Telnet terminal (developer) help needed

[orchaeus]

We run a small development server using red hat linux 6.1.

We have some questions regarding telnet terminals, mud clients,
and doing interesting things in terminal windows - as well as
platform/client compatability.

The basic idea is to create some colored, text-based theatrics for our
moo-server log in, preferably without resorting to basic page scrolling
animations.

We'd appreciate any assitance from terminal emulation/linux people -
or being pointed toward any useful existing systems or references.

We have been using ncurses for some testing (which can be seen at
organelle.org 5001 - is usually running) but are having trouble with
color on most clients, causing misplacement of text areas.

The idea of separate windows (ncurses) is great but seems incompatable
with most mud clients. We are really only hoping to achieve basic ansi
telnet, vt100 compatability - but there is much we do not know about
terminal emulation and ANSI compatability in general.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Goals:
For a cross-platform, vt100 ansi-color telnet session:

to be able to clear the screen
to be able to position the cursor, draw text in color, and backspace
it out.
to be able to draw an ascii image and erase it in a circular,
inward spiral.
Other similar theatrical effects.
We'd like to suspend typing echoes during this process

We are needing to be compatable cross-platform and get
basically the same results regardless of who telnets in.

Are we dreaming?

Any help greatly appreciated...

orchaeus -at- organelle.org

[Rich Teer]

On Fri, 18 Aug 2000, orchaeus wrote:

> Goals:
> For a cross-platform, vt100 ansi-color telnet session:

IIRC, a standard VT100 doesn't do colour - they're monochrome only.
So, it's probable that not all VT100 emulators will do colour.

> We are needing to be compatable cross-platform and get
> basically the same results regardless of who telnets in.

I think if you avoid colour, what you want in pretty much do-able.

HTH,

--
Rich Teer

NT tries to do almost everything UNIX does, but fails - miserably.

The use of Windoze cripples the mind; its use should, therefore, be
regarded as a criminal offence. (With apologies to Edsger W. Dijkstra)

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-online.net

[Jeffrey Altman]

The term "ANSI terminal" when applied to MUDs refers in most
cases to the IBM PC-DOS ANSI.SYS driver which supports
a small subset of the ANSI X3.64-1979 standard for constructing
data terminals.

DEC VT100 terminals are based on X3.64-1979 but are incompatible
with the IBM PC-DOS ANSI.SYS driver. VT100 terminals do not
support color. Nor do they support function keys.

The purpose of using a terminal control library such as ncurses
is to hide from your application the differences between all of
the different terminal types. Use ncurses and you won't have
to understand the differences, just understand the ncurses api.

As for Telnet protocol. If you are implementing this protocol
yourself, then you should be prepared for a lot of work. Telnet
is a state machine based protocol which has a tendancy to confuse
most implementors. Usually because they decide they do not need
to read the large number of Telnet RFCs in full before they get
started.

In article <180820000846409543%myuse...@hotmail.com>,
orchaeus <myuse...@hotmail.com> wrote:
: We run a small development server using red hat linux 6.1.

:
: We have some questions regarding telnet terminals, mud clients,
: and doing interesting things in terminal windows - as well as
: platform/client compatability.
:
: The basic idea is to create some colored, text-based theatrics for our
: moo-server log in, preferably without resorting to basic page scrolling
: animations.
:
: We'd appreciate any assitance from terminal emulation/linux people -
: or being pointed toward any useful existing systems or references.
:
: We have been using ncurses for some testing (which can be seen at
: organelle.org 5001 - is usually running) but are having trouble with
: color on most clients, causing misplacement of text areas.
:
: The idea of separate windows (ncurses) is great but seems incompatable
: with most mud clients. We are really only hoping to achieve basic ansi
: telnet, vt100 compatability - but there is much we do not know about
: terminal emulation and ANSI compatability in general.
:
: Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

:
: Goals:

: For a cross-platform, vt100 ansi-color telnet session:

:
: to be able to clear the screen

: to be able to position the cursor, draw text in color, and backspace
: it out.
: to be able to draw an ascii image and erase it in a circular,
: inward spiral.
: Other similar theatrical effects.
: We'd like to suspend typing echoes during this process

:
: We are needing to be compatable cross-platform and get

: basically the same results regardless of who telnets in.

:
: Are we dreaming?

:
: Any help greatly appreciated...
:
:
: orchaeus -at- organelle.org

Jeffrey Altman * Sr.Software Designer
The Kermit Project * Columbia University
612 West 115th St * New York, NY * 10025 * USA
http://www.kermit-project.org/ * kermit-...@kermit-project.org

[Mark H. Wood]

In comp.text Rich Teer <ri...@rite-group.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Aug 2000, orchaeus wrote:
> IIRC, a standard VT100 doesn't do colour - they're monochrome only.
> So, it's probable that not all VT100 emulators will do colour.

You do indeed RC. To get color in the DEC line you need a VK100,
VT241, VT340, or some VT4xx/5xx that I never got to work with. Other
models will politely accept the color specs but do nothing in
response.

--
Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer mw...@IUPUI.Edu
2000-05-05 13:27:15 GMT -- still no icebergs in the White River

[Scott G. Hall]

Rich Teer wrote:

>
> On Fri, 18 Aug 2000, orchaeus <myuse...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Goals:
> > For a cross-platform, vt100 ansi-color telnet session:
>

> IIRC, a standard VT100 doesn't do colour - they're monochrome only.
> So, it's probable that not all VT100 emulators will do colour.
>

> > We are needing to be compatable cross-platform and get
> > basically the same results regardless of who telnets in.
>

> I think if you avoid colour, what you want in pretty much do-able.

There is a telnet available that does VT-100 emulation and ANSI color
pretty much as set forth from various XTerm programs (ie. xterm extended
ANSI emulation codes). I downloaded it to my system precisely because it
provides color and xterm compatibility.

Well, I just saw an posted to the tools newsgroup:

=========================================================================
| Subject: The ultimate TelNet experience
| From: "Nick" <Ni...@btsoftware.com>
| Organization: btsoftware
| Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 09:30:57 +0200 (CDT)
| Newsgroups: alt.comp.software.tools
|
| NetTerm
| ***************
|
| The ultimate TelNet experience
| NetTerm is a network terminal which can act as a
| TelNet client both on a locally attached ethernet
| network, as well as a dial-in network using WinSock
| products such as Trumpet and Windows 95/NT.
|
| Check it out and download the trial version
| http://www.btsoftware.com/win95/netterm.htm
=========================================================================

--
Scott G. Hall General Dynamics Communication Systems
ph: 919-549-1189 North Carolina Systems Center
email: Scott...@GD-CS.Com Research Triangle Park, NC USA