Line Graphics

[Paul Murray_4]

Hi All,

Hopefully, this is a very quick question for you ....

I remember back in my ops analyst days, that you could use alternate characters to produce boxes, lines, etc via a normal DCL "write sys$output" command. The result looked similar to the old Digital logo.

Can anyone remember how to get the graphic characters ?

Thanks,
Paul.

[John Abbott_2 · Accepted solution]

Try

(0 to turn on
(B to turn off

characters l q k x m j are good at drawing boxes

quick example:

$ WRITE SYS$OUTPUT "((0lqqqqqqqqqqk"
$ WRITE SYS$OUTPUT "mqqqqqqqqqqj((B"

The VT220 programmer pocket guide is a good ref. sorry don't have a useful link, only a paperback copy.

Kind Regards
John.

[Heinz W Genhart]

Hi Paul

I use a very simple commandfile to create a one line file with some text as required.

$ READ/PROMPT="Enter String >>> "/ERROR=clean_up/END_OF_FILE=clean_up SYS$COMMAND string
$ OPEN/WRITE out c_a.txt
$ esc[0,8] = 27
$ end_char = "''esc'(0x''esc'(B"
$ line1_start = "''esc'#3''esc'[1;7m" + end_char
$ line2_start = "''esc'#4''esc'[1;7m" + end_char
$ line_end = "''end_char'''esc'[m"
$ out_line1 = "''line1_start'"
$ out_line2 = "''line2_start'"
$!
$ cnt = 0
$ len = F$LENGTH(string)
$loop:
$ IF cnt .LT. (len-1)
$ THEN
$ out_line1 = out_line1 + F$EXTRACT(cnt,1,string) + end_char
$ out_line2 = out_line2 + F$EXTRACT(cnt,1,string) + end_char
$ cnt = cnt + 1
$ GOTO loop
$ ELSE
$ out_line1 = out_line1 + F$EXTRACT(cnt,1,string) + line_end
$ out_line2 = out_line2 + F$EXTRACT(cnt,1,string) + line_end
$ GOTO finnish
$ ENDIF
$finnish:
$ WRITE out ""
$ WRITE out "''out_line1'"
$ WRITE out "''out_line2'"
$ CLOSE out
$ TYPE c_a.TXT
$clean_up:
$ EXIT

It creates a file with the name c_a.txt in your default directory. You have to do some customization on this file, so that the string looks as you like

Regards

Heinz

[John Abbott_2]

Sorry slight typo, only one open round bracket required after each escape sequence, not two as suggested. Note the is one character and not five. Assume you know how to create this.

[Paul Murray_4]

SUPERB !!!

I knew it would be an easy one to answer !!

Many thanks,
Paul.

[Steven Schweda]

The fine print may be found in a VT100 (or
later) programming manual, as this capability
is really a property of the terminal (or
terminal emulator) being used, rather than
anything about the sending program itself.

[Ian Miller.]

for more infomation about VTxxx terminals and escape sequences than you ever want to know see http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal/dec.html

and for those who are really obessed about escape sequences
http://bjh21.me.uk/all-escapes/all-escapes.txt

[Daniel Fernandez Illan]

Paul
The attached document is a collet of escape sequences for ANSI VT100.

Saludos.
Daniel.

[Ian Miller.]

and there is http://www.vt100.net/

[Karl Rohwedder]

I've attached a little FORTRAN program together with a DCL wrapper, which reads a input textfile and replace special characters with e.g. linedrawing, bold, underline... escape sequences.
It may produce simple ASCII text, VT100 or PCL sequences.

E.g. if the input looks like

#######
#1#2#3#
#######

the output in textmode looks like

+-+-+-+
|1|2|3|
+-+-+-+

and in VT100 mode accordingly.

If you no not have a FORTRAN compiler I may send you an object file.

I wrote it 20 years ago, so please do not look at the code too close...

regards Kalle

[Paul Murray_4]

Thanks for all your help.
Paul.