Questions tagged [text]
For questions regarding text - as opposed to graphics - processing and display.
36
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Why did older computers and OSes use UPPER case instead of lower case?
Memory constraints in ye olden days meant that text-mode display adapters had room for either upper or lower case, but not both. Why was this universally uppercase and never lowercase?
I remember ...
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1
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How to decode mojibake in old Macintosh text files?
I hope this is an OK place to ask this question.
The Internet Archive has a Macintosh floppy image containing presets for an old E-mu synthesizer module. The page is here Proteus Preset Libraries
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What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s? [closed]
Since versions 1-5 of MS-DOS only came with the Edlin line-based editor, but were released on the IBM PC and compatibles, which had screen-based user I/O, my feeling is that most users wouldn't have ...
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What page layout parameters imitate a line printer?
If I want to imitate the (scaled) look, albeit not the feel, of a typical line printer printout on fan-fold paper, using Letter-, Legal- or A4-sized paper, what settings should be used to reproduce ...
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Was ∆ used in APL as a substitute for space because ECMA-17/ISO 2047 specified △ as graphical representation for space?
Wikipedia on naming conventions in programming states (without source):
In APL dialects, the delta (Δ) is used between words, e.g. PERFΔSQUARE (…)
This is an unusual choice, but I notice that ECMA-...
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4
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Is there a common convention to describe the encoding of a legacy text file?
For the purpose of this question, a legacy textfile contains characters in the range 0x20 through 0x7e, with each line terminated by an OS-specific combination of 0x0d and/or 0x0a; it might be ...
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Which document format is this? (.MAN/.STR/.TAB/.IND)
I have these files, which were all in one .zip:
DPMANUAL.MAN
DPMANUAL.STR
DPMANUAL.IND
DPMANUAL.I01
DPMANUAL.I02
DPMANUAL.TAB
DPMANUAL.TXX
They are supposedly a manual (for DataPerfect).
The file ...
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2
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Was there ever a monospace display system (eg terminal) that used a vertical cursor?
Related to my earlier question about IBM PC cursors, I am now wondering if there has ever been a monospaced character display system (such as a terminal) that would've implemented a vertical cursor in ...
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How was character data handled in Fortran IV/66?
One of the notable contributions in FORTRAN 77 was the CHARACTER data type, which made character processing quite usable.
As I understand it, FORTRAN 66 (sometimes called FORTRAN IV, but they're not ...
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2
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1
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Were any form-based applications designed for more than 80 columns?
The traditional standard display for business computers was 80 column text (with either 24 or 25 rows).
Business software, roughly speaking, falls into two categories:
Horizontal applications like ...
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7
votes
1
answer
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Which versions of TECO had merged G- and Q-registers?
In this answer to 'Why were TECO variables called Q-registers?' I reference documentation indicating that the original Q-registers were separate from the same-named G-registers. (I.e., X1 would store ...
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4
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Why did fonts in Windows 1.01's Write application look so poor?
In Windows 1.01 Write, the fonts were kind of blocky:
Here's what the same text looked like in a modern word processor:
Even the terminal had smoother text than Windows 1.01:
Why did Windows 1.01 ...
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11
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What's the origin of terminating strings by setting the high bit of the last character?
I was looking at a hex dump of the ROM BASIC from the original IBM PC and found some byte strings like this (ASCII dump is on the right):
50 52 49 4e d4 9d 4c 49 53 d4 9e 50 4f d3 1b 45 PRIN..LIS.....
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2
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How widely used were C1 control codes?
As ASCII is a 7-bit code set, and ISO 646 cannot satisfy needs of many languages, variable-length ISO 2022/EUC was developed, which introduced C1 control codes.
However, C1 have hardly left any ...
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Were any decimal-based computers capable of handling text?
Many of the earliest computers stored and manipulated numbers in various decimal codings rather than in pure binary. Examples include the Mark I and ENIAC, as well as some UNIVAC and IBM models.
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