Old-school formatting language

February 10, 2010 1:18 PM

What was the name of the formatting language used on old Bulletin Board Systems that let you animate text, move the cursor, send a beep, etc.?

I remember many, many moons ago, pre-Internet, when BBSs were the primary means for trading files, chatting online, etc. There was some type of way to make your text signature, for example, change colors, beep, even do a rudimentary type of animation.

I want to say ANSI but Google tells me this is probably not it. It's not ASCII art, either, but it is close to what it was, graphics-wise.

I used a Commodore 64 during this time, for what it's worth.

posted by ehamiter to Technology (15 answers total)

I'm pretty sure you are thinking of ANSI.
posted by Mwongozi at 1:19 PM on February 10, 2010

The BBS scene was before my time, but I think Mwongozi is probably right. The commands defined by ANSI escape sequences are pretty powerful, and it looks like there were even ANSI art editors.
posted by serathen at 1:27 PM on February 10, 2010

Assuming it is in fact ANSI you are thinking of, a couple of supplementary links to guide you down memory lane:

The repository.

The documentary.
posted by The Lurkers Support Me in Email at 1:28 PM on February 10, 2010

Response by poster: I don't think it's ANSI. A lot of that stuff looks pretty good, graphics-wise. For example, this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/VC-DMSEL.PNG

It's clearly not close to anything that would be considered realistic these days, but just this example is far, far more advanced than what I am trying to describe.

I think it may be specific to a certain BBS software. It's almost reaching to call it animation- basically it would act as though I typed in directions ahead of time where to put the cursor, and then once it was read by someone else, it would go through the motions, and go down a line, change a character, beep, change the next character a certain color, etc.
posted by ehamiter at 1:58 PM on February 10, 2010

Remote imaging protocol, aka RIP.
posted by jedicus at 1:59 PM on February 10, 2010

I mean, you're describing either ANSI or RIP, as those were basically the only options for BBS graphics. ANSI could do some super-crude animation, mostly in the form of blinking. The example you linked to is almost certainly ANSI. But if you're thinking of something else, it's RIP.
posted by jedicus at 2:13 PM on February 10, 2010

Response by poster: @jedicus, yes- the example I linked to is indeed ANSI, but as I said, is not what I am after.

I don't think it's RIP. Can ANSI be as crude as ASCII? This was like animated ASCII art. You could not make anything that resembled a portrait of someone, or something even mildly aesthetically pleasing. I believe the basics of the graphics included curves, straight lines, and random symbols such as card symbols, like hearts, spades, clubs and such.
posted by ehamiter at 2:21 PM on February 10, 2010

People on a BBS connected using some kind of terminal (or terminal emulator) so whatever you're looking for (like everyone else here, I imagine it's ANSI) would have to be something that a terminal could display. ANSI can certainly be as crude as ASCII. Ultimately how crude or sophisticated it was depended on the capabilities of the viewing terminal.
posted by Obscure Reference at 2:28 PM on February 10, 2010

Yes, it's ANSI. Check this out: ASCII Table.

See entries 0-31? Those are the control characters that can store "directions typed in ahead of time." See entries 128-255? Those are the extended character set including Greek characters, lines, and also the fundamental blocks of that ANSI art thing you posted (see entries 177, 178, and 219? Make a big enough grid of those in the appropriate shades and you get cartoonish art). In addition, ANSI provides for colors via escape codes.

I'm pretty sure this is what you're thinking. You may have seen less sophisticated uses than the one you posted above, but there was a fairly wide range of ANSI "art" back in the day.
posted by rkent at 2:33 PM on February 10, 2010

You are almost certainly talking about ANSI, combined with ASCII codes for things like beeping. What you originally describe is pretty much the original purpose for it: moving the cursor around, changing text color, etc. It's only when the ANSI art scene got ahold of it and figured out how to make it look amazing, like in the example you linked to.

This is all done using ANSI X3.64 escape codes, and it was definitely used for that purpose. If the term ANSI doesn't seem familiar, maybe you're thinking of VT-100 emulation, which is based on ANSI X3.64, so it's pretty much the same thing.
posted by zsazsa at 2:49 PM on February 10, 2010

Best answer: Oh, wait! I didn't see the Commodore 64 part of your question. I'm not exactly sure what C64 BBSes used for color codes and cursor movement, but it was likely ANSI X3.64 codes like on IBM boards. As for the curves, card suite symbols, etc, though, you're talking about PETSCII!
posted by zsazsa at 2:56 PM on February 10, 2010

Response by poster: Zsazsa, I think you got it. Thanks!
posted by ehamiter at 3:01 PM on February 10, 2010

Atari had an equivalent to PETSCII, by the way, called ATASCII, very common on BBSes.
posted by davejay at 3:26 PM on February 10, 2010

Skypix kicked all of the other graphical BBSs to the curb. Amiga only, it was point and click with graphics, links and fonts - in 1987.
posted by scruss at 6:19 PM on February 10, 2010

I called these animations "cursor tricks" when I was on Commodore 64 BBSs back in the day.

The message editors in many C64 BBS programs simply recorded whatever keystrokes the user sent, including cursor movements and color changes. When the software later displayed the message for another user to read, it'd simply replay that sequence of characters. And trickling over a modem, those keystrokes arrive slowly enough to watch on the fly.
posted by ixohoxi at 8:30 PM on February 10, 2010 [1 favorite]