[TUHS] Seeking wisdom from Unix Greybeards

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

Greg A. Woods wrote in
 <m1l9ufi-0036urC at more.local>:
 |At Thu, 26 Nov 2020 22:48:25 +0100, Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen at sdaoden.eu> \
 |wrote:
 |Subject: Re: [TUHS] Seeking wisdom from Unix Greybeards
 |>
 |> ANSI escape sequences aka ISO 6429 came via ECMA-48 i have
 |> learned, and that appeared first in 1976 (that via Wikidpedia).
 |
 |Wikipedia is a bit misleading here.  This is one case where ANSI and
 |ECMA worked together quite closely (and another example of where ISO
 |took the result more or less directly, though on a different schedule).
 |
 |As it happens one can read about it much more directly from the original
 |sources.
 |
 |First we can find that FIPS-86 is "in whole" ANSI-X3.64-1979
 |
 | https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/FIPS/fipspub86-1981.pdf
 |
 |Thus giving us "free" access to the original ANSI standard in a "new"
 |digital (PDF) form.  Here's the full copy of ANSI-X3.64-1979 verbatim
 |(including cover pages):
 |
 | https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/FIPS/fipspub86.pdf
 |
 |See in particular "Appendix H" in the latter.

Interesting that ANSI did not include the colour specifications.
And that with Jimmy Carter.

What is so interesting when looking at this.  How typewriter
output surrounded us decades ago, it was everywhere, and taken for
granted (i am born in 1972), and how long that time has passed.

 |X3.64 also gives a good list of all the people and organisations which
 |cooperated to create this standard (though interestingly only mentions
 |ECMA-48 in that last appendix).
 |
 |There is also corroborating evidence of this cooperation in the preface
 |("BRIEF HISTORY") to the 2nd Edition of ECMA-48:
 |
 | https://www.ecma-international.org/wp-content/uploads/ECMA-48_2nd_editio\
 | n_august_1979.pdf
 |
 |Note though that the link the 1st Edition of ECMA-48 here is wrong, so
 |as yet I've not seen if there's any history given in that 1st edition):
 |
 | https://www.ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/standards/\
 | ecma-48/
 |
 |As an aside, the DEC VT100 terminal was an early (it came out a year
 |before X3.64) and relatively complete (for a video terminal application)
 |implementation of X3.64.
 |
 |BTW, I would in general agree with Steffen that implementing an
 |application to output anything but X3.64/ECMA-48/ISO-6429 is rather
 |pointless these days, _unless_ one wants to take advantage of any
 |particular implementation's additional "private" features, and/or work
 |around any annoying but inevitable bugs in various implementations.
 |Also the API provided by, e.g. libcurses, often makes for much easier
 |programming than direct use of escape sequences, or invention and
 |maintenance of one's own API.
 |
 |--
 |     Greg A. Woods <gwoods at acm.org>
 |
 |Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <woods at robohack.ca>
 |Planix, Inc. <woods at planix.com>     Avoncote Farms <woods at avoncote.ca>
 --End of <m1l9ufi-0036urC at more.local>

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)