X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f996b,2884b91eb78b5788 X-Google-Attributes: gidf996b,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-03-29 12:43:46 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!ae4fc.pppool.DE!not-for-mail From: Josef 'Jupp' Schugt Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Re: hows the ascii os?? Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2003 16:38:19 +0000 Organization: none Lines: 134 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: ae4fc.pppool.de (213.6.228.252) X-Trace: fu-berlin.de 1048970625 1944205 213.6.228.252 (16 [53633]) X-Orig-Path: jupp.8m.com!news User-Agent: slrn/0.9.7.4 (Linux) Xref: archiver1.google.com alt.ascii-art:22563 On Wed, 26 Mar 2003 02:38:45 GMT, lament wrote: >> haven't been here for a while, last time i was here the ascii os >> was under development [graphically] just wandering how it's >> comming along?? > > If by OS you mean a shell, then what's wrong with Norton (or > Midnight) Commander? Midnight Commander does *not* use ASCII-Art. It does use (character) graphics mode. Besides that I think he is after something more ascii-graphical. To give some examples how this may look like here is a screenshot taken from 'links-hacked' TUI. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruby Home Page (p1 of 9) The Object-Oriented Programming Language Ruby: Programmers' Best Friend Lang +-------------------- Network options --------------------+ * | HTTP proxy (host:port) | * | localhost:8080 | What | | * | FTP proxy (host:port) | +------------------------- FTP options --------------------------+ | Password for anonymous login | | nospam@test.com | G | | | [ OK ] [ Cancel ] | R +----------------------------------------------------------------+ * | [ ] Set time of downloaded files [ HTTP options ] | * | | * | [ FTP options ] | * | | * | [ OK ] [ Cancel ] | * +---------------------------------------------------------+ * * exerb-win32: Exerb for Windo.. http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Even more ASCII-artistic is the TUI of 'elinks'. Screenshot: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruby Home Page (1/10) The Object-Oriented Programming Language Ruby: Programmers' Best Friend Language +----------------------- Options manager ------------------------+ | | | [-]- User interface | W | | [-]- Color settings | | | | [+]- Color terminals | | | | [-]- Non-color terminals | | | | [-]- Main menu bar | | | | | [-]- Unselected menu bar item | | | | | | |-- Text color | | | | | | `-- Background color | | | | | [+]- Selected menu bar item | G | | | | [+]- Hotkey | | | | [ Info ] [ Edit ] [ Add ] [ Delete ] [ Save ] [ Close ] | +----------------------------------------------------------------+ R * sys-host: C extension that p.. * sys-uptime: C extension for .. http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ [86396][-----] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Another program that does use ASCII-art is 'mutt'. The thread view of mutt looks like this: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- =ruby-talk@jupp [-] 107# / 424K [threads/date] [61%] Mutt 1.4.1i 45 X 03-03-28 Daniel Carrera 22 | `->Re: Newbie question: 46 X 03-03-28 Weng Lei-QCH1840 41 |*>Re: Newbie question:Does Rub 47 X 03-03-28 Daniel Carrera 19 | `-> 48 X 03-03-28 Weng Lei-QCH1840 31 `*> 49 X 03-03-28 nobu.nokada@softhome 19 Re: Inheriting from WIN32OLE 50 X 03-03-28 Xavier Noria 71 Re: Programming Ruby in more fo 51 X 03-03-28 Yukihiro Matsumoto 15 Re: Array question 52 X 03-03-28 Daniel Carrera 25 |-> 53 X 03-03-28 Tim Bates 18 | |-> 54 X 03-03-28 Daniel Carrera 32 | | |-> 55 X 03-03-28 Daniel Carrera 19 | | | |-> 56 X 03-03-28 Tim Bates 12 | | | |-> 57 X 03-03-28 Daniel Carrera 21 | | | | `-> 58 X 03-03-28 Tim Bates 8 | | | | `-> 59 sX 03-03-28 Eric Hodel 38 | | | `-> 60 X 03-03-28 Pit Capitain 16 | | `-> 61 X 03-03-28 Chris Pine 43 | `-> 62 X 03-03-28 Robert Klemme 12 | `-> 63 X 03-03-28 Yukihiro Matsumoto 12 | `---> 64 X 03-03-28 Michael Campbell 26 | | |-> 65 X 03-03-28 Hal E. Fulton 50 | | | `-> 66 X 03-03-28 Michael Campbell 25 | | | `-> q:Quit d:Del u:Undel s:Save m:Mail r:Reply g:Group ?:Help ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This may give some idea how an ASCII-OS does look like (I did diddle the screenshots by removing some white space so that they fit into 71 characters a line. Of course 80 x 24 is a bit small but that's not what I use here. I use a 132 x 50 *TEXT* mode that is directly supported by my graphics card (higher text resolutions are available but they have too low a refresh rate). And this only is part of what can be done. You can also use TWIG which is a text mode window manager that allows you to have different windows running different programs. Obviously this only makes sense with high resolution text modes so I won't provide a screenshot for that. The major advantage of ASCII-Art over graphics is efficency (especially when you are logged in on a remote machine): To represent a 132 x 50 text display you need approxmimately 5 KB. You wonder why it's not 6.6 KB? Text mainly consists in lowercase characters so you can assume about 6 Bit per character. For a 800 x 600 display at moderate 16 bit color depth you need about 1 MB. In other words: You need a compression ration of 1:200 to reduce the graphics data to what Huffman-encoded ASCII needs. In real life it is rather a factor of 1:400 because ordinary compression routines like bzip2 give you 2.5 KB or even less. I sometimes remotely log in using a very slow connection (modem, downloads running in parallel, effective transfer rate about 0.5 KB per second). Even with that limitation a TUI is still usable. Josef 'Jupp' Schugt