Paul
dun...@yahoo.com
online.
See: mippyasc.zip in the "Files" section of "aoaprogramming" (on Yahoo!
groups).
When something better is developed, I'll remove the file.
Paul
Jukka Aho
> I'm not much of an artist, but I was wondering if anyone
> would be interested in designing an ASCII multi-colored
> title screen for my game HLA Adventure?
Try asking in alt.ascii-art or rec.arts.ascii. (What's "HLA", anyway?)
You might also want to specify a) what is the exact character set you
have at your disposal for this purpose (pure ASCII? ISO Latin 1? IBM
Codepage 437? PETSCII? Something else?) and b) which colors are usable
(16-color PC-style interpretation of the "ANSI" colors, or the original
8-color scheme? Something else?)
--
znark
dun...@yahoo.com
language by Randall Hyde.
Paul
JohnnyMrNinja
http://www.syaross.org/thedraw/
It can also save to ANSI, or even Pascal.
JohnnyMrNinja
   ÚÄÄ¿
Ú¿ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³
ÖÒÒÒÒ´ÃijÄijijÄÄijÄijڿڴ³³Ú¿Ú¿Å³³Ú¿Ú¿
ÓÐÐÐдÃͳÍͳͳÍÍͳÍͳôÀÙÀÙÀij³³ÀÙ³
ÀÄ
ÀÙ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³
Á Á ÁÄÄÙÁ Á
I know that when a lot of people say ASCII they mean plain-text, but
this is an actual ASCII thing I just did in TheDraw. If you save it to
HLA.txt and "TYPE HLA.TXT" in DOS or full-screen DOS window it should
work, I think. No dragons or anything, just an example of what can be
done in TheDraw. Except, you can also save in color and what-not.
JohnnyMrNinja
Katzy
JohnnyMrNinja wrote in message
<1118809590.8...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>...
>Okay, I don't think that worked at all. Sorry.
Yes, it did. I could read it (HLA Adventure). Nice. There was just one
line-break.
Greetz, Katzy.
Beth
> I'm not much of an artist, but I was wondering if anyone
> would be interested in designing an ASCII multi-colored
> title screen for my game HLA Adventure?
>
> One featuring a dragon, with perhaps a castle and a small
> hillside with trees in the background?
Okay, I had a go...no trees or dragons (I'm not Rolf Harris, don't push it!
;)...but it's a castle with some hills in the distance and a moat and
drawbridge...and a portculis, of course, to keep that dragon out of the
castle ;)...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
,'
__ ___ __ ,'
| |___| |___| | _ ,'
| |' | ,'_______________
|_________________|-/__ _ _ _ | _
\_______________/ | |_| |_| |_| |_| / \ /
| |__ | ____ ___ | ___ | | ___ |
__ ____ | | ||__| |___| |_|_| |___| |_
\______ ___/ \_| _ |___________________________________
\__ __/ | / \ | __________
\_/ | | | | /\ /\ /| | |
\_ | | | | || || /-+---+---+-
________________\___________| === | -- -- || | | |
| | |--+---+---+-
_| | || | | |
_,' | | |--+---+---+-
_,' | | || | | |
,' ,| | |--+---+---+-
,' ,' | |_______________________|/\|/ \|/ \|/
| | \_____________/ /
| \_ __________ /
\ \___________________/ \______/
', /
',_________________________________________/
/_________________
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have no idea how I post "colour" for this either...so, it's colourless
and you'll have to put that in yourself...obviously, the drawbridge should
be brown (wood), the castle grey (stone), the moat dark blue (water) and
the sky...well, sky blue, obviously...the rest is green (grass)...
There should be enough room there in the top-left of the picture to put
some "HLA adventure" logo...and it should also fit a 80 x 25 screen...
As for a "dragon" and "trees"? Don't ask me...I'm no good at that kind of
thing...I don't know...if someone else can draw a small "dragon" for you
then you can just "paste" it on top of the mostly empty space on the left,
perhaps...I've kind of left that space empty for the dragon, anyway...
As you can see, inside the outer walls of the castle, there's a building in
the middle with a sloping roof...I'm thinking that this is the big "banquet
hall" where the "king" or "baron" or whoever it is that owns this castle
has their "feasts" with invited "noble" guests and that kind of
thing...though you can't see it, I guess the "kitchens" would be a slightly
smaller building adjoining it, where the meals would be prepared and cooked
then brought through to the main "banquet hall"...which would have these
very long wooden tables (you know, like in the Harry Potter movies :),
where the guests would be seated...perhaps having some "wild boar" or, if
it were a king, then it might be a bit more "posh" and they'd eat "deer",
hunted from the King's forest nearby (though, the peasants should keep out
of the King's forest, lest be branded a "poacher" - a "deer thief" - which
carried a very serious punishment)...
Sorry about the lack of dragons and trees (I think that goes beyond my
ASCII art abilities there ;)...but it's the castle and the hills, anyway...
Right, let's see if this will even post properly, without screwing up the
ASCII picture...
Beth :)
Beth
Those "hills" were a bit crap...I've tried to "smooth" them out a bit more
to look a bit nicer...and I've attempted a simple "logo" there too (which
partially covers the "crap hills", anyway ;)...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_ _ _ _____ ,'
/ \ / \ / \ / _ \ __ ___ __ ,'
| |_| | | | | |_| | | |___| |___| | _ ,'
| _ | | | | _ | | |' | ,'_______________
| | | | | |____ | | | | |_________________|-/__ _ _ _ | _
\_/ \_/ \_____/ \_/ \_/ \_______________/ | |_| |_| |_| |_| / \ /
===================== | |__ | ___ ___ | ___ | | ___ |
A D V E N T U R E __ | | ||__| |___| |_|_| |___| |_
`'=====================` `'| _ |____________________________________
`',_ _,'` | / \ | __________
',_,' | | | | /\ /\ /| | |
', | | | | || || /-+---+---+-
________________\___________| === | -- -- || | | |
| | |--+---+---+-
_| | || | | |
_,' | | |--+---+---+-
_,' | | || | | |
,' ,| | |--+---+---+-
,' ,' | |_______________________|/\|/ \|/ \|/
| | \_____________/ /
| \_ __________ /
\ \___________________/ \______/
', /
',_________________________________________/
/_________________
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...but, no, I'm not attempting the "dragon"...though, he could be lying down or
something next to the castle there on the left-side on the grass, in front of
the castle...that's the "reserved space" for the dragon, anyway...
How would I send "colours" for this picture, anyway?
Beth :)
Evenbit
JohnnyMrNinja wrote:
> Â Â Â ÚÄÄż
> Úż ł ł ł ł ł
> ÖŇŇŇŇ´ĂÄłÄijijÄÄÄłÄÄłÚżÚ´łłÚżÚżĹłłÚżÚż
> ÓĐĐĐĐ´ĂÍłÍͳͳÍÍÍłÍͳôŔŮŔŮŔÄłłłŔŮł
> ŔÄ
> ŔŮ ł ł ł ł ł
> Á Á ÁÄÄŮÁ Á
>
Doesn't look very 'artful' in ASCII, but you are probably trying to
post ANSI and I don't think USENET has been upgraded to that yet.
> I know that when a lot of people say ASCII they mean plain-text, but
> this is an actual ASCII thing I just did in TheDraw. If you save it to
> HLA.txt and "TYPE HLA.TXT" in DOS or full-screen DOS window it should
> work, I think. No dragons or anything, just an example of what can be
> done in TheDraw. Except, you can also save in color and what-not.
On most PCs, this requires a "DEVICE=ANSI.SYS" line in "CONFIG.SYS" to
display ANSI graphics on DOS or in a DOS box. Windows console mode may
have ANSI support built-in, maybe not (perhaps why Paul was asking for
plain ASCII?).
Evenbit
The castle doesn't seem to be teamming with life. Perhaps the dragon
is 'inside' enjoying a nice ...uh-hum... meal. ;-)
>
> How would I send "colours" for this picture, anyway?
I see your 'puter didn't come with the cayon input device either...
grey...@gmaildo.ttocom
I remember ASCII art on bulletin board login screens, some very
artistic, all a pain to download at 1200... After a while one noticed
a message at bottom of screen, saying `Hit <Esc> to enter immediatly',
one had a scene of an oasis. They are probably archived somewhere.
--
greymaus
97.025% of statistics are wrong
Ross Presser
> Doesn't look very 'artful' in ASCII, but you are probably trying to
> post ANSI and I don't think USENET has been upgraded to that yet.
It's not exactly ANSI - it's 8-bit ASCII, using the CP437 encoding (the
original IBM PC line drawing characters). If you view it in Notepad using
the Windows "Terminal" font, it should display close to correctly.
"@comcast >
>>How would I send "colours" for this picture, anyway?
>
> I see your 'puter didn't come with the cayon input device either...
:)
The HLA Standard Library has portable routines to set colors. The Linux
version sends VT-100 codes ("ansi escape sequences"). The Windows
version uses an API (which probably sends ansi escape sequences).
Best,
Frank
Beth
> Beth wrote:
> > ...but, no, I'm not attempting the "dragon"...though, he could be lying down
or
> > something next to the castle there on the left-side on the grass, in front
of
> > the castle...that's the "reserved space" for the dragon, anyway...
>
> The castle doesn't seem to be teamming with life.
It's a castle! Everyone's gone inside!
Its use as a "means of defence" would be slightly "compromised", if no-one
actually went _INSIDE_ of the defensive castle walls...and its use as a
"building" (a means to escape wind, rain and cold) would not quite work, unless
you actually went _INSIDE_ the castle's buildings...
You can _try_ to standing outside the castle...and, well, just stand around
looking at it...but should those enemy troops show up or it starts pissing down
with down on your head, the wisdom of NOT standing around outside the castle all
day long might eventually dawn on you :)
> Perhaps the dragon
> is 'inside' enjoying a nice ...uh-hum... meal. ;-)
Perhaps the dragon isn't in the picture because some knight skewered him with a
lance...and that's why everyone's gone inside: They are all enjoying the rare
but delicious treat of "dragon burgers and chips"...with, of course, a can of
Dr.Pepper to wash it down...I've heard that dragon meat tastes a bit like
chicken, apparently...
> > How would I send "colours" for this picture, anyway?
>
> I see your 'puter didn't come with the cayon input device either...
No, really...how _DO_ I send colour information for the picture?
Is there some kind of "standard" for sending colour information in ASCII art?
Mind you, the picture may need "alterations" to make it work properly with
colour...as I wasn't really giving it any thought about colour whilst drawing...
Beth :)
Jukka Aho
> No, really...how _DO_ I send colour information for the picture?
>
> Is there some kind of "standard" for sending colour information in
> ASCII art?
There is a real standard without any quotation marks. Try ECMA-48 [1]
("Control Functions for Coded Character Sets"), section 8.3.117 ("SGR -
Select Graphic Rendition"). That's what traditional VTxxx-derived color
terminals, modern color-enabled terminal emulators and - God forbid -
ANSI.SYS in MS-DOS use.
In dial-up BBS world, the same thing (being based on a standard called
ANSI X3.64, which is apparently pretty much identical to ECMA-94 - I'm
not sure which one came first) was known as "ANSI colors", although
that's a little bit too vague name for it and some people are known to
frown upon that term.
This Wikipedia article explains it all quite well:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_art>
Note that the article also provides links to some software tools with
which you can easily create colorful "ANSI graphics" on your own.
(However, make sure that you know where the pictures are going to end
up. For example, if you create color graphics for UNIX environments, you
would probably want to avoid using the IBM codepage 437 graphics
characters. Although they were used extensively in the dial-up BBS
world, UNIX environments usually prefer Latin-1 or the earlier DEC
Multinational character set instead.)
_____
[1] <http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/
Ecma-094.htm>
--
znark
Jim Carlock
кП Г Г Г Г Г
жввввДУФГФФГФГФФФГФФГкПкДГГкПкПХГГкПкП
гааааДУЭГЭЭГЭГЭЭЭГЭЭГУДРйРйРФГГГРйГ РФ
Рй Г Г Г Г Г
С С СФФйС С
Is that what it's supposed to look like?
--
Jim Carlock
Please post replies to newsgroup.
Jim Carlock
Search for tdraw463. I can't seem to get ANSI.SYS loaded up
inside the cmd.exe prompt nor the command.com prompt on XP,
but the program there will load(?) an ansi platform to properly
display the colors.
http://artscene.textfiles.com/viewers/dos/
Beth was asking about how to display the ansi characters.
On DOS systems you'd need:
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS
inside the config.sys.
The config.nt is supposed to work in the same manner that the
config.sys file worked (on an NT system for the NT command
prompts) but I'm doing something wrong or I need to reboot or
somesuch. If anyone has a clue about this, let me know, please.
There's an ANSI.SYS file inside the system32 folder, as well as
the config.nt file. Copied the config.nt file to the %UserProfile%
folder and tried that but that didn't quite get it either.
mensa...@aol.com
I don't have ANSI.SYS installed either, but what I do have installed
is Cygwin (a Unix-like shell that runs under Windows). In Cygwin,
I can compile the following program which outputs ANSI codes to draw
a red, white and blue flag.
/*
flag-ansi.c 22-nov-89
*/
#define esc 27
main()
{
int c;
printf("%c[H%c[J",esc,esc);
printf("%c[37;44m",esc);
printf(" * * * * * * "); stripe(1,46);
printf("%c[37;44m",esc);
printf(" * * * * * "); stripe(1,46);
printf("%c[37;44m",esc);
printf(" * * * * * * "); stripe(0,46);
printf("%c[37;44m",esc);
printf(" * * * * * "); stripe(0,46);
printf("%c[37;44m",esc);
printf(" * * * * * * "); stripe(1,46);
printf("%c[37;44m",esc);
printf(" * * * * * "); stripe(1,46);
printf("%c[37;44m",esc);
printf(" * * * * * * "); stripe(0,46);
printf("%c[37;44m",esc);
printf(" * * * * * "); stripe(0,46);
printf("%c[37;44m",esc);
printf(" * * * * * * "); stripe(1,46);
printf("%c[37;44m",esc);
printf(" * * * * * "); stripe(1,46);
printf("%c[37;44m",esc);
printf(" * * * * * * "); stripe(0,46);
printf("%c[37;44m",esc);
printf(" "); stripe(0,46);
for (c=1; c<=3; ++c)
{
stripe(1,80); stripe(1,80);
stripe(0,80); stripe(0,80);
}
stripe(1,80); stripe(1,80);
}
stripe(bold,size)
int bold,size;
{
int i;
if (bold > 0)
printf("%c[41m",esc);
else
printf("%c[47m",esc);
for (i=1; i<size; ++i)
putchar(' ');
printf("%c[0m\n",esc);
}
When the compiled program is run from either the Cygwin shell or
the standard Windows cmd window, the flag comes out perfect.
I would guess the Cygwin.dll needed by the compiled program is
providing the ANSI interpretation.
If the text is captured to a file, say flagtest.txt, then from
Cygwin
$ cat flagtest.txt
displays correctly, but from Windows cmd
C:\cygwin\home\mensanator\cstuff>type flagtest.txt
does not.
L. Ross Raszewski
If you happen to have Masterpieces, there's a command line program
that provides the same functionality as ansi.sys. It might be a
little more friendly toward modern systems.
Steve O'Hara-Smith
"Jim Carlock" <anon...@localhost.com> wrote:
> _ _ _ __Ŀ
> ڿ _ _ _ _ _
> ____Ҵ_ij_ijij__ij_ijڿڴ__ڿڿų_ڿڿ
> ____д_ͳ_ͳͳ__ͳ_ͳô_____ij___ٳ __
> __ _ _ _ _ _
> _ _ _____ _
>
>
> Is that what it's supposed to look like?
You should see what that looks like on a system set for UTF8 :)
--
C:>WIN | Directable Mirror Arrays
The computer obeys and wins. | A better way to focus the sun
You lose and Bill collects. | licences available see
| http://www.sohara.org/
Randy Howard
Johnny...@gmail.com says...
> I highly reccomend you check out TheDraw, a text-mode drawing program -
> http://www.syaross.org/thedraw/
> It can also save to ANSI, or even Pascal.
Wow... major flashback. Last time I used that program was probably
sometime around 1988. Back in the Fido/Opus/RBBS days. :-)
--
Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR)
"I don't really care about being right you know,
I just care about success." --Steve Jobs
JohnnyMrNinja
Evenbit wrote:
> JohnnyMrNinja wrote:
> > Â Â Â ÚÄÄ¿
> > Ú¿ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³
> > ÖÒÒÒÒ´ÃijÄijijÄÄijÄijڿڴ³³Ú¿Ú¿Å³³Ú¿Ú¿
> > ÓÐÐÐдÃͳÍͳͳÍÍͳÍͳôÀÙÀÙÀij³³ÀÙ³
> > ÀÄ
> > ÀÙ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³
> > Á Á ÁÄÄÙÁ Á
> >
>
> Doesn't look very 'artful' in ASCII, but you are probably trying to
> post ANSI and I don't think USENET has been upgraded to that yet.
>
> > I know that when a lot of people say ASCII they mean plain-text, but
> > this is an actual ASCII thing I just did in TheDraw. If you save it to
> > HLA.txt and "TYPE HLA.TXT" in DOS or full-screen DOS window it should
> > work, I think. No dragons or anything, just an example of what can be
> > done in TheDraw. Except, you can also save in color and what-not.
>
> On most PCs, this requires a "DEVICE=ANSI.SYS" line in "CONFIG.SYS" to
> display ANSI graphics on DOS or in a DOS box. Windows console mode may
> have ANSI support built-in, maybe not (perhaps why Paul was asking for
> plain ASCII?).
Sorry to drag this thread into an ANSI discussion, but I'm still trying
to understand this. I learned computers as a kid by studying .bat files
and using programs like TheDraw and Turbo Pascal (my old computer
belonged to a father of a friend who worked at some big software
company, before his wife kicked him out; in one box the disks where all
bright-orange and labeled 'Warning: Virus!').
I always assumed that these characters where the extended ASCII set,
that was thrown out when Bill Gates decided we should start caring
about foriegn languages. So on a Unicode computer, a "happy face" would
be Ò or something. But you are saying that these are ANSI
characters... which is a bit confusing.
Do these two formats overlap? Or does one pick up where the other left
off? If you TYPE FILE.TXT in a non-ANSI DOS system, does it show
anything? Or does loading ANSI.SYS over-ride pre-existing ASCII
characters?
For example, if you use TheDraw and save a file, two options you have
for formats are ANSI and ASCII. The image above was saved in ASCII. Are
they lying to me (if they are I will *HUNT THEM DOWN*!!!!)(or not).
Jukka Aho
> Sorry to drag this thread into an ANSI discussion, but I'm still
> trying to understand this. I learned computers as a kid by studying
> .bat files and using programs like TheDraw and Turbo Pascal (my old
> computer belonged to a father of a friend who worked at some big
> software company, before his wife kicked him out; in one box the
> disks where all bright-orange and labeled 'Warning: Virus!').
>
> I always assumed that these characters where the extended ASCII set,
> that was thrown out when Bill Gates decided we should start caring
> about foriegn languages.
The MS-DOS era block-drawing characters, happy faces & such belong to
IBM Codepage 437, also sometimes referenced to as "IBM Extended ASCII".
Codepage 437 already contains many accented characters as well.
The support for international characters was further extended with the
introduction of Codepage 850, which I believe contains all the same
characters as ISO 8859-1 (Latin 1), though in different code positions,
plus most of the old block drawing characters (even though some of the
ones that existed in 437 had to be sacrificed.)
Windows, to my knowledge, has always used a derivation of ISO 8859-1
(Latin 1), though Microsoft has added in new characters in unused code
positions and calls this superset "Windows codepage 1252"
Then where did ISO 8859-1 (Latin 1) come from? It is itself a derivation
(and a slightly modified superset) of the "DEC Multinational" character
set, which is (or was) used in dumb character-cell based VT-xxx video
terminals.
> So on a Unicode computer, a "happy face" would be Ò or something.
The "happy face" character in IBM Codepage 437 occupies the character
code position 0x01 (or 0x02, if you want the filled happy face instead
of just an outline.) This is somewhat problematic, since normal terminal
emulations should consider this an unprintable control code. I'm pretty
sure Unicode considers the character code 0x01 "undefined" or a legacy
control code as well, without assigning any symbol to it.
> But you are saying that these are ANSI characters... which is
> a bit confusing.
The IBM PC + clones + MS-DOS world was filled with this kind of sloppy
language. There are no "ANSI characters". If someone from PC / MS-DOS
background is talking about "ANSI characters" they are referring to the
"IBM Extended ASCII" character set (in other words, "IBM Codepage 437",
which is usable in its entirety even without loading the "ANSI.SYS"
driver.)
> Do these two formats overlap? Or does one pick up where the other
> left off? If you TYPE FILE.TXT in a non-ANSI DOS system, does it
> show anything? Or does loading ANSI.SYS over-ride pre-existing
> ASCII characters?
ANSI.SYS simply adds VT-xxx style terminal emulation capabilities on top
of COMMAND.COM, allowing you to position the cursor, change the colors
etc. using ANSI X.34 (or ECMA-94) escape codes.
(IIRC ANSI.SYS was quite slow and there were better 3rd party
alternatives for it.)
> For example, if you use TheDraw and save a file, two options you have
> for formats are ANSI and ASCII. The image above was saved in ASCII.
> Are they lying to me (if they are I will *HUNT THEM DOWN*!!!!)(or
> not).
It's just another example of the kind of sloppy terminology that was
prevalent in those days. With "ANSI", they're referring to the ANSI X.34
color codes the "ANSI.SYS" driver provides. With "ASCII", they're
referring to not using those color codes, but contrary to what the label
says, TheDraw does not in any way ensure that the end result would be
pure ASCII (it does not filter the character codes 128...255 away), so
the resulting file will contain all Codepage 437 (or 850, or whatever
codepage you were using) "Extended ASCII" characters if you have used
them. (That's not a problem in MS-DOS environment, though, since - as
noted above - even if you don't load ANSI.SYS, you can still use all
characters.)
--
znark
jmfb...@aol.com
Steve O'Hara-Smith <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 01:44:38 GMT
>"Jim Carlock" <anon...@localhost.com> wrote:
>
>> _ _ _ __Ŀ
>> ڿ _ _ _ _ _
>> ____Ҵ_ij_ijij__ij_ijڿڴ__ڿڿų_ڿڿ
>> ____д_ͳ_ͳͳ__ͳ_ͳô_____ij___ٳ __
>> __ _ _ _ _ _
>> _ _ _____ _
>>
>>
>> Is that what it's supposed to look like?
>
> You should see what that looks like on a system set for UTF8 :)
It looks like upsidedown Polish playing horseshoes to my TTY.
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
JohnnyMrNinja
Jukka Aho wrote:
(a lot of big words)
Thank you for the incredibly articulate reply. It took me a couple
turns, but it finally sunk in.
Just to be sure, I looked up some of your other Usenet posts, at
http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=&start=0&enc_author=D3PrTBAAAACQBxjOrkrNYwvJW2bfk89k&
Those that weren't in "Secret Code", I still couldn't understand, as
you know far too many words. This confirms my suspicions that you are
an encyclopedia with internet access. Or maybe a very smart person. But
probably the first one.
And again, thanks.
Jukka Aho
> Those that weren't in "Secret Code", I still couldn't understand,
> as you know far too many words.
That's because I invent them as I go.
--
znark
Annie
On 2005-06-16 JohnnyMrNinja said:
> Those that weren't in "Secret Code", I still couldn't
> understand, as you know far too many words...
_____
Look, Johnny, this is all ((( `\
very simple. _ _`\ )
(^ ) )
'ANSI' has nothing...NOTHING ~-( )
to do with what 'characters' _'((,,,)))
are displayed on the screen. ,-' \_/ `\
( , |
ANSI is just a way to control `-.-'`-.-'/|_|
different things that HAPPEN \ / | |
on the screen...such as where =()=: / ,' aa
to put the cursor, what colors
to display...things like that.
ANSI is a sequence of characters that have a special
meaning to the screen.
An ANSI sequence always starts with the ESCAPE character
(ASCII 27, a left-arrow character).
That's an 'attention-getter;' it tells the screen that
some instructions are about to arrive.
The ESCAPE character is then followed by a string of
other characters that have a particular meaning to the
screen.
For instance, ESC followed by '[2J' is the ANSI code that
means 'clear the screen.'
So...ANSI is a string of characters that control different
things that HAPPEN on the screen.
ANSI has nothing to do with what characters APPEAR on the
screen. There's no such thing as an 'ANSI character.'
Have you got this so far? Good. It's pretty simple.
Okay. Now...here's what ASCII is:
ASCII is the actual CHARACTERS -- the letters, the numbers,
and the punctuation marks -- that can be displayed on the
screen to form words and sentences.
Standard ASCII starts with the 'space' character (decimal 32),
and goes up through the '~' character (decimal 126).
But there are some other characters, too...such as the 'smiley
face,' and the 'musical note.' These are located below the
standard ASCII characters. They're called LOW ASCII charac-
ters. They're the ones from decimal 0 through decimal 31.
And there's even more! There are a whole bunch of 'box
drawing' characters, and funny Greek letters, and various
letters with accents (like the French 'e'), and stuff like
that.
These are located above the standard ASCII alphabetical
characters, and they're called HIGH ASCII characters.
They go from decimal 127 through decimal 255.
So ASCII simply refers to the actual, individual characters
that can be displayed on the screen.
And remember, there are 3 different groups of ASCII characters:
LOW ASCII........0 through 31
STANDARD ASCII...32 through 126
HIGH ASCII.......127 through 255
What you need is an 'ASCII Table.' It's a little chart that
shows all of the ASCII characters, and also shows the number
that corresponds to each of those ASCII characters.
Once you have an ASCII Table, all of this will make sense
to you.
If you have any computer books, look in the back of them.
Almost every computer book has an ASCII table in it, some-
where.
If you don't have any computer books, go to the Google
search engine (http://www.google.com), and search for the
term 'ASCII Table.' ASCII Tables are available on thousands
of different web sites.
Well, that's about it. It's really easy. Find an ASCII Table,
then have fun with all those funky characters!
rand...@earthlink.net
Annie wrote:
> On 2005-06-16 JohnnyMrNinja said:
>
> > Those that weren't in "Secret Code", I still couldn't
> > understand, as you know far too many words...
> _____
> Look, Johnny, this is all ((( `\
> very simple. _ _`\ )
> (^ ) )
> 'ANSI' has nothing...NOTHING ~-( )
> to do with what 'characters' _'((,,,)))
> are displayed on the screen. ,-' \_/ `\
> ( , |
> ANSI is just a way to control `-.-'`-.-'/|_|
> different things that HAPPEN \ / | |
> on the screen...such as where =()=: / ,' aa
> to put the cursor, what colors
> to display...things like that.
Ah, yes. The world view according to someone who has grown up on DOS
and never learned anything else since then :-)
Sorry, Annie, but the term ANSI actually means something besides
ANSI.SYS (an old DOS terminal screen device driver).
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
Mike Snyder
news:1118938313.0...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Ah, yes. The world view according to someone who has grown up on DOS
> and never learned anything else since then :-)
>
> Sorry, Annie, but the term ANSI actually means something besides
> ANSI.SYS (an old DOS terminal screen device driver).
Yeah. It means American National Standards Institute, and if I'm not
mistaken, there are ANSI standards for a number of things. If you put it in
the context of the current discussion, then she's right. Although back in
the DOS and BBS days, it was more accurate to say "ANSI graphics" -- but
there was no confusion either way.
--- Mike.
grey...@gmaildo.ttocom
And you have revealed the secret US plan to integrate Iraq, and 11
more states, into the Union :)))
Beth
> Beth wrote:
> > Is there some kind of "standard" for sending colour information in
> > ASCII art?
>
> There is a real standard without any quotation marks. Try ECMA-48 [1]
> ("Control Functions for Coded Character Sets"), section 8.3.117 ("SGR -
> Select Graphic Rendition"). That's what traditional VTxxx-derived color
> terminals, modern color-enabled terminal emulators and - God forbid -
> ANSI.SYS in MS-DOS use.
Okay, cool...thanks...
Will that actually show up on the newsgroup? Or will it just look like crap
until fed to an actual "terminal" that understands it?
No, wait...consider that question "rhetorical"...I'll stop pestering you...the
simple way to find out, of course, is for me to actually read those references
(RTFM)...and then just "give it a go"...
Beth :)
P.S. Sorry about the "quotation marks", as I am an "obsessive" with their
use...just think of it as a kind of "facial tick" that you just look the other
way and pretend you don't see, so as not to cause any embarassment by drawing
attention to it ;)
Beth
> The "happy face" character in IBM Codepage 437 occupies the character
> code position 0x01 (or 0x02, if you want the filled happy face instead
> of just an outline.) This is somewhat problematic, since normal terminal
> emulations should consider this an unprintable control code. I'm pretty
> sure Unicode considers the character code 0x01 "undefined" or a legacy
> control code as well, without assigning any symbol to it.
UNICODE is completely identical to ASCII for the first 127 character
positions...which, yes, means that it's all "control codes" up to 20h (space)...
But, one of the intentions with UNICODE was to provide "round-trip
compatibility" with all major standards currently in use (which simply means
that if you convert from some standard to UNICODE then convert back to the
original standard, you should suffer no "information loss"...another way to put
it: Though they may be in different positions, UNICODE tries to include all the
characters found in all the other major standards)...
Hence, the "happy face" is to be found in UNICODE at U+263A and U+263B (the
first is the "white happy face" (outline) and the second is "black happy face"
(filled)...apparently, the two happy faces is meant to be "racial equality",
judging by these "official names"...though, wouldn't the colours selected
actually determine if the faces are "black" or "white"? Indeed, I think
"outline" and "filled" might actually be more appropriate names...but, there you
are, I don't work for UNICODE, so my opinion is irrelevent and the names are
"WHITE SMILING FACE" and "BLACK SMILING FACE" - pardon the SHOUTING but UNICODE
names officially are always in ALL CAPS to avoid "case" issues - like it or
not)...
Also, the range U+2500 to U+257F supplies the familiar "box drawing characters"
from IBM's "extended ASCII"...plus, "extends" it a little with rounded corners,
diagonal lines as well as "bold line" box characters, as well as the usual
"single" and "double" line stuff that was in the IBM character set...
Because of the "round-trip compatibility", then all the characters in that "IBM
extended ASCII" set can be found in UNICODE...somewhere...you just have to "hunt
them down" amongst the thousands of characters, as, though they are there,
they've "moved positions"...
By the same token, all the Postscript "dingbats" are included too...a whole
range of "mathematical operators"...geometric shapes...and so forth...that, in
fact, UNICODE is a very good character set just to get all these "funny
characters" and "dingbats" by itself (it must have more of them than any other
character set), even if you don't really care for the more famous "international
languages" part of UNICODE...
Of course, the real problem with UNICODE is that it might "define" all these
characters...but if you haven't "got the right fonts installed" for the
characters to actually show up on the screen, then having the characters
"defined" is not greatly useful when you can't actually see them on the screen!
;)
Beth :)
"@comcast >
>> Look, Johnny, this is all ((( `\
>> very simple. _ _`\ )
>> (^ ) )
>> 'ANSI' has nothing...NOTHING ~-( )
>> to do with what 'characters' _'((,,,)))
>> are displayed on the screen. ,-' \_/ `\
>> ( , |
>> ANSI is just a way to control `-.-'`-.-'/|_|
>> different things that HAPPEN \ / | |
>> on the screen...such as where =()=: / ,' aa
>> to put the cursor, what colors
>> to display...things like that.
>
>
> Ah, yes. The world view according to someone who has grown up on DOS
> and never learned anything else since then :-)
>
> Sorry, Annie, but the term ANSI actually means something besides
> ANSI.SYS (an old DOS terminal screen device driver).
American National Standards Institute, is it not? (I'm a dos-head, too,
and too lazy to look it up, but that's my recollection) They set
standards for many things besides screen control - but that's what we're
talking about hete.
I don't know about ANSI (as in "ansi.sys"), but there seem to be VT-100
(? or *something*) sequences in Linux that *do* load another character
set. At least, printing a torrent of "garbage" to the screen (as
sometimes happens...) sometimes leaves the terminal printing "garbage"
forever after. (well, I'm sure there's a way to fix it - I just switch
to another terminal when it happens) So, if "ansi escape sequences" can
do that too, there *might* be some meaning to "ansi characters"...
Best,
Frank
Mike Snyder
news:pPqdnfexpuE...@comcast.com...
> rand...@earthlink.net wrote:
> American National Standards Institute, is it not? (I'm a dos-head, too,
> and too lazy to look it up, but that's my recollection) They set standards
> for many things besides screen control - but that's what we're talking
> about hete.
Er... yeah, I said that too.
I'm starting to think I'm in everybody's block lists.
--- Mike.
Adam Thornton
JohnnyMrNinja <Johnny...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I know that when a lot of people say ASCII they mean plain-text, but
>this is an actual ASCII thing I just did in TheDraw.
That's not an ASCII thing.
Many, if not all, of those characters have the high bit set. ASCII is
7-bit. That might be an ANSI thing, but it's certainly not an ASCII
thing.
Adam
Adam Thornton
mensa...@aol.com
Well, that was my first c program after hello.c, so it may be a
bit sloppy. Now, 16 years later, I'm currently working on my
third c program. This one should be a bit tighter.
"@comcast >
Sorry, Mike. I replied to Randy's message before I'd read yours. I
should learn to read to the end of the thread before responding, to
avoid repeating what someone else already said. Hey, at least I was
agreein' with ya! :)
Best,
Frank
Mike Snyder
> Mike Snyder wrote:
> Sorry, Mike. I replied to Randy's message before I'd read yours. I should
> learn to read to the end of the thread before responding, to avoid
> repeating what someone else already said. Hey, at least I was agreein'
> with ya! :)
I'm used to it. :) And I do the same thing, especially when I'm catching up
in a long thread. LOL.
--- Mike.
Jukka Aho
>> There is a real standard without any quotation marks. Try ECMA-48
>> [1] ("Control Functions for Coded Character Sets"), section 8.3.117
>> ("SGR - Select Graphic Rendition"). That's what traditional
>> VTxxx-derived color terminals, modern color-enabled terminal
>> emulators and - God forbid - ANSI.SYS in MS-DOS use.
> Will that actually show up on the newsgroup?
Nope. If they work at all, that's only incidental and will depend highly
on your newsreader software (and the environment in which you're running
it.) A text-based newsreader running in a terminal emulator window (or
on a real video terminal) could perhaps technically allow them to be
used, but not any other environment.
Any decent text-based newsreader should filter out the CSI [1] codes,
anyway, since you could (potentially) cause all kinds of mayhem and
mischief by embedding, say, cursor positioning codes in your messages.
I recall seeing some netiquette guidelines from the early days where
this was actually mentioned - and, subsequently, strongly discouraged.
(Apparently there was some software that passed control codes through.)
There's another fairly good reason for avoiding them as well: not
everyone is using a terminal with the same capabilities. And, of course,
in modern GUI environments, not many are even _using_ terminals any
longer, emulated or not.
> Or will it just look like crap until fed to an actual "terminal"
> that understands it?
You have nailed it right on the head there.
> No, wait...consider that question "rhetorical"...
Did I just read far too much into those quotation marks?
> I'll stop pestering you...the simple way to find out, of
> course, is for me to actually read those references
> (RTFM)...and then just "give it a go"...
I wouldn't recommend that for Usenet articles, but you might want to
give it a try on a color-enabled video terminal (or in a color-enabled
terminal emulator window.)
It's quite simple really... you just output sequences like
<ESC>[33;44mHELLO WORLD<ESC>[0m
to the terminal. <ESC> in the above stands for code 0x1B, or 27 in
decimal.
The first control sequence should enable yellow text (33) on a blue
background (44) and the second one will revert everything back to the
normal.
_____
[1] "Control Sequence Introducer", not "Crime Scene Investigation"!
--
znark
Ross Presser
Correct as usual, King Frida^w^w Mr. Thornton. I should have typed "the
extended ASCII character set, introduced with the IBM PC in 1981."
Beth
Jukka Aho
> I don't know about ANSI (as in "ansi.sys"), but there seem to be
> VT-100 (? or *something*) sequences in Linux that *do* load another
> character set. At least, printing a torrent of "garbage" to the
> screen (as sometimes happens...) sometimes leaves the terminal
> printing "garbage" forever after.
Those would usually be the "Shift Out" [1] and "Shift In" [2] codes. If
implemented on a terminal, they will exchange the glyphs in code
positions 33...126 for another set of glyphs.
As it so happens, the code positions 33...126 usually hold the printable
ASCII characters. (See where this is leading us?) If you send SO
(Ctrl-N) to the terminal, the ASCII characters will be "shifted out"
(exchanged for another set of glyphs). After having done that, you will
get "garbage" from keys where you would usually expect to get letters.
(Not garbage actually, but useful line drawing graphics characters. Then
again, if you didn't voluntarily end up in this mode, it's all the
same.)
> (well, I'm sure there's a way to fix it - I just switch to another
> terminal when it happens)
You can escape this mode by sending the code 15 (SI) to the terminal, or
by pressing Ctrl-O, if you're running something that echoes everything
you type - even the control characters - verbatim right back to the
terminal.
Some environments have command-line commands (such as "reset" or "cls"
or "clear") which will fix it, too, if you only manage to blindly type
in the command.
You could also print out the sequence <ESC>c to reset the terminal
yourself. Like this, for instance:
echo -e "\033c"
Yet another way of escaping from this mode is resetting the terminal
manually, if it has some built-in reset method. ("Real" hardware-based
terminals usually have a reset option in their setup menu. Terminal
emulators often have a similar menu option.)
> So, if "ansi escape sequences" can do that too, there *might* be some
> meaning to "ansi characters"...
The set of glyphs you will usually see in this mode is officially called
"DEC Special Graphics Character Set". It is also known as the "VT100
line drawing character set". (See
<http://vt100.net/docs/vt220-rm/table2-4.html> and the code positions
96...126.) Not too surprisingly, it was first introduced with DEC's
VT1xx range of video terminals.
_____
[1] "SO": Ctrl-N, ASCII code position 14
[2] "SI": Ctrl-O, ASCII code position 15
--
znark
Jukka Aho
> ANSI X.34 (or ECMA-94)
Did I write that? Should have been ANSI X3.64.
--
znark
Jim Carlock
For XP/Win2K, using Explorer:
1) Create a text file called ANSI.NT in %systemroot%\system32
2) The following information I pulled from the link in the REMark.
Type the following stuff (between the <ansi.nt>...</ansi.nt> tagging)
into ANSI.NT, leaving out the remarks if so desired...
<ansi.nt>
REM
REM http://is-it-true.org/nt/utips/utips181.shtml
REM -------------------------------------------------
REM ANSI.NT
REM -------------------------------------------------
REM
dosonly
device=%systemroot%\system32\himem.sys
devicehigh=%systemroot%\system32\ansi.sys
files=40
dos=high,umb
</ansi.nt>
3) Right-click upon %systemroot%\system32\command.com
4) Create a short-cut
5) Right-click upon the newly created short-cut, click on Properties
6) On the General tab, change the MS-DOS Command Prompt to:
ANSI-DOS (this is the Explorer name as seen inside Explorer)
7) On the Program tab, change the MS-DOS Command Prompt to:
ANSI-COMMAND (this is displayed as the Window Title seen at
the top of the Window and in the Taskbar)
8) Click upon the Advanced button (of the Program tab, not the
General tab)
9) For the config filename type in:
%SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32\ANSI.NT
10) That will be all that is needed, you can test it out now. NOTE:
that fiddling with the things in the Memory tab can cause problems.
Turning on EMS effectively loaded ANSI.SYS but ANSI.SYS did
stopped working. I tried EMS settings at 1024 and Auto, and
ANSI.SYS stopped working.
With Expanded (EMS) Memory set to NONE, ANSI.SYS loads
and works properly.
With Expanded (EMS) Memory set to Auto or a specific number,
ANSI.SYS loads up but fails to parse and handle the ANSI escape
characters.
If anyone knows how to fix the EM issue, that would be great.
--
Jim Carlock
Please post replies to newsgroup.
CBFalconer
> rand...@earthlink.net wrote:
>
... snip ...
>>
>> Sorry, Annie, but the term ANSI actually means something besides
>> ANSI.SYS (an old DOS terminal screen device driver).
>
> American National Standards Institute, is it not? (I'm a dos-head,
> too, and too lazy to look it up, but that's my recollection) They
> set standards for many things besides screen control - but that's
> what we're talking about hete.
About two thirds through the heyday of separate terminals ANSI came
out with a standard for terminal control, for such things as clear
line, gotoxy, set colors, bold, blink, etc. The later terminals
adhered to the standard. Microsoft, and thus IBM PCs, as usual
diddled and emasculated the standard, and the result was ANSI.SYS.
This almost made the PC display a standard terminal. Anyway,
that's where all those <esc>[ .... letter sequences come from.
--
Chuck F (cbfal...@yahoo.com) (cbfal...@worldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net> USE worldnet address!
mensa...@aol.com
Beth wrote:
> Okay, Paul,
>
> I've tried to colour in the picture using "TheDraw"...but, to be honest, I
> think it looks _worse_ coloured in than it did monochrome...as you can only
> colour in entire blocks with colour and the choice of background colours is more
> limited than foreground colours (who's stupid idea was the "blink text" effect
> anyway? That's not a "colour", that's an animation effect! And throwing away all
> those perfectly good background colours to support a nonsense no-one ever wants
> or use is just a "crime"...now, if you had the full 16 colours for both
> background and foreground, coupled with those "25% fill", "50% fill", "75% fill"
> characters in the "IBM extended ASCII", you could nicely mix them together to
> have hundreds of "pseudo-colours" and shading and everything...but, no, they
> decide to use "blink text" instead...bloody pointless "blink text", which is an
> effect that could be (and should be) really done by actual animation techniques
> of changing the colours dynamically...it's such a total waste!)...
>
> And, well, this is the first time I've used this "TheDraw" program, so I'm not
> exactly "skilled" at colouring these pictures in, anyway...
>
> Nevertheless, I at least tried colouring it in...also, don't ask me how you
> "feed" this ANSI stuff into a terminal to actually see the picture
$ cat CASTLE.TXT
works for me in Cygwin.
> ...I presume
> someone else here will know how that works...this is just the "ANSI" file that
> "TheDraw" gave me when I hit "save":
>
To copy this from Google, ShowOptions/Original and copy from there.
Otherwise, Google inserts spurious characters (some kind of line break
apparently - hex code AD) which spoils an otherwise nice drawing.
Randall Hyde
"Mike Snyder" <wy...@prowler-pro.com> wrote in message
news:_Ahse.17619$mC.10238@okepread07...
>
> Yeah. It means American National Standards Institute, and if I'm not
> mistaken, there are ANSI standards for a number of things. If you put it
in
> the context of the current discussion, then she's right. Although back in
> the DOS and BBS days, it was more accurate to say "ANSI graphics" -- but
> there was no confusion either way.
ANSI.SYS was an ANSI terminal emulator (ANSI being a standardization of the
DEC VT52 or DEC VT100 terminal, IIRC). This had nothing to do with the
graphic characters the PC displayed or the PC's code pages. I don't remember
the dates of the ANSI standardization of the escape sequences, but I
wouldn't be surprised to find that the predated the PC. Certainly, the VT52
and VT100 terminals certainly did.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
Annie
On 2005-06-16 Randy Hyde said:
> Annie wrote:
>
> > ANSI is just a way to control different things that HAPPEN
> > on the screen...such as where to put the cursor, what colors
> > to display...things like that.
>
> Ah, yes. The world view according to someone who has grown up
> on DOS and never learned anything else since then :-)
And perfectly in context with the information in the particular
thread to which I was replying. Wish we could say the same about
YOUR butt-inski comment. Hehe!
Troll.
> Sorry, Annie, but the term ANSI actually means something besides
> ANSI.SYS (an old DOS terminal screen device driver).
>
> Cheers,
> Randy Hyde
_____
Context, "Professor;" context. ((( `\
_ _`\ )
Besides, ANSI terminal control (^ ) )
codes were around long before ~-( )
DOS and ANSI.SYS. _'((,,,)))
,-' \_/ `\
Anyway, I thought you had me ( , |
kill-filed. Your kill-file `-.-'`-.-'/|_|
must be 'leaking.' \ / | |
=()=: / ,' aa
Maybe you could write a fix
for that in HLA. Hehehe!
Jim Carlock
> Wish we could say the same about YOUR butt-inski comment.
> Hehe!
What's all that abouts? Butt in sky? Sounds like some Jimi Hendrix
lyrics or something by the Beatles or maybe even a wierd al ankovich
thing. Or perhaps it's butt in ski? That's totally messed up. Annie
posted a "Bloody Welsh Butt-inski" in the past, no?
What's up with that, AnnieGiggles?
Herbert Kleebauer
> Oh, still no "dragon" either...but, as I say, if you can get someone else to do
> a good "dragon" picture then just "paste" it on top of the "mostly blank" area
> on the left...that should work...
Post your picture (the ascii one, not the ANSI one) in alt.ascii-art and
ask for a dragon. I don't know how active the group still is (stopped
reading it a few years ago), but I think you will get your dragon. Or
if you only want an inspiration, take a look at ascii archives, for
example:
http://www.ascii-art.de/ascii/
http://www.ascii-art.de/ascii/def/dragon.txt
Rowan Lipkovits
>Here're somethings...
>For XP/Win2K, using Explorer:
>1) Create a text file called ANSI.NT in %systemroot%\system32
In XP, followed all instructions to the letter, leaving me with a DOS
session no more capable of displaying "ANSI art" / utilising the
display capabilities of ansi.sys than before... also, the screen would
no longer scroll once hitting 25 lines -- some blind "cls"ing
established that program output and subsequent command prompts would
continue unabated outside of visible interface space.
Close, but no banana. I suppose this is as good a time as any to
present my endorsement for the PabloDraw ANSI art utility at
http://artscene.textfiles.com/viewers/dos/pab0971p.zip, since I had a
hand in its production back in 1998... ("Cthulu" in the feature
requests in update.lst 8)
(Don't just take my word for it! 9 out of 10 ANSI artists who were
still around to try it following the collapse of dialup BBS culture
will agree -- PabloDraw was the Rolls-Royce of textmode-art
manipulation tools! And, alas, no one will ever care again.)
>Please post replies to newsgroup.
Somehow, I get the feeling that someone is going to bring me to task
for complying with this request... if only I'd found a way to bring it
back around to some tangential interactive-fiction connection. (One
lending its appearance similar legitimacy in the other two newsgroups
it seems to want to automatically crosspost to? A stiff proposition
indeed.)
grey...@gmaildo.ttocom
>> >
>> > displays correctly, but from Windows cmd
>> >
>> > C:\cygwin\home\mensanator\cstuff>type flagtest.txt
>> >
>> > does not.
>> >
>>
>> And you have revealed the secret US plan to integrate Iraq, and 11
>> more states, into the Union :)))
>
> Well, that was my first c program after hello.c, so it may be a
> bit sloppy. Now, 16 years later, I'm currently working on my
> third c program. This one should be a bit tighter.
>
Its fun, anyway, and educational. Biggest problem I have with ANSI is
resetting to normal, which you have done.
Annie
On 2005-06-17 rand...@earthlink.net said:
> ANSI.SYS was an ANSI terminal emulator (ANSI being a
> standardization of the DEC VT52 or DEC VT100 terminal, IIRC).
> This had nothing to do with the graphic characters the PC
> displayed or the PC's code pages.
_____
DUHHH! Exactly the point I made ((( `\
in a previous post. _ _`\ )
(^ ) )
You remember...the one where ~-( )
you took me to task for saying _'((,,,)))
it? ,-' \_/ `\
( , |
Silly disingenuous troll. `-.-'`-.-'/|_|
\ / | |
Better wise up, Hyde. Your nutty =()=: / ,' aa
HLA text converter doesn't hold
much water 'round THESE parts, d00d.
We're ASM programmers here...not wacked-out newbie
skulls-full-of-mush second-year CS students. Hehe!
---
"HLA.EXE is not an assembler. Indeed, it's not even a compiler,
pre-processor (or "preparser", whatever that is), though it
*might* qualify as [a] 'text converter.'"
- Randy Hyde, author of 'HLA,'
in ALT.LANG.ASM newsgroup --
August 11, 2004
JohnnyMrNinja
Ok, so I may not have put "Extended High/Low Extra Magical ASCII", but
it was ASCII that I posted, right? I mean, British English is still
English (even if we can't tell). So when I said it was ASCII, and 30+
posts later I'm told that it's actually ASCII, I am still right, right?
Let's review -
1. I post an ASCII picture.
2. I am told it's not ASCII, but ANSI.
3. I am told that ANSI characters do not exist. My post disappears in a
puff of logic.
4. I am told it's actually extended ASCII, also high ASCII. Post comes
back.
Conclusion - I am still, and again, correct.
Note - Paul has not reappeared since starting this thread. Paul please
come back.
Annie
On 2005-06-17 Jim Carlock said:
> Annie posted:
>
> > Wish we could say the same about YOUR butt-inski comment.
> > Hehe!
>
> What's all that abouts? Butt in sky? Sounds like some Jimi
> Hendrix lyrics or something by the Beatles or maybe even a
> wierd al ankovich thing. Or perhaps it's butt in ski? That's
> totally messed up. Annie posted a "Bloody Welsh Butt-inski"
> on the past, no?
>
> What's up with that, AnnieGiggles?
_____
What...you're not familiar with ((( `\
the term 'buttinski' there in _ _`\ )
Tampa? (^ ) )
~-( )
Oh. Kracker kountry. Sorry. _'((,,,)))
I forgot. Hehehe! ,-' \_/ `\
( , |
'Buttinski' is a slang term `-.-'`-.-'/|_|
for some one who interposes \ / | |
himself ('butts in') on a =()=: / ,' aa
conversation or a situation
that he's not familiar with,
and/or where he's not wanted.
In redneck-speak, a rough equiva-
lent might be 'busy-body.'
Hope this helps.
Jukka Aho
>>>> It's not exactly ANSI - it's 8-bit ASCII
>>> No such thing.
>> Correct as usual, King Frida^w^w Mr. Thornton. I should have
>> typed "the extended ASCII character set, introduced with the
>> IBM PC in 1981."
> Ok, so I may not have put "Extended High/Low Extra Magical
> ASCII", but it was ASCII that I posted, right?
Nope. Please read <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascii>. "ASCII" refers
to a particular standard (actually, two standards, but the first version
of ASCII is mostly forgotten by now) published by the American Standards
Association. The ASCII standard uses only 7 bits for coding the
characters. The picture you posted, however, had the 8th bit set in many
of the characters -> these character codes are undefined in the ASCII
standard -> therefore the picture is not drawn in ASCII, by definition.
Now, as for the "IBM Extended ASCII" issue, anyone - even IBM - can make
loose claims of enhancing the original ASCII with 8-bit characters, but
no-one (to my knowledge) has ever published an official 8-bit character
coding _standard_ by that name. There are several 8-bit character coding
standards that are supersets of ASCII, but there is no official "8-bit
ASCII standard". "Extended ASCII" is only a vague generic term for all
these standards that build upon the original ASCII - but that does not
make them "ASCII" in any official sense:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_ASCII>
> Let's review -
> 1. I post an ASCII picture.
You posted a picture using IBM's "Codepage 437", which is an 8-bit
character set. CP437 is based on ASCII, but the 8-bit characters which
you used for drawing the picture do not belong to the ASCII range
(0...127), and therefore cannot be called ASCII.
> 2. I am told it's not ASCII, but ANSI.
Incorrect (and meaningless) correction. "ANSI" is a standards
organization, not a standard in itself. :)
> 3. I am told that ANSI characters do not exist. My post disappears in
> a puff of logic.
Only because you were incorrectly corrected. :)
> 4. I am told it's actually extended ASCII, also high ASCII.
> Post comes back.
"Extended ASCII" and "High ASCII" are just convenient general ways of
referring to _any_ 8-bit character set which is based on ASCII, but
defines new characters in the 128...255 range. But that does not the
8-bit characters ASCII make! The distinction is there for a reason.
BTW, you could have posted the original picture with MIME headers
indicating the cp437 character set. That would make it (at least
theoretically) more likely that some newsreader, somewhere might be able
to display the characters with a correct font on purpose, and not just
accidentally. (Then again, I'm not all that optimistic about modern
newsreaders having much in the way of built-in cp437 support, anyway.)
--
znark
JohnnyMrNinja
[hella snip]
> "Extended ASCII" and "High ASCII" are just convenient general ways of
> referring to _any_ 8-bit character set which is based on ASCII, but
> defines new characters in the 128...255 range. But that does not the
> 8-bit characters ASCII make! The distinction is there for a reason.
>
> BTW, you could have posted the original picture with MIME headers
> indicating the cp437 character set. That would make it (at least
> theoretically) more likely that some newsreader, somewhere might be able
> to display the characters with a correct font on purpose, and not just
> accidentally. (Then again, I'm not all that optimistic about modern
> newsreaders having much in the way of built-in cp437 support, anyway.)
>
> --
> znark
Thank you, this is why my head was hurting. That Extended ASCII (or
High/Low ASCII) is not really considered ASCII. I didn't understand
that there was a strong distinction, because of the ANSI confusion. You
are a very helpful person.
Micheal H. McCabe
Welcome to the club!
JohnnyMrNinja
> Okay, Paul,
>
> I've tried to colour in the picture using "TheDraw"...but, to be honest, I
> think it looks _worse_ coloured in than it did monochrome...as you can only
> colour in entire blocks with colour and the choice of background colours is more
> limited than foreground colours (who's stupid idea was the "blink text" effect
> anyway? That's not a "colour", that's an animation effect! And throwing away all
> those perfectly good background colours to support a nonsense no-one ever wants
> or use is just a "crime"...now, if you had the full 16 colours for both
> background and foreground, coupled with those "25% fill", "50% fill", "75% fill"
> characters in the "IBM extended ASCII", you could nicely mix them together to
> have hundreds of "pseudo-colours" and shading and everything...but, no, they
> decide to use "blink text" instead...bloody pointless "blink text", which is an
> effect that could be (and should be) really done by actual animation techniques
> of changing the colours dynamically...it's such a total waste!)...
What a horrible thing to say about blink-text! Obviously, you've never
seen the skill with which it was implemented in such milestone games as
"Dracula in London". http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=332
(don't worry, it's public domain). See the masterful use of
blink-text? You never wonder what's happening; it's blinking! And the
skillfull implementation of IBM Codepage 437 Extended ASCII Character
Set graphics? Amazing.
Nowadays, I try to play games like "Halo", and I'm so confused. I mean,
nothing blinks! How am I supposed to know what to do? That's sloppy
programming.
rand...@earthlink.net
Annie wrote:
> On 2005-06-17 rand...@earthlink.net said:
>
> > ANSI.SYS was an ANSI terminal emulator (ANSI being a
> > standardization of the DEC VT52 or DEC VT100 terminal, IIRC).
> > This had nothing to do with the graphic characters the PC
> > displayed or the PC's code pages.
> _____
> DUHHH! Exactly the point I made ((( `\
> in a previous post.
The previous post:
"'ANSI' has nothing...NOTHING ~-( )
to do with what 'characters' _'((,,,)))
are displayed on the screen. ,-' \_/ `\
( , |
ANSI is just a way to control `-.-'`-.-'/|_|
different things that HAPPEN \ / | |
on the screen...such as where =()=: / ,' aa
to put the cursor, what colors
to display...things like that.
ANSI is a sequence of characters that have a special
meaning to the screen."
In fact, in the context of this thread, ANSI has a *lot* to do with the
characters that are displayed on the page. Just as there is an ANSI
standard for ESC sequences (i.e., the "ANSI.SYS" reference), there are
also ANSI standards for the 'characters' that are displayed on the
screen when someone attempts to print a certain character code. The
problem with your original post is that you confused ANSI standards for
character sets with ANSI standards for terminal emulation (IOW, you
made the assumption that the OP was talking about terminal emulation,
like that provided by ANSI.SYS). The fact that the thread then
degenerated into a discussion of terminal emulation thereafter does not
change the fact that you completely misread what was being discussed up
to that point. Of course, this is a typical problem one would expect
from "DOS is the only OS" users, because DOS had ANSI.SYS but never
really had anything like the ANSI character set. It is easy to see how
one could make such a mistake if they are such big DOS proponents and
never bothered to use systems like Windows, where the ANSI character
set gained popularity.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
Beth
> Beth wrote:
> > Nevertheless, I at least tried colouring it in...also, don't ask me how
you
> > "feed" this ANSI stuff into a terminal to actually see the picture
>
> $ cat CASTLE.TXT
>
> works for me in Cygwin.
Yeah; It also works under "cmd.exe" in XP, using "cat" too...
> > ...I presume
> > someone else here will know how that works...this is just the "ANSI"
file that
> > "TheDraw" gave me when I hit "save":
>
> To copy this from Google, ShowOptions/Original and copy from there.
> Otherwise, Google inserts spurious characters (some kind of line break
> apparently - hex code AD) which spoils an otherwise nice drawing.
Ah, yes, these things do happen...as we know well on the ASM group, if you
start a line where the first character is "." then it gets "duplicated" into
".." because this often screws up posting ASM source code, where directives
often start with "."...so, to avoid this, you have to bump each line in by
at least one space...
Some of these "standards" aren't really as "transparent" or "compatible" as
they like to report themselves as being ;)...
By the way, have we resolved whether "ANSI escape sequences" and "IBM
extended ASCII characters" actually mix?
Because - not that this is useful to Paul, as wants "strict ASCII" - as I
wasn't too happy with the "pure ASCII" version coloured in, I've used that
"TheDraw" program again to make another one which looks better (well, I
think it does, anyway ;)...
But I used some of the "IBM extended ASCII" characters like the "box drawing
characters" in it (all the best characters for "ASCII art" are,
unfortunately, in "IBM extended ASCII", which appears not to be very
"compatible" with anything else :)...
It looks okay in "TheDraw" but using this "cat" command in both CygWin and
an XP "cmd.exe" window, it's not using "IBM extended ASCII"...so, it doesn't
look right...
One interesting thing is that if switching from "windowed" to "full screen"
in XP's "cmd.exe", then, for a split-second, while it's making the change,
you can see the proper "IBM extended ASCII" characters appear...but, by the
time it goes "full screen", it's gone back to the wrong characters again...
Anyway, here's the ANSI file that's produced...if anyone can work out how to
make it appear but using the correct "IBM extended ASCII" characters, then
they can see the "slightly better version"...basically, I've put some
"shading" on the tower, added some "shadows", used the "box drawing
characters" for some "brickwork" on the tower and gate and to add "wooden
planks" to the drawbridge...tiles on the roof of the building...and that
kind of thing...the colouring works better and I've just thrown in a bunch
of "details" here and there, so it looks less like a "line drawing"...
------------------------------ 8< -------------------------------
[?7h [40m [2J [0;44m [1;35;45mﾚﾄｷ [44m [45mﾚﾄｷ [44m [45mﾚﾄｷ [40m [s
[u [44m [45mﾚﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄｷ [44m [40m [s
[u [44m [0;33;44mﾜ [1;43m__/__/__/__ [2;1H [44m [40m [s
[u [35;45mｳ ｺ [44m [45mｳ ｺ [44m [45mｳ ｺ [44m [45mｳ ﾉﾍﾍｸ ｺ [40m [s
[u [44m [0;34;44m0 [40m [s
[u [44m [33mﾜ [1;43m__/__/__/__/_ [3;1H [44m [35;45mｳ ﾓﾄﾙ ｺ [40m [s
[u [44m [45mｳ ｺ [44m [45mｳ ﾓﾄﾄﾙ ｺ [44m [37;47mﾛｲｱｱ [40m [s
[u [30;44mﾜﾜ [47m [44m ﾜﾜ [47mｱｱｲﾛ [44m [40m [s
[u [44m [0;33;44mﾜ [1;43m__/__/__/__/__/ [4;1H [44m [35;45mｳ [40m [s
[u [45mﾉﾍｸ ｺ [44m [45mｳ ｺ [44m [45mｳ ﾉﾍﾍｸ ｺ [44m [37;47m [40m [s
[u [47mﾛｲｱｱｰｰ [30mｰｰｱｱｲﾛ [44m [0;33;44m [40m [s
[u [44mﾜ [1;43m__/__/__/__/__/__ [5;1H [44m [35;45mｳ ｺ [44m [40m [s
[u [45mｳ ｺ [44m [45mｳ ﾓﾄﾄｷ [44m [45mｳ ｺ [44m [45mｳ ｺ [44m [40m [s
[u [37;47mﾛｲｱｱｰｰ [30m_______ｰｰｱｱｲﾛｲｲｲ [44m [47mﾄ [40m [s
[u [47mﾂﾁﾄﾂﾁﾄﾂﾁﾄﾂﾁﾄﾂﾁﾄﾂ [6;1H [44m [35;45mﾔﾍｼ [44m [45mﾔﾍｼ [40m [s
[u [44m [45mﾔﾍﾍﾍﾍｼ [44m [45mﾔﾍｼ [44m [45mﾔﾍｼ [44m [40m [s
[u [37;47mﾛｲｱｱｰｰ [30m_____ｰｰｱｱｲﾛｲｲｲ [44m [47mﾄﾁ [40m [s
[u [47mﾂﾄﾁﾂﾄ [0mﾟ ﾟ [1;30;47mﾁﾄﾂﾁﾄ [0mﾟ [7;1H [44m [1;35;45mﾕ [40m [s
[u [45mﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍｸ [44m [37;47mﾛｲｱｱｰｰ [30mｰｰｱｱ [40m [s
[u [47mｲﾛｲｲｲｲｲｲｲ [44m [47mｲｲｲ [44m [47mｲｲｲ [44m [47mｲｲｲ [44m [40m [s
[u [44m [47mﾄﾂﾁﾄﾂﾁﾄ [3Cﾄﾄﾁﾄﾄ [8;1H [44m [35;45mｳ A D V E N T [40m [s
[u [45m U R E ｳ [44m [0;32;44mﾜﾜﾜ [1;37;47mﾛｲｱｱｰｰ [30mｰｰｱｱ [40m [s
[u [47mｲﾛｲｱｱｲｲｲ [37mﾝ [30mﾞｲｲｲ [37mﾝ [30mﾞｲﾄﾁ [37mﾝ [40m [s
[u [47m [30mﾞ [0;33mﾜﾜﾜ [1;37;47mﾝ [30mﾞ [0;33mﾜﾜ [9;1H [s
[u [32;44mﾜﾜ [1;35;45mﾔﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍﾍｾ [32;42m逹 [D 躡 [40m [s
[u [37;47mﾛｲｱｱｰｰ [0mﾛ [47m [1;30mｰｰｱｱｲﾛｱｱ____________________ [40m [s
[u [47m_______________ [10;1H [32;42m逹 [D Y撈� [D [D [40m [s
[u [0;32;44mﾜﾜ ﾜﾜ [1;42m� [D [D 躡 [D 鉗� [D [37;47mﾛ [40m [s
[u [47mｲｱｱｰｰ [0mﾟ ﾟ [1;30;47mｰｰｱｱｲﾛｲｲｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱ [40m [s
[u [47mｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱ [11;1H [32;42m [D 鉗逹Y [D 躡晉 [D [40m [s
[u [0;32;44mﾜ ﾜ [1;42m [D 躡拑 [D 鉗� [D Y逹 [37;47mﾛｲｱｱｰｰ [40m [s
[u [3C [30;47mｰｰｱｱｲﾛｱｱｱ ﾚﾄﾄﾂﾄﾄﾂﾄﾄﾂﾄ [40m
[12;1H [32;42m躡 [D � [D Y� [D 逹 [D [D Y [D [30m', [40m [s
[u [42m [32m� [D � [D 拑� [D 鉗Y�[37;47mﾛｲｱｱｰｰ [3C [30mｰｰｱｱ [40m [s
[u [47mｲﾛｱｱｱ [0mﾝﾞ [47m [40mﾝﾞ [47m [1;30mﾚﾄﾁ [40m [s
[u [0mﾟﾟ [1;30mﾍﾎﾍﾍﾍﾎﾍﾍ [13;1H [32;42m逹逹Y [D [D Y [D 逹�[40m [s
[u [42m [D � [D �[30m\ [32m躡 [D � [D Y晉� [D �[37;47mﾛｲ [40m [s
[u [47mｱｱｰ [30mﾀﾄﾄﾄﾙｰｱｱｲﾛｱｱｱ [2C [2C ﾚﾁﾄ [40mｺ ｺ [s
[uｺ [14;1H [32;42m�' ' � ` . `� `. ' [37;47mﾛｲｱｱｰｰ [40m [s
[u [47m [30mｰｰｱｱｲﾛｱｱｱ ﾀﾄﾄﾙ ﾀﾄﾄﾙ ﾚﾁﾄ [40mﾍﾎﾍﾍﾍﾎﾍﾍﾍﾎﾍﾍ [15;1H [s
[u [32;42m` ;� ` . ;. ' �` [37;47mﾛｲｱｱｰｰ [30mｰｰｱ [40m [s
[u [47mｱｲﾛｱｱｱ ﾀﾂﾄ [1C [40mｺ ｺ ｺ [16;1H [s
[u [42m [32m' . . ` � � ` [0;32;44mﾟﾟ [1;37;47mﾛｲｱ [40m [s
[u [47mｱｰｰ [30mｰｰｱｱｲﾛｱｱｱ ﾚﾁﾄ [40mﾍﾎﾍﾍﾍﾎﾍﾍﾍﾎﾍﾍ
[17;1H [32;42m' �' ` ` [0;32;44mﾟ [1;34m~~ [40m [s
[u [37;47mﾛｲｱｱｰｰ [30mｰｰｱｱｲﾛｱｱｱ ﾀﾂﾄ [1C [40m [s
[u [40mｺ ｺ ｺ [18;1H [32;42m; ` � ' . ; [0;32;44mﾟ [40m [s
[u [44m [1;34m~~~ [0;32;44mﾜ [1;37mﾛ [47mｲｱｱｰｰ [30mｰｰｱｱｲﾛｱ [40m [s
[u [47mｱｱ ﾚﾁﾄ [40mﾍﾎﾍﾍﾍﾎﾍﾍﾍﾎﾍﾍ [19;1H [42m [40m [s
[u [42m [32m. ` [0;32;44mﾟ [1;34m~~ [0;32;44mﾜ [40m [s
[u [1;42m.`; [37;47mﾛｲｱｱｰｰ [30mｰｰｱｱｲﾛｱｱｱﾄﾄﾂﾄﾄﾂﾄﾄﾂﾄﾄﾂﾄﾄﾂﾄﾄﾂﾄﾁ [40m [s
[u [47mﾂﾄ [43mﾂ [D ﾄﾄﾄ [D ﾄﾄﾄ [D ﾄﾄ [20;1H [42m [32m' [40m [s
[u [42m �` . [0;32;44mﾝ [1;34m~~~ [42m [32m. [37mﾟ [40m [s
[u [47mｲｱｱｰｰ [30mﾄﾂﾄｰｰｱｱｲ [42mﾟ [32m' . ` � . � ` . �[40m [s
[u [0;33;42mﾞ [1;30;43mﾄﾁﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾂﾄﾄﾄ [21;1H [42m [32m�' ; [40m [s
[u [42m � [44m [34m~~ ~~ [42m [32m, . � ; '. `: , [40m [s
[u [42m , : `. : ' � [43m [30mﾄﾄﾄﾄﾂﾄﾄﾄﾄﾁﾄﾄﾄ [22;1H [42m [40m [s
[u [42m [32m. � ` ' [0;32;44mﾝ [1;34m~~~~ [40m [s
[u [0;32;44mﾟ [42m [1m' . ` . � ,` . [0;32;44mﾟ [40m [s
[u [44m [1;34m~~~ [0;32;44mﾟ [42m [1m�` . [0;33;42mﾞ [40m [s
[u [1;30;43mﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾁﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾂ [23;1H [42m [32m. ` [40m [s
[u [0;32;44mﾜ [1;34m~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~ [40m [s
[u [44m~ [43m [30mﾄﾂﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾁ [24;1H [32;42m� [40m [s
[u [42m� [0;32;44mﾜﾜ [1;34m~~~~ ~~~ ~~ [40m [s
[u [44m~ ~~~ [0;33;44mﾞ [1;30;43mﾄﾄﾁﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾂﾄﾄﾄﾄ [25;1H [40m [A
[42m [32m;� ` . ` � .` � : ` ; . . [40m [A
[54C [42m � ` [43m [30mﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾂﾄﾄﾄﾄﾁﾄﾄﾄ [40m
[A [79C [43m [0m [255D
------------------------------ >8 -------------------------------
Though, as it uses "IBM extended ASCII" - and I think the ANSI sequences
themselves or something makes it go into "ANSI characters mode" (something
like that, anyway) - then perhaps it can really only actually been seen
properly in "TheDraw" or something...
This is also probably useless for Paul's game, in fact, as he wants "pure
ASCII"...which I presume is a "compatibility" thing, as the game runs on
Windows and on Linux that you have to find that "happy medium" that they
both like...but, as I say, I thought the earlier "coloured" version was a
bit crap...didn't like it...so, if for no other reason than to keep me
happy, I just had to see if I could fix it up to look at least slightly
better...
Still no dragon involved...Herbert's right about popping it onto the ASCII
art newsgroup and asking if someone could put a dragon in there or try to
find a dragon image somewhere that'll "fit" into the picture...but, to be
honest, I can't be bothered with all that "subscribing / unsubscribing"
stuff...you know: It's Paul's game, not mine...I was just "bored" at the
time, that I thought I'd "give it a go"...as you can probably tell from me
not having a clue how to make the ANSI coloured versions even appear on the
screen, I don't actually draw ASCII art very often or anything (very "simple
diagrams" for newsgroup posts is the extent of my attempts until downloading
this "TheDraw" program)...
Anyway, Paul hasn't responded to any of this yet...I don't even know if he
likes my picture and wants to use it or not...maybe he doesn't...no sense
going to all this effort and it turns out he doesn't even like the
picture...I'll leave it to Paul to sort out the "dragon"...well, he's got
the rest of the picture "for free"...got to leave something for him to do,
yes? :)
I also note there's an "animation" option on this "TheDraw" program...I
guess this means it's possible to specify "delays" in the ANSI sequence and
then it overwrites one "frame" with the next? Well, you could use that to
have an animation of the portculis rising...or, if you're ambitious, a
soldier walking along the battlements (seeing as there have been complaints
about a "lack of life" in the picture thus far ;)...
Though, seeing as it's for a game, perhaps any "animation" would best be
done programmatically, rather than with "ANSI sequences"...then you could
use Frank's "PC speaker" code for Linux from before to play a little tune
while the "title screen" is showing?!? Though, I suppose that would bring
"OS specific" code into the program...
Anyway, as I keep stressing to Paul, he should really work on making the
game use a "game engine" design, rather than the somewhat "enumerative"
method he's using now (e.g. "if room = 1 then...if room = 2 then...if room =
3 then..." ad infinitum ad absurdum ;)...it would make life a whole lot
easier for him and make the game itself much less prone to "bugs" and much
easier to "extend"...and so on and so forth...
At least, though, Paul did not commit "the first sin of computer games
programming", which is to _start_ with the "title screen"...and then obsess
over making the "title screen sequence" so "perfect" that you never get
around to actually writing the game itself! It's similar to how the OS
developers always say that it's wise to work on the "bootloader" _LAST_, not
first...the same thing is basically true of computer games...do the "title
screen" _AFTER_ you've written the game itself...or there's a "temptation"
to spend forever making it "exactly perfect", spending 7 months on the most
perfect "title screen" there's ever been for a computer game...and, well,
you know, never getting around to writing the actual game...Paul, at least,
did not fall foul of that little "common problem", as he is working on the
"title screen" after he's got his game "up and running"...
Beth :)
Andrew Plotkin
>
> Let's review -
> 1. I post an ASCII picture.
> 2. I am told it's not ASCII, but ANSI.
Ok, folks, this *really* doesn't have to be crossposted any more.
You know dunric isn't going to stop starting the crosspostings, so the
rest of you need to start stopping them.
(Followups reduced to a single group.)
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
I'm still thinking about what to put in this space.
Adam Thornton
JohnnyMrNinja <Johnny...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Ok, so I may not have put "Extended High/Low Extra Magical ASCII", but
>it was ASCII that I posted, right? I mean, British English is still
>English (even if we can't tell). So when I said it was ASCII, and 30+
>posts later I'm told that it's actually ASCII, I am still right, right?
No. ASCII is 7-bit.
It is not some magical extended perversion of the True Character Set,
turning on the high bit at whim.
Adam
Mike Snyder
news:d8uqrv$4e3$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> Ok, folks, this *really* doesn't have to be crossposted any more.
> You know dunric isn't going to stop starting the crosspostings, so the
> rest of you need to start stopping them.
>
> (Followups reduced to a single group.)
So that I get it right in the future, what should I do to make sure replies
aren't crossposted and the followups reduced the right way, when users of
different newsgroups are all participating? Not that this thread in
particular really *needs* more discussion -- but given another topic,
limited to a newsgroup I don't follow, wouldn't it appear to me that the
replies have stopped? Would I need to figure out which newsgroup is carrying
the discussion, and then subscribe to it? I've seen that crossposting is
frowned upon, but in nine years or so of usenet use, I never realized it was
a big deal as long as the discussion is of interest to people in the
newsgroups involved. I thought it was a bigger faux pas to post the same
message to multiple newsgroups individually?
I'd like to think I'm not a newbie, but this is one nuance of netiquette I
haven't quite cracked. :)
Thanks,
---- Mike.
Jukka Aho
> In fact, in the context of this thread, ANSI has a *lot* to do
> with the characters that are displayed on the page. Just as
> there is an ANSI standard for ESC sequences (i.e., the "ANSI.SYS"
> reference), there are also ANSI standards for the 'characters'
> that are displayed on the screen when someone attempts to print
> a certain character code.
I think the point in this discussion has been that, without referring to
the actual standard number or designation, saying that something is
"ANSI" does not mean anything at all. ANSI X3.64 ("Control Sequences for
Video Terminals and Peripherals") is one thing, ANSI X3.4-1968
("American National Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII)")
is something completely different, ANSI H35.2 ("Dimensional Tolerances
for Aluminum Mill Products") is yet another thing again. :)
As far as I know, there is no ANSI-issued standard for IBM Codepage 437.
> It is easy to see how one could make such a mistake if they are
> such big DOS proponents and never bothered to use systems like
> Windows, where the ANSI character set gained popularity.
There we go again. "ANSI character set", without any specific
designation. :) Which "ANSI character set"? If by that you mean ANSI
X3.4-1968 (aka ASCII-1968), IBM Codepage 437 is a superset of that, so
MS-DOS can definitely be viewed as an operating system that is at least
backwards compatible with one of the "ANSI character sets" in existence.
If you fight the temptation of utilizing non-ASCII symbols in positions
0...31 and 128...255, you might even claim that you're using "an ANSI
character set" in MS-DOS.
Then again, ANSI X3.4-1968 is probably not _the_ "ANSI character set" to
which you're trying to refer in the above quote. :)
--
znark
ly...@garlic.com
> I think the point in this discussion has been that, without referring to
> the actual standard number or designation, saying that something is
> "ANSI" does not mean anything at all. ANSI X3.64 ("Control Sequences for
> Video Terminals and Peripherals") is one thing, ANSI X3.4-1968
> ("American National Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII)")
> is something completely different, ANSI H35.2 ("Dimensional Tolerances
> for Aluminum Mill Products") is yet another thing again. :)
>
> As far as I know, there is no ANSI-issued standard for IBM Codepage 437.
ibm mainframes had an additional issue with ascii ... which we
discovered when we were fitting up an interdata/3 to have a mainframe
channel adapter card and programmed to emulate an ibm terminal
controller.
ibm terminal controllers had the convention of storing the leading bit
off the line into the low-order bit position of a byte ... rather than
the high-order bit position of a byte. as a result when terminal ascii
appeared in the memory of mainframe processor ... all the ascii "bytes"
were bit-reverse. as a result the mainframe ascii<->ebcdic translate
tables were for bit-reversed ascii bytes. one of the early tests of the
interdata/3 terminal controller emulation had ascii bytes being
transferred to the 360 memory non-bit-reversed and coming out garbage
after being run thru an ibm bit-reversed ascii->ebcdic translate table.
misc. past posts about doing terminal controller replacement
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#360pcm
rand...@earthlink.net
Jukka Aho wrote:
> rand...@earthlink.net wrote:
>
> > In fact, in the context of this thread, ANSI has a *lot* to do
> > with the characters that are displayed on the page. Just as
> > there is an ANSI standard for ESC sequences (i.e., the "ANSI.SYS"
> > reference), there are also ANSI standards for the 'characters'
> > that are displayed on the screen when someone attempts to print
> > a certain character code.
>
> I think the point in this discussion has been that, without referring to
> the actual standard number or designation, saying that something is
> "ANSI" does not mean anything at all.
You'll note that I used the word "standards" (emphasis on plural here).
The point I'm making here is not *which* particular character set we're
talking about, but the fact that the statement "ANSI has nothing to do
with characters displayed on the screen" is false. ANSI character sets
(again, note the plural) *do* have something to do with the characters
displayed on the screen. Other ANSI standards *also* have something to
do with cursor positioning and colors displayed on the screen, but the
statement that ANSI has nothing to do with the characters displayed is
simply false.
> ANSI X3.64 ("Control Sequences for
> Video Terminals and Peripherals") is one thing, ANSI X3.4-1968
> ("American National Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII)")
> is something completely different, ANSI H35.2 ("Dimensional Tolerances
> for Aluminum Mill Products") is yet another thing again. :)
>
> As far as I know, there is no ANSI-issued standard for IBM Codepage 437.
I think you are confusing me with someone else. I never mentioned IBM
Codepage 437. I never even mentioned a specific ANSI character set. My
comment was that the statement "ANSI has nothing to do with characters
displayed on the screen" is false. Nothing more, really.
>
> > It is easy to see how one could make such a mistake if they are
> > such big DOS proponents and never bothered to use systems like
> > Windows, where the ANSI character set gained popularity.
>
> There we go again. "ANSI character set", without any specific
> designation. :)
My apologeties to the pedantic ones out there. Does it really matter
which set? The bottom line is that the statement "ANSI has nothing to
do with characters displayed on the screen" is still false. There *are*
ANSI character sets. The fact that there are more than one means that
the statement "ANSI has nothing to do with characters displayed on the
screen" is even *more* false.
> Which "ANSI character set"?
Any one that shows that the statment "ANSI has nothing to do with
characters displayed on the screen" is false.
> If by that you mean ANSI
> X3.4-1968 (aka ASCII-1968), IBM Codepage 437 is a superset of that, so
> MS-DOS can definitely be viewed as an operating system that is at least
> backwards compatible with one of the "ANSI character sets" in existence.
The fact that there is at least one '"ANSI character sets" in
existence' shows that the statement "ANSI has nothing to do with
characters displayed on the screen" is false. Thank you for proving my
point.
> If you fight the temptation of utilizing non-ASCII symbols in positions
> 0...31 and 128...255, you might even claim that you're using "an ANSI
> character set" in MS-DOS.
Which still suggests that the statement "ANSI has nothing to do with
characters displayed on the screen" is false.
>
> Then again, ANSI X3.4-1968 is probably not _the_ "ANSI character set" to
> which you're trying to refer in the above quote. :)
I'm not refering to any particular character set. I'm simply claiming
that the statement "ANSI has nothing to do with characters displayed on
the screen" is false. Do you disagree with this claim?
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
Evenbit
Beth wrote:
> > The castle doesn't seem to be teamming with life.
>
> It's a castle! Everyone's gone inside!
>
> Its use as a "means of defence" would be slightly "compromised", if no-one
> actually went _INSIDE_ of the defensive castle walls...and its use as a
> "building" (a means to escape wind, rain and cold) would not quite work, unless
> you actually went _INSIDE_ the castle's buildings...
Well, maybe Adventurer the Great has already conquered the Known World
-- so, there be no enemy to seek protection from. The battlements and
drawbridge are now just decoration. I see no wind, rain or cold in
your sketch, so I assume it to be a nice sunny day -- perhaps a fine
one for a celebration?
>
> You can _try_ to standing outside the castle...and, well, just stand around
> looking at it...but should those enemy troops show up or it starts pissing down
> with down on your head, the wisdom of NOT standing around outside the castle all
> day long might eventually dawn on you :)
I was flying my kite, "down" doesn't bonk my head too hard, and (as
I've explained already) the "enemy" has been dispatched! Now, what did
you do with all the friendly dragons that were flying around adding
festive color and sound to the empirial grounds?
>
> > Perhaps the dragon
> > is 'inside' enjoying a nice ...uh-hum... meal. ;-)
>
> Perhaps the dragon isn't in the picture because some knight skewered him with a
> lance...and that's why everyone's gone inside: They are all enjoying the rare
> but delicious treat of "dragon burgers and chips"...with, of course, a can of
> Dr.Pepper to wash it down...I've heard that dragon meat tastes a bit like
> chicken, apparently...
HEY P-A-U-L-L-!!!! Princess Stoneheart had your pet dragon butchered!!
;-)
>
> > > How would I send "colours" for this picture, anyway?
> >
> > I see your 'puter didn't come with the cayon input device either...
>
> No, really...how _DO_ I send colour information for the picture?
Easy...the technique has been around for a lot longer than computers
have.
>
> Is there some kind of "standard" for sending colour information in ASCII art?
Yes.
Paint-by-number:
3
33
/\ _3
/ \|1|
/ \ |
/ ___ \|
/ | | \
/ |_2_| \
/| __ |\
| | | |
| | 3| 4 |
| | | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 - RED
2 - WHITE
3 - GREY
4 - BLUE
You can make-fun of the shack if you want...is just a means to send you
some colour.
Nathan.
Jukka Aho
>> As far as I know, there is no ANSI-issued standard for IBM
>> Codepage 437.
> I think you are confusing me with someone else.
No, in the above I was just further emphasizing what this thread was
originally about.
> I never mentioned IBM Codepage 437. I never even mentioned a
> specific ANSI character set. My comment was that the statement
> "ANSI has nothing to do with characters displayed on the screen"
> is false. Nothing more, really.
OK, fair enough. This discussion started out of someone posting a
picture made with IBM Codepage 437 8-bit characters and calling that
"ASCII". Then someone else miscorrected that by claiming it was actually
an "ANSI" picture. Then someone else mis-mis-corrected that by saying
that "ANSI" does not have _anything_ to do with what characters are
displayed on the screen, after which you jumped in and corrected that
"correction" by pointing out that there are also ANSI standards for
character sets... Are we still on the same page here?
BUT your correction was riddled with this unfortunate twist:
"DOS had ANSI.SYS but never really had anything like the ANSI character
set."
This prompted me to post _my_ correction, since the above statement is
wrong on two counts:
1) First of all, IBM Codepage 437 (which is what MS-DOS is using by
default) is a superset of an ANSI X3.4-1968 (aka ASCII-1968), so you
_can_ argue that DOS, in fact, _had_ something like an "ANSI character
set". ASCII is an "ANSI character set" since it is standardized by ANSI,
and IBM Codepage 437 (which is what MS-DOS is using by default)
incorporates the ASCII (ANSI X3.4-1968) character positions and their
meanings, being downwards compatible with it. (OK, this all borderline
nit-picking, but we wanted to drill down to the core of it, didn't we?-)
2) Secondly, in the above quote you were talking about "_the_ ANSI
character set", which seems to imply there would only be one character
set standardized by ANSI. (OK, I can see you talked about "ANSI
standards for character sets" in plural earlier in the same paragraph,
but why change it to "_the_ ANSI character set" towards the end, without
even specifying which one you mean? That definite article just struck me
as odd, especially as you then go on saying: "...systems like Windows,
where the ANSI character set gained popularity". There's that definite
article again, as if there was only one ANSI character set.)
>> There we go again. "ANSI character set", without any specific
>> designation. :)
> My apologeties to the pedantic ones out there. Does it really matter
> which set?
Well, if you talk about "_the_ ANSI character set", I'm naturally
curious about which one of them you consider to be The Most Important
One - the one that does not even need its designation to be explicitly
mentioned. :)
> The bottom line is that the statement "ANSI has nothing to
> do with characters displayed on the screen" is still false.
> There *are* ANSI character sets.
Yes, I fully agree with all that. But I'm not all that sure if there's
something that people would universally recognize as "_the_ ANSI
character set" - and that was my original point. :)
> The fact that there are more than one means that the statement
> "ANSI has nothing to do with characters displayed on the screen"
> is even *more* false.
Correct again (especially since ASCII _is_ a character set standardized
by ANSI, and most of the character sets that are in use today are based
on ASCII, one way or the other.)
> The fact that there is at least one '"ANSI character sets" in
> existence' shows that the statement "ANSI has nothing to do with
> characters displayed on the screen" is false. Thank you for
> proving my point.
I was never trying to disprove that point, but the claim about MS-DOS
not having anything like "_the_ ANSI character set" and the implied
claim of there _being_ "_the_ ANSI character set" in the first place. :)
* * *
I'm restricting the followups to this to message alt.folklore.computers
only, since I don't think this part of the thread has much to do with
assembly language or "interactive fiction" any longer. Feel free to add
those two groups back if you can find some reasonable connection to them
in your (possible) followup.
--
znark
Jukka Aho
> So that I get it right in the future, what should I do to make sure
> replies aren't crossposted and the followups reduced the right way,
> when users of different newsgroups are all participating?
The short answer is: use the "Followup-to" header. That's what it's
there for.
Longer answer follows:
Threads will eventually, sooner or later, drift away from the original
topic. Crossposted threads are likely to do so sooner. Once this happens
in a crossposted thread, it will (by the very definition of
crossposting) annoy more people than when the same thing happens in an
ordinary thread that is only posted to a single newsgroup. So what to
do?
If you start a new thread by crossposting your initial article to
several relevant groups [1] (which is usually done because you want to
get the largest possible audience for your question or announcement) it
would usually be a good idea to limit the followups to only one of them,
right from the beginning of the thread. Why? When people actually start
_discussing_ in a crossposted thread, it's already too late. Controlling
where the followups will go from that point on will be very hard.
But how _can_ you redirect followups to someplace else than what it says
in the "Newsgroups" header? That's actually quite simple; just write the
name of the desired target group in the "Followup-to" header field. When
people now post a followup to your initial message, their newsreader
will automatically copy the contents of your original "Followup-to"
header into their "Newsgroup" header. Ta-dah! Instant redirection. [2]
When using this kind of technique, it would be useful to view your
crossposted initial message not as an ordinary discussion starter, but
rather as an _invitation_ to discuss the subject in the preselected
target group. Just remember to make your intentions clear in a
human-readable way - not only in headers of the initial article, but in
the message body as well. Even though the Followup-to field is visible
in the headers, in practice people seldom actively pay much attention to
the header fields. The fact that the followups will end up someplace
else than what would be obvious may be lost on many - it may go
unnoticed even for those who actually write a followup to your initial
article themselves. It's a good practice to always explicitly state that
the followups have been set to go to only one of the initial groups.
(And if you want to be extra polite, it would be nice if you could
include a couple of words of reasoning for that choice as well.)
Then how should you _choose_ the newsgroup where the discussion will end
up? It should obviously be one of the groups that's already on the
Newsgroup line, since there isn't much sense in posting to one set of
groups and redirecting the followups to some other group where the
original post was not even visible. But which one should it be? Pick the
group that is the most relevant to your question AND the foreseeable
discussion it is likely to spawn. If you can't decide which group that
would be, toss a coin.
> Not that this thread in particular really *needs* more discussion --
> but given another topic, limited to a newsgroup I don't follow,
> wouldn't it appear to me that the replies have stopped?
You can limit the groups also in mid-discussion (I just did that in
another message posted to this thread), but specifically because of the
concerns you raise above, this kind of limitation is (ideally) best done
by _not_ editing the "Newsgroups" list but, instead, by including a
"Followup-to" header with a limited list of groups, and mentioning about
it in your message. This way everyone following the discussion in the
original set of groups will still know where the rest of the discussion
went.
> Would I need to figure out which newsgroup is carrying the discussion,
> and then subscribe to it?
If people direct the flow of discussion by setting the "Followup-to"
header (instead of just brutally slashing off groups from the
"Newsgroup" line), and if they also politely mention about setting the
followups to go to someplace else, it will be easy for you to follow the
discussion wherever it was redirected to. You don't have to figure
anything out yourself.
> I've seen that crossposting is frowned upon, but in nine years or
> so of usenet use, I never realized it was a big deal as long as the
> discussion is of interest to people in the newsgroups involved. I
> thought it was a bigger faux pas to post the same message to multiple
> newsgroups individually?
That's correct. Especially if you're asking about something and
multipost your question to several groups, the threads will be separate
and they don't have any connection to each othe, whatsoever. People in
all those different groups won't see and can't check if someone else has
already answered your question in some other group, as they do not know
that the same question was posted to the other groups in the first
place. You will probably get more answers by multiposting, but you will
also make people work collectively harder for you, which is not very
nice. Multiposting is somewhat impolite as many of those answers will be
largely redundant: people have taken their time to help you out but they
would not necessarily want to hear that they've written a long message
about something that has already been exhaustively answered in another
group.
Last but not least, multiposting is also hard for the multiposter
himself, since he has to keep polling for the answers in all of those
groups, instead of simply following one of them. (There is also a
problem with false information and corrections: if someone answers your
question incorrectly in one group, more knowledgeable people in the
other groups [following the other threads you started by multiposting
the same article] will not see that, and can't correct it.)
_____
[1] Well, at least one could _hope_ people would really take their time
choosing only relevant groups when crossposting.
[2] If it only was that simple, but I'm actually lying here. Yes, normal
newsreader software will usually respect the "Followup-to" header,
working just the way as described above, but Google Groups doesn't. (Or
at least the old Google Groups interface didn't - I'm not sure about the
Google Groups Beta.) What is more, some people (you know the type -
trolls and the like) do not want to respect the wishes of the original
poster but edit the suggested headers manually and post their followups
to wherever they wish, regardless of whether their posts have anything
to do with the newsgroups where they're posted to. In other words, the
"Followup-to" header is only a suggestion; not something you could force
upon other people. But it still works most of the time, especially if
you politely explain the "whys" and "wheres" in a couple of words each
time you use it.
--
znark
JohnnyMrNinja
I would like to point out to possible FBI agents listening in,
> perversion of the True Character Set
Doesn't that look like a rather supremist statement? Hmm, Homeland
Security? An ultra-right-wing ASCII group?
I've got my red-white-and-blue eye on you, buddy.
Jim Carlock
> In XP, followed all instructions to the letter, leaving me with a
> DOS session no more capable of displaying "ANSI art" / utilising
> the display capabilities of ansi.sys than before... also, the screen
> would no longer scroll once hitting 25 lines -- some blind "cls"ing
> established that program output and subsequent command prompts
> would continue unabated outside of visible interface space.
Yeah, I noticed a couple things about the ANSI inside of the XP
command.com prompt.
1) You have to use command.com, not cmd.exe.
2) I lost the 4000 line x 255 character spread as well, it defaulted
to a standard DOS 25 x 80 display. I tried pushing it to 255x4000
after the fact, but was unsuccessful.
3) On the Memory tab, I had to set EMS to None. I also saw that
messing with the settings here caused it to work or not work.
NOTE:
1) You should have a Shortcut to MS-DOS Program icon for it.
2) You get to the set of tabs by right clicking on the short-cut icon,
then clicking upon Properties.
3) When changing a setting, you need to double-click upon the
shortcut icon to test it out. It will NOT take affect in windows that
are already open. I ended up "exit"ing the window, changing the
properties in the shortcut, then restarting the window.
4) You might want to make sure you have an ANSI.SYS file inside
of %systemroot%\system32. I assumed that XP installed the file on
all XP systems. I tested it on an XP Pro system.
5) You can mess with the positioning loading of ANSI.SYS inside
of the ANSI.NT file, just like you'd do in the old DOS days. I got
the DEVICEHIGH=%systemroot%\system32\ansi.sys to work,
as well as the DEVICE=%systemroot%\system32\ansi.sys. I stuck
with the the DEVICEHIGH statement and then started messing with
the Memory tab properties and noticed that ANSI.SYS would
show itself inside of a mem /c or mem /p but it only seemed to work
if EMS=None. I was happy to get it working and posted.
Here's what the Memory tab looks like:
Conventional Memory
Total: Auto
Protected: Checked (although I tested it unchecked as well)
Initial Environment: Auto
Expanded (EMS) Memory
Total: None
Extended (XMS) Memory
Total: Auto
Uses HMA: Checked
MS-DOS protected-mode (DPMI) memory
Total: Auto
The other settings on the other tabs I didn't mess with. If you still can't
get it to work and would like to know what the other settings are, or
what a specific setting is, let me know and I'll post back.
And thanks! I'll take a look at the Pablo thing...
http://artscene.textfiles.com/viewers/dos/pab0971p.zip
--
Jim Carlock
Jim Carlock
spells it. I couldn't help asking, "What did I miss?" Thanks for the
buttinski explanation.
As far as Tampa, Florida goes, I never experienced the butt in
ski problem, but I plastered butt in water while ski-ing. ;-)
Jim Carlock
hooking up to BBS numbers. <g>
Dragon found here: http://www.asciiartfarts.com/20040331.html
Yeah it's lame, but someone with some skills might be able to make
something out of it. The serpentine head looks workable.
Paul still hasn't came back.
--
Jim Carlock
Please post replies to newsgroup.
"Beth" <BethS...@hotmail.NOSPICEDHAM.com> posted:
Annie
On 2005-06-17 jukk...@iki.fi said:
> rand...@earthlink.net wrote:
>
> > It is easy to see how one could make such a mistake if they are
> > such big DOS proponents and never bothered to use systems like
> > Windows, where the ANSI character set gained popularity.
>
> There we go again. "ANSI character set", without any specific
> designation. :) Which "ANSI character set"? If by that you mean
> ANSI X3.4-1968 (aka ASCII-1968), IBM Codepage 437 is a superset
> of that, so MS-DOS can definitely be viewed as an operating system
> that is at least backwards compatible with one of the "ANSI
> character sets" in existence. If you fight the temptation of
> utilizing non-ASCII symbols in positions 0...31 and 128...255,
> you might even claim that you're using "an ANSI character set"
> in MS-DOS.
>
> Then again, ANSI X3.4-1968 is probably not _the_ "ANSI character
> set" to which you're trying to refer in the above quote. :)
> -- _____
> znark ((( `\
_ _`\ )
Randy knew perfectly well what (^ ) )
I was referring to. It's just ~-( )
that he feels compelled to play _'((,,,)))
the big "Authority." It's a ,-' \_/ `\
pathological thing. Hehe! ( , |
`-.-'`-.-'/|_|
My answer pre-supposed using \ / | |
the native in-ROM character set =()=: / ,' aa
located on the video adapter...
the traditional IBM-style 'ASCII
Table.'
Randy's answer brings in the red herring of using a
non-native, loaded-from-software in-RAM character set.
So who's closer to being correct? We report, YOU decide.
Hehehe!
Randall Hyde
"Jukka Aho" <jukk...@iki.fi> wrote in message
news:IaJse.6936$to6....@reader1.news.jippii.net...
wrote earlier
>
> >> As far as I know, there is no ANSI-issued standard for IBM
> >> Codepage 437.
then wrote:
> 1) First of all, IBM Codepage 437 (which is what MS-DOS is using by
> default) is a superset of an ANSI X3.4-1968 (aka ASCII-1968), so you
> _can_ argue that DOS, in fact, _had_ something like an "ANSI character
> set".
I wonder if someone reading all this could possibly decide whether there are
ANSI characters under DOS or no. :-) On the one hand, there are no
standards,
on the other hand, it's a superset.
> ASCII is an "ANSI character set" since it is standardized by ANSI,
> and IBM Codepage 437 (which is what MS-DOS is using by default)
> incorporates the ASCII (ANSI X3.4-1968) character positions and their
> meanings, being downwards compatible with it. (OK, this all borderline
> nit-picking, but we wanted to drill down to the core of it, didn't we?-)
No, we just wanted to say that the statement "ANSI has nothing to do with
the characters displayed on the screen" is false. At least, that's all *I'm*
trying to say. While your knowledge of the code pages and different ANSI
character sets is quite impressive, it doesn't change the basic argument one
bit.
>
> 2) Secondly, in the above quote you were talking about "_the_ ANSI
This is *USENET*. The articles are not referreed. This is incredible
semantic nit-picking on your part. Whether there is one ANSI character set
or multiple character sets, the argument is still the same. The claimed
statement is false.
> character set", which seems to imply there would only be one character
> set standardized by ANSI. (OK, I can see you talked about "ANSI
> standards for character sets" in plural earlier in the same paragraph,
> but why change it to "_the_ ANSI character set" towards the end, without
> even specifying which one you mean?
Again, you're drawing too much information from "the" versus "a". No doubt,
there were spelling mistakes in some of these posts, too. Does this
fundamentally change the fact that Annie made a statement that was flat out
false?
>
> I'm restricting the followups to this to message alt.folklore.computers
> only, since I don't think this part of the thread has much to do with
> assembly language or "interactive fiction" any longer. Feel free to add
> those two groups back if you can find some reasonable connection to them
> in your (possible) followup.
Other than I don't read alt.folklore.computers, you mean?
Jukka Aho
> "Jukka Aho" <jukk...@iki.fi> wrote in message
>
>>>> As far as I know, there is no ANSI-issued standard for IBM
>>>> Codepage 437.
>
> then wrote:
>
>> 1) First of all, IBM Codepage 437 (which is what MS-DOS is using by
>> default) is a superset of an ANSI X3.4-1968 (aka ASCII-1968), so you
>> _can_ argue that DOS, in fact, _had_ something like an "ANSI
>> character set".
>
> I wonder if someone reading all this could possibly decide whether
> there are ANSI characters under DOS or no. :-) On the one hand,
> there are no standards, on the other hand, it's a superset.
_I'm_ not the one inventing these standards; I'm just trying to explain
how they work in relation to each other. :) But if you feel someone
might still be confused about it, I can take yet another stab at it:
IBM Codepage 437, as a whole, and as far as I know, is not defined in
any standard issued by ANSI. _But_ since IBM Codepage 437 builds upon
ASCII-1968, the code positions 0...127 on it _are_ defined in an ANSI
standard (namely, ANSI X3.4-1968, which defines what ASCII is) - even
though the other half - the new 8-bit code positions from 128 to 255 -
aren't. So you can view it both ways, depending on which range of
character codes you look. The first half of the character set is covered
by an ANSI standard (except for the additional glyphs in the control
code range), the second half isn't.
Hence, IBM Codepage 437 _incorporates_ one of the ANSI standards for
character codes (namely, ANSI X3.4-1968 - or simply "ASCII" for us mere
mortals), being a _superset_ of it, but IBM Codepage 437 is still _not_
an ANSI standard itself, since no ANSI standard defines the 8-bit code
positions (128...255) the way they are defined in IBM Codepage 437.
That's actually useful knowledge since it means you can bring ASCII text
to an IBM Codepage 437 environment and expect it to work without any
conversions. Then again, this concept isn't _itself_ anything
particularly exciting or unique: many other 8-bit character sets are
based on ASCII the same way - they retain a more or less verbatim copy
of ASCII in the first half of the set, and define new characters in the
second half. (That's only reasonable, since it allows for easy backwards
compatibility with old ASCII-only documents and environments.)
In the end, the gist of what IBM Codepage 437 is all about isn't the
old, 7-bit ASCII-compatible part of it, but the new 8-bit characters in
the range 128...255. (This part of the thread originally branched off
from a picture that used the Codepage 437 characters in the 128...255
range. Therefore, it was definitely not "ASCII", and since no ANSI
standard defines the 128...255 range for IBM Codepage 437, it was not
"ANSI", either [in any sense of the word]. You didn't make any of these
claims; I'm just pointing them out here for clarity.)
> No, we just wanted to say that the statement "ANSI has nothing to do
> with the characters displayed on the screen" is false. At least,
> that's all *I'm* trying to say. While your knowledge of the code
> pages and different ANSI character sets is quite impressive, it
> doesn't change the basic argument one bit.
No-one has tried to _change_ the "basic argument", just enliven it with
new spin-off peripheral arguments. :)
> This is *USENET*. The articles are not referreed. This is incredible
> semantic nit-picking on your part. Whether there is one ANSI
> character set or multiple character sets, the argument is still the
> same. The claimed statement is false.
Why do you cling on the "basic argument" so hard, as if I would somehow
have tried to dispute that! - when we have no argument whatsoever in
there? :) In case you haven't noticed, I have been talking about two
_other_ arguable details in the last couple of messages - not about your
"basic argument". :)
>> character set", which seems to imply there would only be one
>> character set standardized by ANSI. (OK, I can see you talked about
>> "ANSI standards for character sets" in plural earlier in the same
>> paragraph, but why change it to "_the_ ANSI character set" towards
>> the end, without even specifying which one you mean?
> Again, you're drawing too much information from "the" versus "a".
I was just pointing out a possible misunderstanding which your original
choice of articles seemed to imply. If there is no misunderstanding for
your part, that's fine with me, but someone might still have got a wrong
idea from your original message, so it seemed to warrant a further
discussion of the details - which I gave.
> No doubt, there were spelling mistakes in some of these posts,
> too. Does this fundamentally change the fact that Annie made a
> statement that was flat out false?
Again, whatever false statements "Annie" made was never the issue in my
followups - you already had that covered. I was pointing out other
things. :)
>> I'm restricting the followups to this to message
>> alt.folklore.computers only, since I don't think this part of the
>> thread has much to do with assembly language or "interactive
>> fiction" any longer. Feel free to add those two groups back if you
>> can find some reasonable connection to them in your (possible)
>> followup.
> Other than I don't read alt.folklore.computers, you mean?
I don't know which groups you read - and that's exactly why I explicitly
gave you a choice of not adhering to whatever I happen to set in the
"Followup-to" header. (I find this practice more polite than just
brutally slashing off groups directly from the "Newsgroups" line, but
I'm old-fashioned that way.)
Then again, if _I_ see a discussion drifting into off-topicness, and
someone takes the trouble of limiting the followups into a more proper
set of groups (or even only to a single group), I tend to follow the
discussion there, instead of insisting that the off-topic discussion
should be done to death in "my" group, no matter what. (I'm not exactly
sure how much relevance semantic semi-historical ponderings about
character encoding issues have in alt.lang.asm, but if you're a regular
in that group, maybe you know better.)
--
znark
Beth
> Again, you're drawing too much information from "the" versus "a". No
doubt,
> there were spelling mistakes in some of these posts, too. Does this
> fundamentally change the fact that Annie made a statement that was flat
out
> false?
As you yourself noted: "This is *USENET*"...
Hence, yes, totally...a spelling mistake is not only grounds to invalidate a
single point made in your post, it is grounds to invalidate your entire
argument...if not all your arguments in the thread...if not all your
arguments in every single thread you've ever participated in...
If not, for some, grounds to invalidate your existence as a human being...if
not grounds to invalidate the entire newgroup (remember "Rene and Randy are
always fighting: We should shut down the group forever"?)...if not,
depending on the argument being presented, grounds to invalidate every
newsgroup of the same topic (e.g. your spelling mistake loses you the "HLL
vs. ASM" thread...therefore, assembly language itself is invalid and every
single newsgroup dealing with it must be "purged" and "cleansed")...
This is *USENET*...if you "dare" to disagree with the "orthodoxy", then
nothing short of absolute 100% unachievable flawless perfection in every
single word you ever utter will be good enough...a single typo is perfectly
valid grounds - to the "pedantic class" - for Nazi-like "extermination" of
your posting presence...forever...
At least, that is, when they disagree with what you're saying...or just
don't much like you as a person or your "conduct" generally (I don't know,
you might, say, use too much "humpty-dumpty language" or any attempt to
_HELP PEOPLE_ which is interpreted as "selling" or "swindling" or
"self-glorification" or something of equal measure...which, by the way,
isn't just a "sin", it's grounds for "extermination"...as you are clearly a
"sub-shit")...
If they agree with you, then, suddenly, none of these things is the
slightest problem whatsoever and everyone shares a joke and a laugh
together...everything is wonderful, everything is happy, everything is just
great...UNTIL you "dare" to "challenge" their "orthodoxy"...
At which point, Roman crucifiction looks like a "humane punishment"...at
which point, you're queuing up to be next for the "Spanish Inquistion"...at
which point, you decide to "save time" and just stick that red hot poker
into your own eyes...before the obligatory "hanging, drawing and
quartering", which is among the most insane tortures imaginable, as they
_CARRY ON_ humilating your corpse, as the "hanging" itself kills you...but
then they still carry on to drag you around - just to humilate you, even
though you're dead - and then cut you up into little pieces, so you're not
even afforded the "luxury" of remaining in one piece...
This is *USENET*; If you "dare" make a spelling mistake in the wrong
company, then you'd be signing up for these insane tortures above, rather
than face "the wrath of the pedant"!!
Nothing short of flawless perfection at all times, in every way, is
accepted..."to err is to be human" and you wouldn't want to do anything so
"stupid" as be "human" on a public forum, now, would you? ;)
Newton invented the Dyson vacuum cleaner! Winston Churchill was an insurance
salesman for "Allied Carpets"! Stalin was ruler of Canada in the neolithic
era! The correct spelling of Mississippi is "ffgshkjvnxxxys"! Roger Ramjet
is the President of the United States, which is a member of the European
Union, along with Japan and Antartica!! The world is flat and "sea monsters"
eat any ships that sail West!
There, suck on that, pedants!!
[ Well, why not? It's no less true than those claims of WMD...or that what
happened in Abu Grahib was "mild abuse", rather than outright _TORTURE_...or
that siting a _CONCENTRATION CAMP_ in Guantanamo is about protecting
"civilisation" and "Liberty"...and many were more than happy - still are -
to spread such crap wherever they can, because the President blatantly lies
to them that it's "patriotic" to be a slave to lairs, frauds and
murderers...there very much are "thieves in the temple" tonight... ]
As I say, so long as you don't "dare to challenge the orthodoxy", you'll be
alright...the fact that, yes, the "orthodoxy" is potentially wrong,
dangerous, malicious, murderous or whatever that it _MUST_ be challenged by
all right-minded, right-hearted people with conscience is an irrelevence to
this...
The "orthodoxy" is, apparently, worth all prices...lives, friendships,
comforts...the very truth itself...judging from the conduct of the defence
of the "orthodoxy", there is nothing of greater importance...or of most
savage and ruthless _COST_...better the human race is completely wiped out,
apparently, than for it to simply admit a mistake or two from time to
time...
This is *USENET*: Welcome to the world!
"At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is
assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is
not
exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to
say
it... Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced
with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost
never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow
periodicals"
[ George Orwell, the introduction to "Animal Farm" ]
"Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err"
[ Mahatma Gandhi ]
"A 'No!' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a 'yes'
merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble"
[ Mahatma Gandhi ]
They always say it's best to end on a song...
"Come on! Uggh!
Come on, although ya try to DISCREDIT
Ya still never EDIT
The NEEDLE, I'll thread it
Radically POETIC
Standin' with the FURY that they had in '66
And like e-double I'm MAD
Still knee-deep in the system's SHIT
Hoover, he was a BODY REMOVER
I'll give ya a DOSE
But it'll NEVER come close
To the RAGE built up inside of me:
FIST IN THE AIR, IN THE LAND OF HYPOCRISY!
Movements COME and movements GO
Leaders speak, movements CEASE
When their heads are flown
'cause all these PUNKS
Got BULLETS in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the FEDS
Networks at work, keepin' people CALM:
You know they went after KING
When he SPOKE OUT on Vietnam
He turned the POWER to the HAVE-NOTS
...and then came the SHOT!
Yeah! Yeah, back in this...
Wit' poetry, my MIND I flex
Flip like wilson, VOCALS never lackin' dat finesse
Whadda I got to, whadda I got to do to WAKE YA UP?
To shake ya up? To BREAK the structure up?
'cause BLOOD still flows in the gutter
I'm like takin' PHOTOS
Mad boy KICKS open the shutter
Set the groove
Then stick and move like I was CASSIUS
Rep the stutter step
Then BOMB a left upon the FASCISTS
Yea, the several FEDERAL men
Who pulled SCHEMES on the DREAM
And put it to an END
Ya better BEWARE
Of retribution with MIND WAR
20/20 visions and murals with METAPHORS
Networks at work, keepin' people CALM:
Ya know they MURDERED X
And tried to BLAME it on ISLAM?
He turned the POWER to the HAVE-NOTS
...and then came the SHOT!
What was the PRICE on his head?
What was the PRICE on his head!
I think I heard a SHOT!
I think I heard, I think I heard a SHOT:
'black nationalism; He may be a real contender for this
position should he abandon his supposed obediance to
white liberal doctrine of non-violence...and embrace
black nationalism'
'through counter-intelligence it should be possible to
pinpoint potential trouble-makers...and neutralise them
...and neutralise them'
WAKE UP! WAKE UP!
WAKE UP! WAKE UP!
WAKE UP!! WAKE UP!!
WAKE UP!! WAKE UP!!
How long?
Not long
'cause what you reap is what you sow."
[ "Wake up", Rage Against the Machine, the Matrix soundtrack ]
Beth :)
Jukka Aho
> As you yourself noted: "This is *USENET*" [...] _HELP PEOPLE_
> [lots of stuff snipped] Welcome to the world!
I like the shorter version of that better:
"Get real! This is a discussion group, not a helpdesk. You post
something, we discuss its implications. If the discussion happens to
answer a question you've asked, that's incidental." -- nobull in clpm
That actually explains a lot of threads, and could be generalized to
cover all posts - not just questions. What _I_ find interesting enough
to comment on someone's post does not necessarily need to have anything
to do with the "main point" _the OP_ is trying to make in his message. I
can agree with that point, disagree with it or be totally indifferent
towards it, and _still_ raise some other point. :-)
--
znark
jmfb...@aol.com
"Beth" <BethS...@hotmail.NOSPICEDHAM.com> wrote:
<snip very long diatribe which is complete bullshit>
In the computer biz, all good hard/software was due to the
fact that there were lots of heated disagreements. Nobody
ever produced good stuff with your idea of touchie-feelie
interactions.
Grow up.
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
jmfb...@aol.com
"Jukka Aho" <jukk...@iki.fi> wrote:
>Randall Hyde wrote:
>
>> "Jukka Aho" <jukk...@iki.fi> wrote in message
>>
>>>>> As far as I know, there is no ANSI-issued standard for IBM
>>>>> Codepage 437.
>>
>> then wrote:
>>
>>> 1) First of all, IBM Codepage 437 (which is what MS-DOS is using by
>>> default) is a superset of an ANSI X3.4-1968 (aka ASCII-1968), so you
>>> _can_ argue that DOS, in fact, _had_ something like an "ANSI
>>> character set".
>>
>> I wonder if someone reading all this could possibly decide whether
>> there are ANSI characters under DOS or no. :-) On the one hand,
>> there are no standards, on the other hand, it's a superset.
>
>_I'm_ not the one inventing these standards; I'm just trying to explain
>how they work in relation to each other. :) But if you feel someone
>might still be confused about it, I can take yet another stab at it:
Keep trying. AFAICT, this process is not being taught anywhere.
It is a side effect of the disease Billyboy started distributing;
it's call PCitis where no standards are needed because the system
is a onefer.
<snip another attempt>
jmfb...@aol.com
"Randall Hyde" <rand...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>"Jukka Aho" <jukk...@iki.fi> wrote in message
>news:IaJse.6936$to6....@reader1.news.jippii.net...
>wrote earlier
>This is *USENET*. The articles are not referreed. This is incredible
>semantic nit-picking on your part. Whether there is one ANSI character set
>or multiple character sets, the argument is still the same. The claimed
>statement is false.
The ONLY reason you are able to exchange posts with other people
is because we had such standards. It meant that everybody in
the computer biz agreed to use one definition. If everybody
used their own home-defined set, nobody would be able to
read what you write.
<snip>
Beth
> In the computer biz, all good hard/software was due to the
> fact that there were lots of heated disagreements. Nobody
> ever produced good stuff with your idea of touchie-feelie
> interactions.
What "touchie-feelie" interactions would those be?
I never said anything about anything being "touchie-feelie"...or that anyone
has to agree with anyone else...or even be nice...or even be polite...
You are inventing arguments that were not made...you are complaining to me
about a post that I simply did not actually write...
The point was fully expressed clearly in the quote from Orwell:
"At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is
assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is
not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done'
to say it... Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself
silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion
is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in
the high-brow periodicals"
[ George Orwell, the introduction to "Animal Farm" ]
Hence, the point was, in fact, exactly _IN SUPPORT_ of "disagreement"
because it was asking for a fair hearing for "unorthodox" points of view to
be expressed freely, without silencing...which is sure to cause MORE
disagreement, not less...but, as you rightly point out, disagreement itself
is not a problem and can be a Good Thing...
> Grow up.
Nice logic...
You express that I should be silent on this issue because you disagree with
me...
On the exact point that disagreement is a good thing and, therefore, should
not be silenced...
Maturity, I feel, is a slightly irrelevent point at this juncture...care to
elaborate on the rationale behind this comment? I'd be most interested to
hear...
Beth :)
Randall Hyde
.
>
> _I'm_ not the one inventing these standards; I'm just trying to explain
> how they work in relation to each other. :) But if you feel someone
> might still be confused about it, I can take yet another stab at it:
You don't have to explain it to me. I actually know this stuff. I'm just
pointing out that if you're going to be so pedantic as to argue that "a"
versus "the" in a subsidiary sentence invalidates the claim that the
statement "ANSI has nothing to do with the characters displayed on the
screen" is false. If you're going to start throwing rocks at this argument
on that basis, you need to first make sure you're not living in a glass
house.
Again, we're all *soooo* impressed by your knowledge of the ANSI standards,
code pages, and character sets. Does it change the argument that '"ANSI has
nothing to do with the characters displayed on the screen" is false'?
The fact that ANSI characters may not have appeared in the original "ASCII
Art" picture does not change, one bit, the assertion that the statement
"ANSI has nothing to do with the characters displayed on the screen" is
false.
>
> > No, we just wanted to say that the statement "ANSI has nothing to do
> > with the characters displayed on the screen" is false. At least,
> > that's all *I'm* trying to say. While your knowledge of the code
> > pages and different ANSI character sets is quite impressive, it
> > doesn't change the basic argument one bit.
>
> No-one has tried to _change_ the "basic argument", just enliven it with
> new spin-off peripheral arguments. :)
>
> > This is *USENET*. The articles are not referreed. This is incredible
> > semantic nit-picking on your part. Whether there is one ANSI
> > character set or multiple character sets, the argument is still the
> > same. The claimed statement is false.
>
> Why do you cling on the "basic argument" so hard, as if I would somehow
> have tried to dispute that! - when we have no argument whatsoever in
> there? :) In case you haven't noticed, I have been talking about two
> _other_ arguable details in the last couple of messages - not about your
> "basic argument". :)
From basic logic: if( p and q) then r
If either p or q are false, then r is also false. By arguing that q is false
you're arguing that r is also false. The problem with USENET, of course, is
that p and q (and r, for that matter) are rarely specified in a formal
manner. So you have to infer meaning before making proclaimations as you've
done.
The correct post would have been "You really should have said 'an ANSI
character set' rather than 'the ANSI character set'" and things would have
been perfect.
>
> I was just pointing out a possible misunderstanding which your original
> choice of articles seemed to imply. If there is no misunderstanding for
> your part, that's fine with me, but someone might still have got a wrong
> idea from your original message, so it seemed to warrant a further
> discussion of the details - which I gave.
Great, then this is the last post. We're in sync.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
Randall Hyde
<jmfb...@aol.com> wrote in message news:aMOdnX3Ye9w...@rcn.net...
>
> Keep trying. AFAICT, this process is not being taught anywhere.
> It is a side effect of the disease Billyboy started distributing;
> it's call PCitis where no standards are needed because the system
> is a onefer.
Oh, come on. Microsoft did not define the IBM Extended character set (code
page 437). Microsoft *does* use standardized character sets such as ASCII
(you do realize what ASCII stands for, don't you?) and they dropped code
page 437 for an ANSI standard in the US version of Windows. They also use
UNICODE, which was originally created by Apple and Xerox (among others). For
all the things Microsoft has done wrong by going their own way, this is
hardly something that you can use to claim that Microsoft is the evil one.
Perhaps you could lay that blame on IBM. The good news, at least, is that
IBM chose to use ASCII rather than EBCDIC on the PCs :-)
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
Jukka Aho
> I'm just pointing out that if you're going to be so pedantic
> as to argue that "a" versus "the" in a subsidiary sentence
> invalidates the claim that the statement "ANSI has nothing
> to do with the characters displayed on the screen" is false.
I have not said anything about it invalidating that claim. I find it
very strange that you keep acting as if I had. :)
> Again, we're all *soooo* impressed by your knowledge of the ANSI
> standards, code pages, and character sets.
Why, thank you. *bows*
> Does it change the argument that '"ANSI has nothing to do
> with the characters displayed on the screen" is false'?
That was not the argument in my posts.
> The fact that ANSI characters may not have appeared in the original
> "ASCII Art" picture does not change, one bit, the assertion that the
> statement "ANSI has nothing to do with the characters displayed on
> the screen" is false.
That was not the argument in my posts, either.
> The correct post would have been "You really should have said
> 'an ANSI character set' rather than 'the ANSI character set'"
> and things would have been perfect.
My arguments were two-fold, and I can repeat and clarify them here
again:
You say: "DOS had ANSI.SYS but never really had anything like the ANSI
character set."
Me says: Although IBM Codepage 437 is not an ANSI-standardized character
set by itself, it is a backwards-compatible superset of an
ANSI-standardized character set (namely, ASCII.)
You say: "[...] never bothered to use systems like Windows, where the
ANSI character set gained popularity."
Me says: There are several ANSI-standardized character sets, not just
one. What you're probably referring to with "the ANSI character set" is
ANSI Latin 1, better known as ISO 8859-1 or ISO Latin 1. That is,
however, not what Windows uses (although it's a very common
misconception.)
What Windows uses [1] is actually a _superset_ of ISO Latin 1 (called
Windows Codepage 1252, or WinLatin-1 or something like that) which
defines some additional characters in 128...237 range. In original ISO
Latin 1, these code positions are unused and reserved for control
characters (as I understand, this was done mainly for backwards
compatibility reasons - if the 8th bit is dropped for some reason, you
could get not-so-funny effects with characters in this range) but
Microsoft likes to go its own way in these kind of things.
My argument never was that the claim "ANSI has nothing to do with the
characters displayed on the screen" wouldn't be false. That original
argument which you had with some other poster doesn't even interest me
much; I was interested in pointing out these two other related things.
> Great, then this is the last post. We're in sync.
Now we are. Hopefully.
____
[1] At least the Western European and North American versions of Windows
do.
--
znark
Jukka Aho
> Oh, come on. Microsoft did not define the IBM Extended character
> set (code page 437).
The Wikipedia article about codepage 437 [1] seems to imply they
actually did:
--- 8< ---
The repertoire of CP437 was taken from the character set of Wang
word-processing machines, as explicitly admitted by Bill Gates in the
interview of him and Paul Allen in the 2nd of October 1995 edition of
Fortune Magazine:
"... we were also fascinated by dedicated word processors from Wang,
because we believed that general-purpose machines could do that just as
well. That's why, when it came time to design the keyboard for the IBM
PC, we put the funny Wang character set into the machine--you know,
smiley faces and boxes and triangles and stuff. We were thinking we'd
like to do a clone of Wang word-processing software someday."
--- 8< ---
I do not know the background story to this, but I could speculate that
the BIOS of the original IBM PC, the default font in the ROM of the
original MDA graphics adapter, and all related things were probably
designed in close co-operation with Microsoft (as they were the ones
contracted to deliver the operating system and the ROM BASIC for the
machine), so they had their say about the glyphs which went into it.
_____
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codepage_437>
--
znark
Annie
On 2005-06-19 BethS...@hotmail.NOSPICEDHAM.com said:
> jmfbahciv wrote:
>
> > Grow up.
>
> Nice logic...
>
> You express that I should be silent on this issue because you
> disagree with me...
>
> On the exact point that disagreement is a good thing and, there-
> fore, should not be silenced...
>
> Maturity, I feel, is a slightly irrelevent point at this junc-
> ture... care to elaborate on the rationale behind this comment?
> I'd be most interested to hear...
> _____
> Beth :) ((( `\
_ _`\ )
He means stifle yourself, (^ ) )
Beth. Learn to control ~-( )
your diarrhea-of-the- _'((,,,)))
keyboard propensities. ,-' \_/ `\
( , |
Always happy to help. Hehe! `-.-'`-.-'/|_|
\ / | |
=()=: / ,' aa
T.M. Sommers
> On 2005-06-19 BethS...@hotmail.NOSPICEDHAM.com said:
>
> > jmfbahciv wrote:
> >
> > > Grow up.
> >
> > Nice logic...
> >
She, not he.
--
Thomas M. Sommers -- t...@nj.net -- AB2SB
Annie
On 2005-06-20 t...@nj.net said:
> Annie wrote:
>
> > Beth said:
> >
> > > jmfbahciv wrote:
> > >
> > > > Grow up.
> > >
> > > Nice logic...
> >
> > He means stifle yourself, Beth.
> _____
> She, not he. ((( `\
_ _`\ )
WhatEVER. The validity of the (^ ) )
original injunction remains ~-( )
unaltered. Hehehe! _'((,,,)))
,-' \_/ `\
( , |
Jukka Aho
> But I used some of the "IBM extended ASCII" characters like
> the "box drawing characters" in it (all the best characters
> for "ASCII art" are, unfortunately, in "IBM extended ASCII",
> which appears not to be very "compatible" with anything else :)...
>
> [picture snipped]
>
> This is also probably useless for Paul's game, in fact, as
> he wants "pure ASCII"...which I presume is a "compatibility"
> thing, as the game runs on Windows and on Linux that you have
> to find that "happy medium" that they both like...
As for Linux and other UNIX-like environments, you could technically use
the fairly similar box drawing characters that can be found in the DEC
Special Graphics character set:
<http://vt100.net/docs/vt220-rm/table2-4.html>
(See the last two columns in the table.)
The box drawing glyph repertoire in DEC Special Graphics is not nearly
as comprehensive as the one on IBM Codepage 437, but it's still better
than nothing.
(In that case, you would of course need to draw two different versions
of the picture; one using the DEC Special Graphics set and another one
using the Codepage 437 - or restrict yourself to only using the
characters which can be found in both sets, letting Paul to convert from
one set to the other programmatically when displaying the pictures on
different systems. As always, there are several options. Note that even
though DEC Special Graphics does not appear to have lower case letters,
the "special graphics" glyphs can be shifted in and out at will, so you
_can_ have both lowercase letters and "special graphics" mixed on the
same screen.)
> Anyway, Paul hasn't responded to any of this yet...I don't even know
> if he likes my picture and wants to use it or not...
Paul regularly hangs around in comp.sys.cbm. He has posted there since
leaving his initial request here. I'm not sure why he hasn't commented
anything in relation to your picture, but if you want to get in touch
with him, that's one place where you can find him.
> I also note there's an "animation" option on this "TheDraw"
> program...I guess this means it's possible to specify "delays"
> in the ANSI sequence and then it overwrites one "frame" with
> the next?
Not so much delays and frames, but you can move the cursor around with
ANSI X3.64 codes and redraw different parts of the picture selectively,
over and over again. The delay comes from the speed of the terminal and
the speed of the connection to the host computer. For example, ANSI
(X3.64) animations used to be very popular in some dial-up BBS systems,
and the limiting factor which set the pace for the animations was the
simply the actual line speed of your dial-up (modem) connection.
--
znark
jmfb...@aol.com
"Beth" <BethS...@hotmail.NOSPICEDHAM.com> wrote:
>jmfbahciv wrote:
>> In the computer biz, all good hard/software was due to the
>> fact that there were lots of heated disagreements. Nobody
>> ever produced good stuff with your idea of touchie-feelie
>> interactions.
>
>What "touchie-feelie" interactions would those be?
>
>I never said anything about anything being "touchie-feelie"...or that
anyone
>has to agree with anyone else...or even be nice...or even be polite...
>
>You are inventing arguments that were not made...you are complaining to me
>about a post that I simply did not actually write...
>
>The point was fully expressed clearly in the quote from Orwell:
>
>"At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is
>assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is
>not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done'
>to say it... Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself
>silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion
>is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in
>the high-brow periodicals"
>
>[ George Orwell, the introduction to "Animal Farm" ]
>
>Hence, the point was, in fact, exactly _IN SUPPORT_ of "disagreement"
Not when it's to promote Hitler and his thugs' goals.
>because it was asking for a fair hearing for "unorthodox" points of view
to
>be expressed freely, without silencing...which is sure to cause MORE
>disagreement, not less...but, as you rightly point out, disagreement
itself
>is not a problem and can be a Good Thing...
Your intentions were to promote an evil which, unfortunately,
was not eradicated with the end of WWII.
>
>> Grow up.
>
>Nice logic...
>
>You express that I should be silent on this issue because you disagree
with
>me...
No. You are trying to state that the evil perpretrated during
WWII is not an evil and should be considered. If you don't know
what you're doing, you need to grow up. If you do know what
you're doing, you also need to grow up. The consequences of
your need for instant gratification is too dire for the
rest of the world.
>
>On the exact point that disagreement is a good thing and, therefore,
should
>not be silenced...
This is a specious claim in order to promote an old evil.
Visciousness is not at all in the category of disagreement.
>
>Maturity, I feel, is a slightly irrelevent point at this juncture...care
to
>elaborate on the rationale behind this comment? I'd be most interested to
>hear...
There's a story about a city during the Roman Empire days.
This city chose their rulers by having a game; the winners
became the rulers. One faction who had lost were so intent
on putting the other side out of power, that they opened
the gates to the barbarians. Both of these sides lost.
This is a case where the sole focus is upon instant gratification
with no thought to the consequences to the actions to attain it.
Your methods of arguing works for a lot of people who are
unable to answer the question, "When did you stop beating
your wife?". I call this use of language intellectual
dishonesty. I understand that you will respond with the
claim that you did not say anything of the sort; the wording
was cleverly couched to induce certain assumptions without
stating them explicitly. This is done so that nobody, who
parses the text, can find text that make these claims.
jmfb...@aol.com
"Randall Hyde" <rand...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
><jmfb...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:aMOdnX3Ye9w...@rcn.net...
>>
>> Keep trying. AFAICT, this process is not being taught anywhere.
>> It is a side effect of the disease Billyboy started distributing;
>> it's call PCitis where no standards are needed because the system
>> is a onefer.
>
>Oh, come on. Microsoft did not define the IBM Extended character set
I didn't say this nor did I even imply it. From what I've read
in your discussions, you don't understand what the word "ANSI"
means. You use the word as a generic, e.g., the way we use
Kleenix. The computer biz is very fussy w.r.t. language, as
it should be.
My reference to Gates' has to do with hiding the functions
of words from their users. Sloppy language produces sloppy
output which we called garbage.
> .. (code
>page 437). Microsoft *does* use standardized character sets such as ASCII
>(you do realize what ASCII stands for, don't you?) and they dropped code
>page 437 for an ANSI standard in the US version of Windows. They also use
>UNICODE, which was originally created by Apple and Xerox (among others).
For
>all the things Microsoft has done wrong by going their own way, this is
>hardly something that you can use to claim that Microsoft is the evil one.
>Perhaps you could lay that blame on IBM. The good news, at least, is that
>IBM chose to use ASCII rather than EBCDIC on the PCs :-)
Sigh! You still have no idea what the functionality of
character formats are. You seem to be making the incorrect
assumption that you know everything about them because you
use them.
Robert Redelmeier
BZZZT! Godwin. BAH loses.
-- Robert
NoDot
I read almost everything on here, and I have no recolection of any post
of her's stating anything remotely similar to that.
> /BAH
> Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
NoDot,
...
rpl
BZZZZT! a.f.c. : predates Godwin.
Surely there's a parallel universe where Dr. Porsche convinced young
Adolf to give up the megalomaniac shit and design car exteriors.
>
> -- Robert
>
Beth
Oh, this is precious...
First, you call me "touchie feelie"...when this fails to "silence the
unorthodoxy", the next thing you try is to "invoke Godwin" and then,
apparently, I'm a "Nazi"...
A "touchie feelie" Nazi...and you find this to be no kind of oxymoron?
But, well done...you are following the established patterns of defensive:
1. Humilate and ridicule; Assert that I'm "touchie feelie", "wishy washy",
"liberal elitist", "tree hugger" or other can't-take-this-person-seriously
designation...
2. Call them "Nazi"; Imply "disguised evil agenda"...actually, this is
normally "last resort" on the standard "defences"...you appear to have
become "desparate" rather too quickly here...
Other methods of defence include:
3. Cast aspertions on mental fitness; Suggest "insanity"...as you can't
listen to a "mad person", yes, lest risk going mad yourself?
4. Attribute "whore"-like characteristics; "Ah, you would say that because
such-and-such says it and we all know you're just trying to curry favour
with him"...
5. Plain old "you are an idiot"; Pretty self-explanatory...I am an
idiot...so I've got it wrong...as pure and simple as that...
6. Bait-and-calm; Make wild assertion or insult that's bound to get me
"passionate" in defence (such as "you Nazi!") then when I am "heated" in
response, the response is very calm and collected..."why, look at you!
You're clearly emotional and irrationale!"...
7. Popularity defence; "Safety in numbers"...gather a "posse" and then each
refers to the other as "character witness"...
Orwell remarked that the attempts to silence are surprisingly
effective...not on one who is more aware of every "trick" in the
"playbook"...
The assertion of "Nazi" is actually absurd...this cross-posted group has no
awareness of my previous postings but my originating newgroup does...knowing
full well that I am among the _LEAST_ applicable persons to which this
"Nazi" taunt could apply...
Also, you speak of "implicit insult"...to say something but not explicitly
write it in words, so that if challenged, there is no actual specific text
to provide as evidence...in this case, you skirt around saying "Nazi" but,
yes, never actually state that exact word outright...you use the very "evil"
you say is so wrong as you accuse me...
> >because it was asking for a fair hearing for "unorthodox" points of view
> >to be expressed freely, without silencing...which is sure to cause MORE
> >disagreement, not less...but, as you rightly point out, disagreement
> itself
> >is not a problem and can be a Good Thing...
>
> Your intentions were to promote an evil which, unfortunately,
> was not eradicated with the end of WWII.
I agree that, unfortunately, the evil of fascism, racial hatred and such
were not eradicated with the end of WWII...
This, though, seems to have no bearing on me, my intentions or what I wrote,
as this "Nazi" charge is completely false...
May I ask for you to directly cite or provide evidence of the supposed
"Nazi-ness" that you refer to?
As you must understand, anyone can generate a "vicious rumour" with no
grounds in reality whatsoever...hence, our system of justice is based upon
_EVIDENCE_ being presented...that the burden of proof rests with the
prosecution...and that the accused is given "fair trial" on that charge, not
"convicted" on unsubstantiated "rumours"...
> >> Grow up.
> >
> >Nice logic...
> >
> >You express that I should be silent on this issue because you disagree
> >with me...
>
> No. You are trying to state that the evil perpretrated during
> WWII is not an evil and should be considered.
Where did I state this?
Unless you mean that in stating that everyone has the fundamental right to
"freedom of speech" (as Constitutionally guaranteed in the Bill of Rights
for Americans) that this implicitly means that neo-Nazis may also give their
vile "point of view"?
Yes, "freedom of speech" does implicitly include that same right to those
who we would not wish to hear...
But, implicitly and factually, a neo-Nazi's opinion is wrong...this can be
easily demonstrated so by right-minded individuals in response...if they use
this "freedom of speech" to make their case, then each individual point can
be knocked down and _SHOWN_ to be illogical, nonsensical and prejudiced...
Censorship breeds _ignorance_...ignorance is where the neo-Nazi disease
spreads...the disillusioned youth is "censored"...while the neo-Nazi speaks
without care for "censorship"...the youth is impressed, the youth is
"tempted" towards the person they view as "telling it like it is"...a vile
perversion which is _PROMPTED_ by censorship and silence...
_EDUCATION_ is the root solution..._VOICING_ the evil and the history of
that evil teaches the wrongness of it...
"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."
[ Socrates ]
"Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear
no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me"
[ Psalm 23:4 ]
> If you don't know
> what you're doing, you need to grow up. If you do know what
> you're doing, you also need to grow up. The consequences of
> your need for instant gratification is too dire for the
> rest of the world.
What need for what "instant gratification"?
You are repeatedly making reference to things that, quite frankly, baffle
me...
Please stop dancing around and evading...making "rumours" here and asserting
"gossip" there...
One suspects it may be delibrate...but when your "accusations" against me
are vague and apparently irrelevent, there is no way that I'm able to meet
that which I'm accused of...
I need to know that by which I am charged specifically, in order to mount a
defence against your "prosecution"...
Evidence, rather than strange "rumours" of "evil agenda" would be
helpful...thank you...
> >On the exact point that disagreement is a good thing and, therefore,
> >should not be silenced...
>
> This is a specious claim in order to promote an old evil.
You're now not even really answering the post anymore...this was a
continutation of the previous sentence, just to note _YOUR_ position in the
previous posting...
> Visciousness is not at all in the category of disagreement.
Again, the relevency or irrelevency of this remark can't be commented on, as
I frankly have not the slightest clue what all your "rumours" are
specifically attempting to refer to...
> >Maturity, I feel, is a slightly irrelevent point at this juncture...care
> >to elaborate on the rationale behind this comment? I'd be most interested
to
> >hear...
>
> There's a story about a city during the Roman Empire days.
> This city chose their rulers by having a game; the winners
> became the rulers. One faction who had lost were so intent
> on putting the other side out of power, that they opened
> the gates to the barbarians. Both of these sides lost.
> This is a case where the sole focus is upon instant gratification
> with no thought to the consequences to the actions to attain it.
Again, what "instant gratification" are you talking about?
In other posts, I've repeatedly took issue against Empire, Roman
included...and against any substance to any "might is right"
philosophy...and against "instant gratification"...against mindless
"competition"...against racial hatred...against most of the "evils" you seem
to be referring to (or, at least, as far as one can gather, as your
vagueness makes you fully unclear and comes across as "rumour mongering")...
On any other day, it would be me relating this story...
> Your methods of arguing works for a lot of people who are
> unable to answer the question, "When did you stop beating
> your wife?".
I have no "method of arguing"...I respond to that which is before me, pure
and simple...
Now your "rumours" appear to suggest support of "wife beating"...again,
based on what is not stated...
I see _your_ "method of defence", though...call someone a "wife beater",
"neo-Nazi" or "child abuser"...some similar shocking taboo that arouses
passions against that person...plant the rumour and walk away...allowing
others to "do the dirty work" for you...
Now, that is an incredibly "evil" methodology: Invent a "rumour" that
someone you don't like is a "child abuser" or similar...wait for the
"vigilantes" to harass, violently attack or even murder that person, while
you sit watching it all happily from a "safe distance"...
> I call this use of language intellectual
> dishonesty. I understand that you will respond with the
> claim that you did not say anything of the sort; the wording
> was cleverly couched to induce certain assumptions without
> stating them explicitly. This is done so that nobody, who
> parses the text, can find text that make these claims.
Right, I see...
There is no actual evidence of any "evil" or "wrong-doing" or anything
whatsoever...this lack of direct evidence is simply "proof" that the "evil"
is well-hidden and disguised rather than that there is, in fact, no "evil"
present...
So, by the same rationale, Oprah Winfre appears not to be a member of the
KKK...the fact that we see no evidence of this, simply means she is "hiding
her membership" well, so that we cannot see it...it is not, as one might
logically expect, an indication of her having no actual membership of the
KKK at all...no, the lack of evidence of this, simply means she's
"fiendishly clever" in disguising it...the unlikelihood of a black woman
being a member of the KKK isn't a demonstration that this couldn't really
actually be the case...no, this unlikelihood simply means she is all the
more "evil" for her KKK membership...
Hence, the fact that no such reference can be seen anywhere in my post, is
just because I'm so "fiendishly evil" that I'm able to plant "subliminal
messages of pure evil" into people's minds, without leaving a single
conscious or visible trace of this whatsoever...
How terribly "convenient"...this allows you to make any random and arbitrary
claim you like...but it cannot be disproved in any way because the more one
shows there is no evidence or motivation, the more "fiendishly evil" it
makes the "evil plot" against everyone...
Yes, the very fact that your claim is without evidence and unfounded is, you
assert, the very proof that it is true...
[ You don't happen to be a friend of Donald Rumsfeld, by any chance? ]
This is a variation of "control by fear"...create an imaginary "threat"...if
anyone challenges the non-existence of that "threat", then the lack of
evidence is simply "proof" of just how "fiendishly evil" the disguise
is...why, you could be "infected with evil" and not even know it! It could
penetrate "subconsciously" and "subliminally"...
Best you not even read Beth's post, then...wouldn't want to be "infected
with evil" by merely glancing at the words...
No, I'll give it to you...this is a new "tactic" on me..."control by
paranoia"...very fiendish means of "silencing" someone, indeed...I'll add it
to the list...
Let's cut to the chase...if you have a concrete case, then _present_ it
_explicitly_...if not, this is "rumour mongering", which is merely one of
the many ways to attempt to silence / discredit those who you do not wish to
be heard, as it breaks the "orthodoxy" you adhere to...in my case, my "sin"
was to suggest that your "orthodoxy" - actually, any "orthodoxy" - is not
actually "sacrosanct" and _CAN_ be challenged...
Indeed, _MUST_ and _SHOULD_ be challenged:
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
[ "Who watches the watchmen?" ]
Beth :)
P.S. Yes, my ASCII picture was, in fact, a devious "subliminal message" of
"inherent evil"...by which I plan "evil world domination" from my "evil"
underground concrete "bunker of evil"...what on Earth my motivation exactly
is for all of this "evil" is exactly - quite "conveniently" - exceeds the
imaginations of mortal men (that means _YOU_! ;)...which is handy for
"proving" I'm "evil", as you require no actual _EVIDENCE_ to demonstrate
this...it is so "evil" that it defies being shown as such...it is so "evil"
that it leaves no evidence or trace whatsoever...it is so "evil", it doesn't
even exist!!! Wow, that's just how "evil" the "evil plan" truly is!