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Accurate ANSI Emulation in Mac OS X?
bedouin writes "I occasionally telnet to some BBSs that are very rich in ANSI graphics. While I can usually navigate fine through message areas and file boards, playing classic door games like Food Fight is almost unbearable. For about a year I've been searching for a Mac OS X terminal emulator that can accurately draw ANSI graphics just as they would appear on DOS systems with ansi.sys, but haven't found anything yet. Any suggestions? A native (and free or shareware) Mac OS X app would be prefered, but I'm willing to use an X11 or maybe even classic alternative as well. So far I've experimented with iTerm, GLterm, and aterm with unimpressive results."
Boy, that takes me WAY back. I seem to remember a program called MACTerm that did a semi-ok job at ANSI graphics, other than it being all in black & white anyway (this was before color macs). I doubt somehow that you'd find anything that would deal with color....unless you programmed it yourself.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
If you have an appropriate charset locale installed, 'luit' (comes with X11) can emulate any locale when run in a proper unicode terminal. it is a great tool for connecting to systems expecting odd character sets.
I have been told that http://iterm.sf.net might be able to do this with some special DOS fonts I know nothing about. Give it a whirl. The authors are really nice people, and might be willing to help if you have questions.
A great libre project that could be worth the try (even more so if you're into old games) is DOSBox which does a great job simulating a 1990-era DOS machine, using SDL. As it's emulating the CPU, you'll be able to summon it on your reverse-endian architecture. All you need now is a good telnet client.
Overhead for a telnet session, you could object, but as an added bonus you'll be able to reminisce all those 2 and 4 and 16-color days.
Feel ready to own one or many Tux Stickers?
Additionally, being able to transfer files with Zmodem would be great as well. Though I think this is pushing things too far.
I've been slowly writing my own terminal program just because of the exact reason you've mentioned.
The trick in my case was simply to find a Mac font that contained the IBM Extended ASCII characters in the same sequence. There are two such fonts floating around that will do the trick -- IBMAC and ENCLAVE. IBMac works really well in my experience.
Usually, t's just a matter of putting them in your Fonts folder and telling your term program to use them for the display.
I've slapped them up on my
http://homepage.mac.com/kiddailey/files/misc/ib
Note that they're bitmap fonts, so forget trying to view them in Fontbook.
If you'd like to give my extremly rough, full-ansi supporting work-in-progress term program a try I'd be more than happy to slap it up somewhere for you
Argh. Someday I'll learn - preview first, then submit.
f onts.sit
http://homepage.mac.com/kiddailey/files/misc/ibm-
The only other point I forgot to mention is that your term program will need at least ANSI color support (that you may have to tweak) for this to work right.
My last suggestion is PuTTY. I've always found it to be an excelent program in the Windows world, and they have source for a Unix version which should work on OS X (this is based on the the Unix underpinnings, not anything written anywhere I saw). Download page, look under "Unix source" or something like that.
Hope one of those works, have fun.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
You can use a dos font, it still wont give you ansi color. I had this same problem on iTerm, and the default terminal.
I finally used fink, and use kde konsole. I can't believe OSX wouldnt support true ansi color with its default terminal.
Loaded BitchX and compare, you can see the difference. Fonts are easy, decent emulation is the bitch. (pun intended)
Check this out: http://www.pollet.net/GLterm/ from the site: GLterm is a replacement for the Terminal application which ships with MacOS X. It's made to be faster, and to support more common terminal features. It supports full ANSI colors, all vt102 protocol, all DEC function keys, and a selection of useful xterm sequences. The Big Thing is that GLterm uses X11 .bdf fonts and renders them using..OpenGL. So it's very fast... as long as you have a working 3D accelerator. It should work as intended on B&W G3 and up for desktops and on White iBook and up for laptops: ie a machine whose 3D accelerator is handled properly in OSX. To this date (April 2002) Rage II, II+, Pro are not accelerated.
PuTTY is pretty solid, and I believe it handles ANSI.
It's primarily Win32 software, but there is a UNIX source. Might work in OS X, though there is an OS X port on the way (according to the FAQ)
Try the Mac Orchard for all things Mac Internet: http://www.macorchard.com/ Specifically, the terminal apps page (DataComet might work for you), or the Commercial apps page if you want to spend more money... Drew
8 colors (plus bold, plus underline, plus standout, plus....) should be enough for anybody.
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
Well, since OS X has such great Java support, either natively or via a web browser (also native, but different interface, y'know?), are there any JAVA ANSI terminal emulators/telnet interfaces that could either be opened directly or as an applet in Safari or whatnot?
You wouldn't mind posting some BBS information for the ACSII-porn goldmines you've been holding out on.. would ya?
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
Zterm http://homepage.mac.com/dalverson/zterm/ personally I still use v0.9 on my SE as a serial console, but it will handle Zmodem and PC ANSI BBS, and the latest versions are of course OS X native.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I can't believe OSX wouldnt support true ansi color with its default terminal.
I can't believe my G5 didn't come with a punch-card reader or a buggy-whip holder, either.
I write in my journal
cheers- raga
Try setting the "TERM" environment variable to "ansi80x25" or something like that, to see if that helps. You probably don't need a new application - you probably just need to set different terminal emulation in your current app.
I expect any unix based OS to support a term mapping thats used on a daily basis.
You ended your sentence prematurely. You were about to tell us by whom it's used on a daily basis. Then somebody else was going to point out that the group you cited was insignificantly small, and we all could have had a good laugh.
See what you spoiled?
You act likes its a dead emulation
Yes. That's exactly what I did. Glad you got it.
Load BitchX or irssi
I had to google those to even find out what they are. Turns out they're pitifully obsolete and user-hostile chat programs. Anybody who wants to use one of them should use Snak instead. Problem solved.
(Actually, anybody who wants to use one of them should take a long, hard look into his soul and ask himself why he wants to use this "IRC" thing at all. But that's a whole 'nother discussion.)
I write in my journal
i'd love to see bash do it, too.
;-)
it would make convincing folks that it's a bloated, hideous, twisted vision of a shell that much easier. i think we should compile in a full text editor, too. oh, wait, that's already there. twice! we'll have to just put screen(1) in, too!
yeah, karma to burn.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Just when I thought I was the only one who checked the boards, I find out there are two. j/k.
.Mac site looks like a good bet.
f onts.sit
u surper.html
Anyhow, I've encountered the exact same problem, and our friend who posted the fonts on his
http://homepage.mac.com/kiddailey/files/misc/ibm-
There are a couple of other things I'd like to bring up. First, I noticed that the backspace doesn't work automatically under the terminal when connecting to telnet sessions. There is a check box in the preferences to change that. Secondly, I write messages in some of the games and apparently the terminal puts in some bogus characters here and there. This may be related to the fonts yet again. However, I thought it was worth mentioning.
For those of you who scoff at playing some door games on the BBS, I suggest you try Usurper. It is a lot of fun. Here is a link to a page that talks about the game in detail, and has some links to where you can telnet to, and play it.
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Castle/7177/
P.S. Some BBS installs have a web front end leveraging Java, which work quite well.
I've run Black Night 1.07 under OS 9.1, but have not tested it in Classic. I believe it was last updated in 1997. I used it to telnet into a BBS with color ANSI graphics. It supports Zmodem and is extendable with Communications Toolbox plugins. I couldn't find a site for the author, but the software is still out there http://www.macosarchives.com/terminal.html
The only feature Snak brings to the table is that it has a GUI.
Um. It seems to me that what Snak brings to the table is that it works on your Mac.
I write in my journal
Tolerance is an important thing in life, my friend. Learn it, or you'll have some serious problems.
;)
Isn't this like driving 75 in a school zone to catch someone and yell at them for speeding...
Tolerance does not include calling people "ignorant fucktards" and your comment probably just reinforced the whole reason why the first poster believes all people who use IRC and ANSI BBSs to be freaks in the first place.
But my G5 *did* come with a buggy whip holder, they threw it in for free because the damn thing was backordered for 8 months...
Old memories only, I'm afraid.
I looked into this very carefully back circa 1985 to 1989, because I was in the computer unit of a research institution that was heavily into Digital gear, had databases and so forth that exploited Digital terminals, and had standardized on Macs for personal computers.
At the time I found three "winners."
--Apple's own MacTerminal had the most complete, accurate, and lovingly faithful VT100 emulation of anything I ever tested. It worked with everything, and in particular supported double high/double wide characters, everything about keypads. It was by far the best VT100 emulator of any kind, on any platform, I ever evaluated. No graphics, though (no "sixels").
--White Pine Software's Mac240 was a very faithful VT240 emulator and was quite good for graphics.
--Versaterm was not a flawless VT100 substitute, but it was very good at everything it did, and it did a lot.
Many programs that claimed VT100 emulation were quite poor at it, particular issues involving commands that affected the VT100's internal state.
The quick test is to try double high/double wide characters. An emulator that doesn't do them is not aspiring to be a high-fidelity DEC emulator. If an emulator does do them, it's a sign that the developers were really trying and probably knew their stuff.
Much as I'd love to love them, Red Ryder/White Knight were lousy at VT100 emulation. If that means anything to anyone.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
If you want quick and painless ANSI terminal emulation, looking for a modern app that supports it is the wrong way to go about it. I've tried all the modern terms and they all do a worse job than this method.
- Download an ANSI font from here
- Place sabvga.pcf in
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc
- cd to that dir and run "sudo mkfontdir"
- Fire up X11 in your Utilities folder
- Open an Xterm and run "xtern -fn sabvga"
Voila! You now have perfect ANSI terminal emulation because it is exactly the same program as people have been using for ANSI for decades!The TERM environment variable is used to tell the applications which emulation your terminal is using so they can send the correct escapte sequences. Changing it will make the apps send different codes which will mess up program you start.