Re: Color

From: Daniel A. Koepke (dkoepke@circlemud.org)
Date: 01/13/01


On Fri, 12 Jan 2001, Shane P. Lee wrote:

> One of the Implementors on my MUD uses a MAC telnet client (not sure
> which one), which doesn't support ASCII color codes.

The popular name is ANSI color codes, not ASCII color codes.  Both are
incorrect, but ASCII is even less correct (ASCII refers to the numerical
encoding of the keys on your keyboard).  The ANSI standard for this was
long ago superceded by ECMA-048 (which is the same as ISO 6429), which you
can download from http://www.ecma.ch/.  There are Mac telnet clients which
support "ANSI terminal emulation" -- BetterTelnet might be one of them,
which is under the GPL and available from

  http://www.cstone.net/~rbraun/mac/telnet/

although I don't have a Mac, so I can't verify it.

> I've heard of RIP color (SMAUG methinks) before, but haven't been able
> to find any info on it.

RIP is a graphics standard and is not akin to ISO 6429.  RIP is not well
supported by anything (and it never really was).  If you wanted more
complete graphics capabilities, RIP would provide them.  Of course, no-one
would be able to view them and you could get better performance, support,
and features out of Flash.

> ...color codes into the easycolor version I am using currently.

There are no significantly well-supported standards in competition with
ECMA-048, which was established in 1976.  (The ANSI standard probably
predates that slightly.)  Some terminals support different sub- and super-
sets of these codes, but the basics are pretty much the same.  The effort
to support a multiplicity of those standards is not worth the gains, IMHO.

-dak

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