In <JEM.92Oct22224058@lk-hp-6.hut.fi> jem@snakemail.hut.fi (Johan Myreen) writes:
quoted text
>Linux doesn't use the IBM PC character set, it uses the ISO8859-1
>Latin-1 character set. (Well, it tries to.) The high bit is not
>filtered by the kernel. VT100 graphics characters are available by
>writing a Shift Out character (^N) to the console, the normal
>character set is restored with a Shift In character (^O).

There is already support in Linux for the IBM extended ASCII character set.
In a few hours, as soon as it get UUCP back up and running, I will post
too short C programs.  One to set "IBM" mode, and another to reset the
display to it's initial state regardless of the current condition.

        [... text deleted ...]

quoted text
>I'll have to admit there is one valid point in remapping the keyboard
>without recompiling: changing the mapping for different national
>keyboards. This would help distributing Linux in binary form, without
>having to provide N different kernel images, each for a different
>keyboard. But I don't think we need the ability to do this on a
>running kernel, a program to change the mapping in a kernel image file
>is sufficient. (A program like this was posted some time ago in this
>newsgroup.) After all, how often do you change keyboards?

When working one a system that supports multiple keyboard definitions,
I will ofter change keyboards several times a day, sometimes per hour.
When editing French text, I use a French keyboard, when programming I
use the standard US, and when creating documentation I often use a 
"line draw" keyboard definition.

quoted text
>PC ANSI graphics? What's that?

quoted text
>The Linux console does quite a good job emulating a vt100.

quoted text
>--
>Johan Myreen,
>barbarian

Yes, the Linux console does do a good job of emulating a vt100 which
does a good job of emulating a KSR-35 teletype.  Perhaps however, we
should consider the possiblities that the hardware allows us, and
consider making enhancements to the system to exploit those possibilities.

I will be posting some suggestions and an outline of how I propose to
implement them to the kernel channel of the mailing list shortly.




-- 
If any given program runs correctly, it is obsolete.
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