[HECnet] Downloadble fonts into an VT220?

[Tim Sneddon]

On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 1:40 PM, Sampsa Laine <sampsa at mac.com> wrote:
I came across this little gem when perusing VT220 escape code:

"4.4.2 Designating Soft (Down-Line-Loadable) Character Sets

You can define a soft character set (font) that may or may not replace one of the existing hard sets (ROM fonts). If you do replace a hard set, the replacement occurs for both the 80 and 132-column versions"

Does VMS support this? Or is it up to the terminal emulator?

Here's the link: http://vt100.net/docs/vt220-rm/chapter4.html


That stuff generally needs a real terminal to work.   As Julian pointed out, there are some emulators that do support this feature.   I believe the VTstar software might do it, although I can't confirm that right now.   The DECterm terminal window doesn't support it, that is the only way I think VMS could support it given it is a feature of the terminal.   I'm pretty sure (it's been a while since I played with this stuff) that the soft character set is not the same on different models of terminal either.

If you're looking for real world examples then Google is your friend.   There is a program floating around that converts gifs to sixel graphics that can be displayed using the soft character set on VT320 terminals.

Regards, Tim.