ANSIPLUS 4.00: Great console driver for
SVGA/VGA/EGA under MS-DOS, Windows, OS/2
or DESQview, packed w/features: vivid
colors, full color control, screen
saver, scroll-back, copy/paste, scroll
freeze, smooth scrolling, ANSI support,
larger key buffer, typematic speedup,
key stacking, international support,
loads to UMBs, HMA or EMS, easy to use
utilities and config menu, free BBS
updates, and much more. New features!
Replaces Vers 2.00-3.10.

ANSIPLUS Enhanced Console Device Driver

User's Guide, Release 4.00

Shareware Documentation

August 28, 1994





























COPYRIGHT (C) 1992-1994 by Kristofer Sweger
P.O. Box 378, Larkspur, CA 94977
All Rights Reserved

The ANSIPLUS console device driver, supporting utility programs, and this
User's Guide are Copyrighted (C) 1992-1994 by Kristofer Sweger. This software
and accompanying documentation are protected by United States Copyright law and
also by International Treaty provisions. The ANSIPLUS computer program and
this documentation may not be reproduced, copied, disclosed, or transferred in
any form (machine-readable or photo-copy included), except as provided here
under "Limited License" (see page 3), without the express prior written
approval of the author.

U.S. Government Information: Use, duplication, or disclosure by the U.S.
Government of the computer software and documentation in this package shall be
subject to the restricted rights applicable to commercial computer software as
set forth in subdivision (b)(3)(ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and
Computer Software clause at 252.227-7013 (DFARS 52.227-7013). The Contractor/
manufacturer is: Kristofer Sweger, P.O. Box 378, Larkspur, CA 94977.

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY

Kristofer Sweger makes no warranty of any kind, express or implied, including,
without limitation, any warranties of performance, merchantability and/or
fitness for a particular purpose. This software and accompanying documentation
are provided "as is," without warranty of any kind. The entire risk as to
results and performance is assumed by you.

Kristofer Sweger shall not be liable for any damages, whether direct, indirect,
consequential or incidental arising from a failure of the ANSIPLUS programs to
operate in the manner desired by the user. Nor shall Kristofer Sweger be
liable for any data, property or other damages which may be caused directly or
indirectly by use, alteration of or inability to use the software, even if
Kristofer Sweger has been advised of the possibility of such damages. In no
event shall the liability for any damages exceed the price paid for the license
to use the software, regardless of the form and/or extent of the claim. By
using the software you agree to this.

The author further reserves the right to revise or alter the contents of this
documentation or the ANSIPLUS software package from time to time without
notifying any person or group of such changes or alterations.

The Limited License and Disclaimer of Warranty shall be construed, interpreted
and governed by the laws of the State of California.

TRADEMARKS

ANSIPLUS is a trademark of Kristofer Sweger. Microsoft and MS-DOS are
registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. IBM, OS/2 and PS/2 are
registered trademarks of IBM Corporation. Windows is a trademark of Microsoft
Corporation. 4DOS is a registered trademark of JP Software, Inc. Norton
Utilities is a registered trademark of Symantec Corporation. QEMM and DESQview
are registered trademarks of Quarterdeck Office Systems, Inc. 386MAX is a
trademark of Qualitas, Inc. Other product names are the trademarks of their
respective manufacturers. Other trademarked names may appear in this manual.
The author states that he is using the trademarked names only for editorial
purposes, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of
infringing upon any trademark.






Table of Contents



I. Introduction

Product description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Limited License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Technical Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

II. Features summary

VGA/EGA display features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Integrated console functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Other ANSIPLUS features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

III. Installing ANSIPLUS

Installing the device driver and utility programs . . . . . . 11
Changing the ANSIPLUS startup configuration . . . . . . . . . 15

IV. Using ANSIPLUS

Special keyboard and mouse functions . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Selecting and defining colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Controlling other ANSIPLUS features . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Creating application batch files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Editing ANSI escape sequence programs . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

V. ANSIPLUS escape sequences

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

VI. Technical notes

ANSIPLUS and Windows 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
ANSIPLUS and the 4DOS or NDOS command shells . . . . . . . . 46
ANSIPLUS and Multitaskers or Task Switchers . . . . . . . . . 47
ANSIPLUS extensions and the ANSI standard . . . . . . . . . . 49
Escape sequence recognizer enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Direct access to video RAM vs. BIOS calls . . . . . . . . . . 50
Installation check and Interrupt 2Fh API . . . . . . . . . . 51
Hooked interrupts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52










I. INTRODUCTION

The DOS console device driver provides the critical interface between you and
your personal computer. It controls the output you see from DOS and accepts
your keyboard input, and you spend a whole lot of time using it.
Unfortunately, the standard console and ANSI device drivers supplied with DOS
do not take full advantage of the capabilities of the major video controllers
currently in use: VGA and SuperVGA (SVGA). In addition, the standard personal
computer BIOS (the "Basic Input Output System" that is part of the computer's
hardware) has limitations that have had to be addressed individually by several
TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) programs or device drivers, by work-arounds
and special drivers in major application programs, or by using graphical user
interfaces such as Windows.

The ANSIPLUS console device driver integrates major console elements missing
from DOS and the personal computer BIOS into a single compact device driver
that can easily be controlled and personalized. With ANSIPLUS installed:

* User interaction with the DOS command processor and many applications will
be significantly improved.

* Screen output will be faster than with DOS's ANSI and non-ANSI drivers.

* The user will have complete control over colors and VGA/EGA capabilities.

* Users of MS-DOS, Windows, OS/2, DESQview or Novell DOS will have access to
ANSIPLUS features in all windowed and full screen DOS sessions.

* The user will also benefit from all the other display and keyboard features
provided by ANSIPLUS.

This is a fully functional Shareware copy of the ANSIPLUS product. As such, it
is made available to the general computing public for evaluation. Users are
licensed to operate ANSIPLUS on their personal computers for the purpose of
test and evaluation for a limited trial period of thirty days. After
evaluation, if the user decides the ANSIPLUS programs are not of sufficient
merit to warrant purchase through registration with Kristofer Sweger, all
ANSIPLUS programs should be removed from their personal computer. If ANSIPLUS
is found to be useful and is in regular use, then registration is required.

This manual is organized in six chapters:

* Chapter 1 introduces ANSIPLUS and covers product licensing and support;

* Chapter 2 summarizes ANSIPLUS features for those who want to know what it
can do;

* Chapter 3 discusses installing and configuring ANSIPLUS on your computer;

* Chapter 4 describes keyboard functions and utility programs accessible to
users after installation;

* Chapter 5 lists ANSIPLUS escape sequences; and

* Chapter 6 contains several technical notes of interest to programmers and
others.

1

REGISTRATION

By paying the registration fee for ANSIPLUS, registered users are granted a
license to use the software on any single computer system. Registered users
also receive:

* The TSR-capable registered version of the ANSIPLUS driver, ANSIPLUS.exe.
This driver may be loaded into memory from the DOS command line, from a
batch file (AUTOEXEC.bat), or from CONFIG.sys with DEVICE=, DEVICEHIGH=, or
INSTALL= commands. The Registered ANSIPLUS driver also doesn't have that
pesky time delay in the sign-on message. The registered version is NOT
Shareware, so it may not be copied for others.

* A printed copy of the ANSIPLUS manual, which contains detailed documentation
on using the ANSIPLUS Escape sequences and the ANSIPLUS Int 2Fh API. This
information is provided only in the printed manual, and is not included in
either the Shareware version or on the Registered diskettes. (Diskette-only
registration does not include the printed manual.)

* The most recent versions of the ANSIPLUS utility programs and other files in
the ANSIPLUS package.

* Free BBS updates. Registered ANSIPLUS users can obtain free updates by
installing future Shareware versions of ANSIPLUS over their registered
copies. The ANSIPLUS installation program will automatically register a
Shareware copy when it is installed on a disk that loads a registered copy
of ANSIPLUS with its CONFIG.sys.

Registration helps support further improvements to ANSIPLUS. The easiest way
to register ANSIPLUS is to print out the registration form file, REGISTER.pls,
fill it out, and mail with payment to:

Kristofer Sweger
P.O. Box 378
Larkspur, CA 94977

Be sure to specify whether you want a 3.5" or 5.25" diskette, and to include
the mailing address for your registered ANSIPLUS and manual.

Payment may be by check drawn on a United States or Canadian bank, money order,
Eurocheque in U.S. dollars, or credit card (Visa or Master Card only). Credit
card orders are also accepted by telephone on the ANSIPLUS support line,
415/924-5407, and signed credit card orders may be sent by fax to 415/924-0258.
We are pleased to accept purchase orders from established U.S. companies and
government agencies. However, orders under $100 must be prepaid. For orders
of $100 or more, our terms are net 30 days. Credit references may be required.

Pricing is shown in REGISTER.pls. California residents or businesses operating
in California must add California sales tax. Other additional charges for
shipping to destinations outside the United States and Canada, delivery of a
Zip file via CompuServe, or processing a EuroCheque may apply.

Multi-computer licenses for use of ANSIPLUS are available upon request at a
substantially reduced fee per machine. Call the ANSIPLUS support line for a
price quotation.

2


LIMITED LICENSE

Non-registered users of ANSIPLUS are licensed ONLY to evaluate the programs and
device driver for up to thirty days for the sole purpose of determining whether
or not it meets their requirements. All other use requires registration. Any
other use of non-registered copies of ANSIPLUS by any person, business,
corporation, or government organization, is not permitted.

Registered copies of ANSIPLUS may NOT be copied for others. However, per-
mission is hereby granted for individuals to copy the non-registered ANSIPLUS
package for their own use (for evaluation and backup purposes) or for other
individuals to evaluate, provided all of the following conditions are met:

* The ANSIPLUS package, including all related program and documentation files,
cannot be modified in any way and must be distributed in its entirety, with
no additions. These files constitute the ANSIPLUS Shareware package:

ANSIPLUS.sys ANSIPLUS Shareware console device driver
ANSIPLSR.sys ANSIPLUS Shareware reduced size device driver
ANSIPLUS.doc ANSIPLUS Shareware documentation
SETCOLOR.exe Color control utility program
SETAPLUS.exe Driver features control utility program
ANSICOM.exe ANSI escape sequence editor
NEWAPLUS.exe ANSIPLUS bootup configuration program
APLUSLIB.exe Execution library for the utility programs
SETCOLOR.sch Color schemes file for SETCOLOR.exe
CONSETUP.com Sample escape sequence program
PUSHVID.com Save the current video mode, video page and colors
POPVID.com Restore saved video mode, page and colors
PUSHKEYS.com Save the current key reassignments
POPKEYS.com Restore saved key reassignments
LOCKPAL.com Lock the 16-color palette
UNLOKPAL.com Unlock the 16-color palette
WINVGA16.com MS Windows 16-color VGA driver palette change
VWFD.386 Windowed vs. full screen test Windows VxD
APLUS.pif Sample Windows PIF file
CPCH.bat Change code page
INSTALL.exe Installation program
INSTALL.inf Installation control file
INSTALL.cve Installation data file
REGISTER.pls ANSIPLUS registration form
README.pls Release notes

* No price or other compensation may be charged for the ANSIPLUS package. A
distribution cost may be charged for the cost of the diskette or CD-ROM,
shipping and handling, as long as the total per diskette does not exceed US
$6.00 in the United States and Canada or US $10.00 internationally, and the
total per CD-ROM disk does not exceed US $50.00.

* The ANSIPLUS package cannot be bundled or included with other goods or
services, nor can it be included in any commercial software packaging offer,
nor can it be "rented" or "leased" to others, without specific prior written
agreement from Kristofer Sweger.




3

Because ANSIPLUS is distributed as Shareware, the driver contains internal
checks to increase its resistance to tampering. Users are therefore NOT
licensed to alter or "patch" the driver, and the driver will terminate
installation or will not work properly if it detects attempts to change it.

All rights not expressly granted here are reserved to Kristofer Sweger.


TECHNICAL SUPPORT

We want our users to be satisfied, and we find the interaction with real users
of ANSIPLUS to be of great value. Many ANSIPLUS features are the result of
user input. If you have a problem evaluating ANSIPLUS or want to make a
suggestion, comment, or complaint, please contact us immediately, whether you
have registered or not. There are several ways you can reach ANSIPLUS support:

* Electronic mail via CompuServe at 72713,1241

* Electronic mail via Internet at [email protected]

* Fax at 415/924-0258

* Voice telephone at 415/924-5407

* U.S. mail at P.O. Box 378, Larkspur, CA 94977 USA

The ANSIPLUS technical support telephone line, 415/924-5407, can be called
weekdays from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Pacific Time. We ask that you recognize
that this service can easily be overwhelmed by calls with questions that are
already answered in the documentation provided. When you do call, please try
to have all your questions (and any necessary supporting data) ready so that we
can deal with them efficiently in one short session.

If you are reporting a software problem, we will need specific information
about your computer system and how to recreate the problem:

* What is the problem, or what is not behaving as expected?

* What exactly must be done to cause the problem to appear?

* What did you do to try to fix or work around the problem?

* What is your software and hardware environment? This includes the version
of ANSIPLUS you are using, your computer type, DOS version, video
controller, any memory managers, other device drivers or TSRs loaded, and
any other software or hardware in use at the time.











4

II. FEATURES SUMMARY

Although many of the ANSIPLUS features described here may seem technical, each
meets a need, and they all cooperate as parts of one compact console device
driver. In this chapter, they have been collected into three major groups:
VGA/EGA display features, integrated console functions, and other ANSIPLUS
features. The remaining chapters give details regarding specific features.

VGA/EGA DISPLAY FEATURES

The ANSIPLUS enhanced DOS console device driver is tailored to take advantage
of SVGA, VGA and EGA display capabilities:

Mode recognition For any SVGA/VGA/EGA display mode, the driver can properly
address the entire screen. ANSIPLUS automatically
recognizes and adapts to various VGA or EGA screen modes,
both text and graphics, including extended modes with large
numbers of lines and/or columns. ANSIPLUS can also
automatically adapt to and compensate for older video
controllers with very limited numbers of colors or shades
(i.e., CGA or monochrome boards).

Speed In text and in 16-color VGA/EGA graphics display modes, the
driver bypasses the ROM BIOS and goes straight to the video
RAM, so it can operate much faster than either the original
DOS console driver or the DOS ANSI driver. Programs that
write large character strings to the standard output
(console) file handle in "raw" mode can generate their
output many times faster.

Color selection ANSIPLUS provides full control over colors. In color text
modes, sixteen foreground and background colors are
supported. In 16-color VGA/EGA graphics modes, ANSIPLUS
allows mixing of background colors, for a total of 136
possible background colors. In 256-color VGA graphics
modes, all 256 foreground and background colors are
supported.

Palette control Control over VGA/EGA palette registers and VGA DAC
registers allows selecting and maintaining colors using the
video controller's full capabilities. The driver traps all
video mode changes, and installs the palette and/or DAC
colors of the user's, or of ANSIPLUS's color scheme.
Applications that set their own palettes will continue to
do so, but those that do not can now use custom color
choices. Blinking can also be kept disabled to allow 16
background colors in text modes.

Text size ANSIPLUS allows selection of alternate VGA/EGA character
sets, giving control over the character height, and thus
the number of text lines used in any VGA/EGA video mode.

Smooth scrolling ANSIPLUS supports smooth scrolling of the screen (for fast
CPUs with 16-bit VGA/EGA), so the screen can be read while
it is moving. Options are provided to control the use and
rate of smooth scrolling.

5


Extended modes The ANSI Set Mode control sequence has been expanded to
allow specifying SVGA/VGA/EGA modes that are based on full
AX and/or BX CPU register values, extending ANSI-type
control to Super VGA/EGA controllers that require such
register settings. Super VGA controllers that conform to
the VESA standard are also automatically recognized, and
VESA extended set mode calls are made by the ANSIPLUS
driver for modes of 100h or higher.


INTEGRATED CONSOLE FUNCTIONS

The ANSIPLUS driver efficiently integrates several useful console functions
that in the past had to be provided by separate TSR programs or device drivers:

Screen saver A screen saver blanks the VGA/EGA screen after several
minutes of screen, keyboard and mouse inactivity. The
screen can be brought back by any keystroke (including
shift keys) or by mouse movement or buttons. The screen
saver feature can be enabled or disabled by the user, and
is automatically disabled in certain situations.

Scroll-back Every DOS user sooner or later needs to recall something
that was on the screen, but has scrolled off the top.
Programmers often encounter this with error messages, and
other users with file directory listings. To address this
problem, ANSIPLUS supports screen scroll-back: all lines
scrolled and cleared from the screen in text modes are
captured by the ANSIPLUS driver so that the user can stop
at any time and browse through recent screen contents.

Scroll lock Large directory listings and other rapidly generated screen
output can often fly by on the screen too fast to be read.
Hitting the Scroll Lock key will freeze the screen when
ANSIPLUS or the BIOS next tries to scroll it. When the
screen is frozen, several keystroke options allow control
over subsequent screen output.

Copy and paste It is often desirable to bring back data or commands that
have scrolled off the screen or to transfer information
between programs, but without having to retype the data.
And under Windows, it is often desirable to copy text
between a full screen application and the Windows clipboard
without having to switch into a window. ANSIPLUS addresses
both these needs by letting you use the mouse or keyboard
to select text, copy it to the clipboard, and paste it to
the keyboard. See "Special Keyboard and Mouse Functions"
in Chapter 4 for more information about this feature.

Keyboard buffer As many PC users eventually discover, the standard personal
computer BIOS provides a keyboard input type-ahead buffer
of only 15 characters, which is enough for only the
shortest of commands. ANSIPLUS extends this by 113
keystrokes for a total type-ahead of 128 keystrokes
(configurable for more if necessary).

6


Repeated keys Another problem with the standard BIOS keystroke buffer
occurs when keys are held down too long, and the buffer
rapidly fills with repeated (or "typematic") keys, which
are then processed long after the key is lifted.
Spreadsheet users often experience this when holding down
one of the arrow keys. ANSIPLUS disables repeat key
type-ahead, but does allow repeat keys that are immediately
consumed by programs, so the type-ahead buffer cannot be
filled with unintended keystrokes. Repeated digits are
also suppressed, making it impossible to inaccurately enter
a number just because a key is held down too long. The
rate at which repeated keys are generated is also
configurable.

Key stacking ANSIPLUS supports key stacking, which can load the keyboard
buffer with a series of keystrokes and feed them into
programs or commands as if they had been typed at the
keyboard. This feature can be useful for automating
startup of programs, software testing, and demonstrations.
Keys can be added to the buffer by ANSI escape sequence, by
ANSIPLUS utility program command, or, for users of the 4DOS
4.0+ or NDOS Version 7.0+ command shells, by KEYSTACK
command.

Beep tone The standard personal computer BIOS Ctrl+G beep tone
generator waits in a programmed loop until sound output is
completed. Sometimes, error or other conditions detected
in a running program can generate a rapid sequence of
beeps, and the computer will just hang for what seems an
eternity, beeping away. ANSIPLUS has a timer interrupt-
controlled tone generator that lets the beep tone be
finished in parallel with subsequent processing. Multiple
beeps are ignored if a tone is currently being generated,
so programs cannot be slowed down by a rapid series of
beeps. Options are provided for defining the tone and
using or not using the tone generator.




















7

OTHER ANSIPLUS FEATURES

Other ANSIPLUS features include:

User control Menu driven, mouse controllable utilities give the user
full control over selected colors, color palettes, border
colors, video modes, text height, key reassignment, beep
tone definition, driver table sizes, and all other
configurable features.

Loading options At load time, the ANSIPLUS driver can divide itself into
sharable code (18K to 28K) and unshared code/data (about
6K) sections, placing the shared code in XMS upper memory
blocks (from 640K to 1M), in high memory (1M to 1M+64K), or
in expanded memory (EMS), and leaving only the unshared
part in either low or upper memory. The registered driver
can be loaded as either a TSR program or a device driver.

Reduced driver For systems with very limited available memory, a reduced
capability driver that is 35 percent smaller may be used
instead of the full capability ANSIPLUS driver.

Windows aware ANSIPLUS features have been tested and adjusted for maximum
compatibility in Windows DOS sessions, both full screen and
within a window. The ANSIPLUS driver detects when Windows
is running, and automatically disables or alters certain
features, such as the screen blanker, that may interfere.

OS/2 compatible ANSIPLUS can be used in OS/2 2.x DOS sessions, loaded
either as a standard DOS device driver by CONFIG.sys or
as a DOS TSR. The driver automatically makes minor
adjustments under OS/2, such as suppressing the ANSIPLUS
signon message because virtual DOS machines are created and
initialized so often by OS/2.

Multitaskers and ANSIPLUS detects and adjusts for DESQview. Under DESQview,
task switchers the driver is loaded separately for each window that needs
it. Under task switchers like MS-DOS DOSSHELL, each task
automatically has an independent ANSIPLUS as its console.

ANSI support All MS-DOS ANSI.sys escape sequences are supported, plus
about two dozen other ANSI and VT-100 escape sequences for
clearing the screen, erasing, inserting and deleting lines
and characters, scrolling, page selection, tab control, and
cursor positioning. ANSIPLUS also enhances many escape
sequences by accepting extra parameters that increase their
power.

Bright key echo ANSIPLUS highlights user-typed keys when they are displayed
by DOS on the screen, giving a clear visual separation of
typed entries from computer output. If unwanted, this
feature can be disabled.





8

Key processing ANSIPLUS includes several special key processing options:

(1) the Shift+alphabetic keys can cause Caps-Lock to
unlock, much like a typewriter releases its shift lock
whenever a shift key is pressed;

(2) the Enter key can restore Caps-Lock after it was
unlocked by a Shift+alphabetic key, thus restoring Caps
on completion of an "entry";

(3) Ctrl+C can cause a Ctrl+Break, for those users who
prefer the Ctrl+C key; and

(4) the DOS "Non-Destructive" read function can return the
last key in the keyboard buffer instead of the first,
so that it always reflects what has last been typed.

Key reassignment ANSIPLUS has the ability to translate single keystrokes to
full commands or other pre-determined key sequences. These
key reassignments can be applied either to keys entered
through DOS or to all keys entered via BIOS Interrupt 16h.
Both expansion of keys and changes to key reassignments can
also be enabled or disabled independently. When key
reassignment changes are disabled, a distinctive tone
sounds on any attempt to redefine a key, making it easy to
detect ANSI-type files that contain key redefinitions. Key
reassignments can also be saved and restored, allowing
simple restoration of a standard key set after using
special reassignments in an application.

Scrolling regions The driver has the ability to restrict DOS, ANSI and video
BIOS output to any user-defined sub-screen region or
"window." This can simplify writing or adapting certain
applications, because screen output can be directed to any
desired area of the screen while a subroutine or program
"thinks" it is using a normal screen.

Mono/CGA support ANSIPLUS should give reasonable and readable displays in
all display modes, including those with a very limited
number of colors or shades. ANSI-type programs written in
terms of 16 colors will be executable on machines with
simpler video capabilities, if ANSIPLUS is running on that
machine.

Line wrapping When the length of a line displayed on the screen exactly
equals the width of the screen, the standard DOS console
device drivers cause a blank line to be output. ANSIPLUS
suppresses output of these unintended blank lines.

Graphics cursor The DOS console drivers do not show a cursor on the screen
when in graphics modes. ANSIPLUS can display a cursor when
keyed entries are requested by DOS in a graphics mode.

BIOS TTY ANSI ANSIPLUS provides an option to trap and execute ANSI
control sequences in BIOS Int 10h Write TTY output as well
as in DOS standard console output.

9

Transparent mode On occasion, it is undesirable to have the ANSI driver fill
in the background color of each character space as it
writes characters. ANSIPLUS includes a "transparent"
background mode that will write each output character in
the current foreground color over whatever background is
currently at the cursor position.

Text treatments In 16-color graphics modes, ANSIPLUS can apply bold,
underline, black shadow, slant (italics), or black outline
text treatments, in any combination, to output characters
for emphasis or improved legibility.

Esc pass-through Unlike the ANSI.sys driver, the Esc character is trapped by
ANSIPLUS only when followed by a left bracket ("["), so
programs that write Esc (a left arrow) to the screen will
continue to do so after ANSIPLUS is installed.

VGA mono emulation Because application developers with VGA color monitors
sometimes need to see how their systems will look when run
with a monochrome VGA monitor, ANSIPLUS provides an option
to emulate a monochrome VGA monitor on a color monitor.

Status reporting To allow programs to query ANSIPLUS about more than just the
current cursor location, the device status report has been
extended to report information about the current video
mode, video page, numbers of rows, columns and colors,
current or default definition of colors, and more.

Installation check To facilitate developing applications that can use ANSIPLUS
and Int 2Fh API features, ANSIPLUS responds to standard Int 2Fh ANSI.sys
installation checks, and includes extensions that can
distinguish ANSIPLUS from ANSI.sys. The ANSIPLUS Int 2Fh
API provides special functions for programmers.

Free BBS Updates When a Shareware copy of ANSIPLUS is installed on a disk
that boots a Registered copy, the INSTALL program will
convert the new Shareware ANSIPLUS.sys driver into a
Registered ANSIPLUS.exe driver with the same serial number
and signon message as the Registered ANSIPLUS.exe already
on the disk. Registered users can thus benefit from future
improvements to ANSIPLUS at no cost, if they have access to
CompuServe or a bulletin board system (BBS) that maintains
recent Shareware versions of ANSIPLUS.














10

III. INSTALLING ANSIPLUS


INSTALLING THE ANSIPLUS DEVICE DRIVER AND UTILITY PROGRAMS

The ANSIPLUS package includes an installation and configuration program called
INSTALL.exe, which should properly handle most installations. INSTALL analyzes
the runtime environment, CONFIG.sys and AUTOEXEC.bat of the target drive,
locates the source files, copies ANSIPLUS to the target drive (or to any
sub-directories of the user's choice), and updates CONFIG.sys and AUTOEXEC.bat.

Starting with MS-DOS 6.0, the CONFIG.sys file can contain menus and multiple
configuration blocks. When a CONFIG.sys menu is being used, a new ANSIPLUS
installation will require selecting a configuration block to receive the
ANSIPLUS DEVICE= command, and an update will require selecting a block that
either already refers to ANSIPLUS, or to which it will be added. INSTALL makes
an initial choice of configuration block, and the user can correct this before
copying the ANSIPLUS release files by using the "Revise Parameters" option on
the Installation menu.

The INSTALL program also gives an opportunity (via the Installation menu) to
set the destination directory for each installed file or for classes of files.
If the directory is not specified for a file, the following assumptions will
apply:

* If an ANSIPLUS file name matches the name of a file in the default
directory, root directory, or on the system PATH of the destination drive,
then the ANSIPLUS file will be copied over the matched file (i.e., updated).
This is intended to make installation of ANSIPLUS updates a snap.

* New files are added to a directory for each class of file (i.e., driver,
utility program, or documentation/other). If any file in the class is being
updated, then the class directory will be the same as the updated files.
Otherwise, the class directory will be "\ANSIPLUS".

It is recommended that you put all of the ANSIPLUS utility programs (SETCOLOR,
SETAPLUS, ANSICOM, NEWAPLUS and APLUSLIB) on your system PATH so that they can
be used easily. It is critical that the execution library, APLUSLIB.exe, be
located either in the same directory as the other utility programs or on the
system PATH. If it is not, the utility programs will not run! You may also
want to place the ANSIPLUS.sys device driver in the root directory.

For those who are not content to use default driver feature and other settings,
after the release files have been copied to the target drive, the configuration
section of the INSTALL program lets the user set the startup (boot) driver
table sizes, colors, and feature settings, as well as high memory loading
options that affect CONFIG.sys. These configurations can be performed either
at installation time, or any time later on an installed drive by using the
NEWAPLUS.exe program. Context sensitive help (via the F1 key) is provided for
all entries. Startup configuration changes are described in the following
section, starting on page 15.

Before installing ANSIPLUS, or any other new device driver, be sure you have a
bootable floppy disk as insurance against trouble getting your system to run
after the device driver is installed.


11


International Usage

If you are using the MS-DOS KEYB program to set up your keyboard, the following
command MUST be executed after you load KEYB, otherwise most ANSIPLUS keyboard
related features will not work:

SETAPLUS LINK KEYEVENT

The INSTALL program will automatically add this command to your MS-DOS
AUTOEXEC.bat file if it finds a reference in it to KEYB. Relinking the key
event interrupt is not necessary under Novell DOS with Novell's KEYB, because
it is directly compatible with ANSIPLUS.

If you are using the DISPLAY.sys device driver for code page switching, the
ANSIPLUS.sys device driver must be installed before DISPLAY.sys in your
CONFIG.sys file. The INSTALL program will automatically handle this in most
cases. However, under DOS 6.0+, if ANSIPLUS is installed in a configuration
block that will be processed by MS-DOS after the configuration block that
contains DISPLAY.sys, this situation will not be detected by INSTALL. This
must be corrected by directly editing CONFIG.sys.

Because of a bug in Microsoft Windows that prevents ANSIPLUS (or any other ANSI
driver) from being localized when the DISPLAY.sys driver is also used, INSTALL
will automatically add the following command to AUTOEXEC.bat:

SETAPLUS LOCALCON

Or, if both KEYB.com and DISPLAY.sys are used, the command will be:

SETAPLUS LINK KEYEVENT LOCALCON

See "ANSIPLUS and Windows 3" starting on page 43 for Windows configuration
changes that you must make if you will be running Windows and DISPLAY.sys.

The "LOCALCON" keyword in the above commands causes the ANSIPLUS "CON" driver
in memory to be renamed as "CONAPLUS". Unfortunately, the MS-DOS CHCP command
calls DOS Int 21h function 6602h, which searches the DOS device chain for the
"CON" driver installed before DISPLAY.sys, and because it was renamed, reports
an "Access Denied" error. The best work-around depends on whether you will be
using Windows:

* If Windows will NOT be used, remove the word "LOCALCON" from the SETAPLUS
command in AUTOEXEC.bat; or

* If Windows WILL be used, the CPCH.bat file supplied with ANSIPLUS should be
used as a replacement for the DOS CHCP command. Thus, for example:

CPCH 850

will temporarily rename the ANSIPLUS driver as "CON", change the code page
to 850, and then rename the driver back to "CONAPLUS".





12
Disk Compression Utilities

On systems using Stacker or similar disk compression utilities that can change
the hard disk drive letters around, INSTALL should still be able to locate
CONFIG.sys, AUTOEXEC.bat or the ANSIPLUS driver file if it was previously
installed. When CONFIG.sys is not found on the (hard disk) target drive, other
drives will be searched for it, starting with drive C:. AUTOEXEC.bat is then
assumed to reside on either the target drive or the same drive as CONFIG.sys.
And if the ANSIPLUS driver is not found where CONFIG.sys says it will be, the
same path on other drives will be searched for it as well. In the event that
these search rules still cannot locate the correct files, a system environment
variable (SET ANSIPLUS=d:) may be used to identify the drive with CONFIG.sys
and the ANSIPLUS driver, and this will override the search.

Memory Loading Optimizers

It is strongly recommended that ANSIPLUS be permanently excluded from automated
memory loading optimizations, such as DOS 6+ MEMMAKER, QEMM OPTIMIZE, or 386MAX
MAXIMIZE. There are three reasons for this:

* The ANSIPLUS "/U" memory loading option, which loads ANSIPLUS shared code to
upper memory blocks, is likely to confuse the optimizers because the driver
memory requirements change depending on whether ANSIPLUS is loaded low or
high, and when the driver is loaded low, ANSIPLUS allocates some upper
memory blocks itself.

* Changes you make at a later date with the NEWAPLUS program to driver table
sizes can result in a larger load size for the ANSIPLUS driver. This could
cause the driver or something loaded after it to be loaded low instead of
high, either because the driver is larger than the (QEMM) response file
expects, or it has become too large for everything to fit in the space
available.

* ANSIPLUS has seven memory loading options that may be easily selected using
NEWAPLUS.exe. Some of these options let you place part of the driver in EMS
memory or HMA, which the memory managers cannot do. The memory managers
give only two choices: low or high. You therefore have more control using
NEWAPLUS.

ANSIPLUS can be permanently excluded from MEMMAKER by adding a line containing
"*ANSIPLUS" to the file MEMMAKER.inf. Exclusion from QEMM's OPTIMIZE is
accomplished by adding a line containing "ANSIPLUS" to the file OPTIMIZE.exc in
the QEMM directory (create this file if it doesn't exist).

Loading ANSIPLUS as a TSR

The registered ANSIPLUS driver, ANSIPLUS.exe, can be loaded as a TSR, and this
is the only recommended Terminate-and-Stay-Resident method for loading
ANSIPLUS. The ANSIPLUS INSTALL program will not automatically configure
ANSIPLUS to be loaded in this manner, so the user must either modify CONFIG.sys
to use an INSTALL= or INSTALLHIGH= command, or must change AUTOEXEC.bat to
execute ANSIPLUS.exe as a program. Once this has been done, however, NEWAPLUS
will be able to find and reconfigure the ANSIPLUS.exe driver referred to by
CONFIG.sys or AUTOEXEC.bat.

The Shareware ANSIPLUS.sys driver cannot be loaded directly as a TSR. However,
the Quarterdeck device driver loader DEVICE.com can be used to load the

13
Shareware driver as a TSR. But because loading ANSIPLUS changes the system
console, DEVICE does not completely install the driver, at least as far as the
MS-DOS command shell, COMMAND.com, is concerned. This can be corrected by
entering a CTTY CON command after ANSIPLUS has been loaded.

The DEVLOD.com device driver loader, supplied with the book Undocumented DOS,
is also able to load ANSIPLUS.sys, but it can also cause problems loading a new
console device driver. It changes all references to the old CON device in the
DOS System File Table to point to the new console, which is correct under
standard MS-DOS. However, if DEVLOD is used to load ANSIPLUS.sys under Windows
3.1, the System File Table changes can cause a Windows crash when a second DOS
session is started.

OS/2, DESQview and Task Switchers

Using ANSIPLUS with multitasking operating systems and task switchers is
discussed in "ANSIPLUS and Multitaskers or Task Switchers", starting on page
47. This section includes special information about OS/2, DESQview and other
task switchers such as DOSSHELL. Reading this section is especially important
if you intend to use ANSIPLUS with DESQview. Replacement CON drivers generally
will not work correctly in a DESQview window, but if the right procedures are
followed, ANSIPLUS Release 4.00 or later should be compatible.

Examples

The following examples illustrate using INSTALL to install ANSIPLUS:

* If you received ANSIPLUS on a floppy disk and want to install it on your
hard disk, use the following installation procedure:

(1) Set the default directory to the hard disk (i.e., get a C> prompt).
(2) Insert the ANSIPLUS diskette in drive A: (or other floppy drive).
(3) Enter the following command:

A:INSTALL

* If you received ANSIPLUS as a ZIP file (named ANSIPLUS.zip in this example),
use the following procedure:

(1) Create a temporary sub-directory on the hard disk to contain the
unzipped ANSIPLUS files. Move ANSIPLUS.zip to this directory and make
it be the default directory. This directory must be different from
the directory that will receive the installed ANSIPLUS files.
(2) Unzip the files into the directory with the command:

PKUNZIP ANSIPLUS

(3) Then enter the command:

INSTALL

After installation is complete, you may delete the files in the
temporary sub-directory (but keep the ZIP file as a backup).

* To install ANSIPLUS on bootable disk B:, from hard disk directory C:\APLUS,
enter the command:

C:\APLUS\INSTALL B:
14

CHANGING THE ANSIPLUS STARTUP CONFIGURATION

Changes to the startup configuration for ANSIPLUS are made with the NEWAPLUS
program. (INSTALL also lets you make these changes, but INSTALL.exe is
actually a tiny program that calls NEWAPLUS.exe to perform the installation.)
All changes that you make with the NEWAPLUS.exe program will take effect only
after you reboot your computer.

All startup configuration changes made by NEWAPLUS (except for the ANSIPLUS
loading option) are installed by changing tables in the ANSIPLUS driver file.
Because of this, some anti-virus software may complain that the driver file has
been altered after you have used NEWAPLUS. Just ignore this complaint.

You run NEWAPLUS with a command of the form:

NEWAPLUS

where is the drive letter for a bootable diskette or hard disk
partition with ANSIPLUS installed. If is omitted, the drive that was
originally used to load MS-DOS will be selected. After NEWAPLUS confirms that
the target disk contains ANSIPLUS, you are presented with a startup
configuration menu that has twelve revision option groups:

Initial Colors

* Color selection sub-menus let you choose from the current 16-color palette
the screen colors that will be used for text foreground and background when
the system starts up. ANSIPLUS maintains two sets of foreground and
background colors: those that are currently on the screen, and "default"
colors to be applied when an ANSI Set Graphics Rendition reset (i.e., Esc
[0m) is detected. The startup selections for both color combinations can be
controlled from this sub-menu.

Palette Definition

* The color palette determines the precise colors you will see in 16 color
video modes. ANSIPLUS maintains two palettes: the current palette on the
screen, and a default palette that is loaded when ANSIPLUS first starts and
whenever the video display mode is changed. All changes you make using the
NEWAPLUS color palette option will apply to the default palette.

Border Color

* The border color is generated for the "overscan" region on the outside edges
of the screen. You can select any available color as the default border
color, which will be installed when ANSIPLUS starts up and whenever the
display mode is set.

Version

* ANSIPLUS 4.00 or later lets you select between two device drivers: the full
driver ("ANSIPLUS"), and a reduced capability driver ("ANSIPLSR"). The only
advantage of the reduced capability driver is that it requires about 35
percent less memory after it is loaded. To save this memory, five ANSIPLUS
features are removed: Scroll-back, copy/paste, direct output to video RAM in
graphics mode, graphics mode text treatments, and monochrome VGA emulation
on a color VGA.
15


Loading Option

ANSIPLUS can be loaded into memory up to seven different ways, depending on
your computer's capabilities and what is contained in CONFIG.sys:

* ANSIPLUS can be loaded into low memory below 640K. This is the default.
The following CONFIG.sys command loads ANSIPLUS to low memory:

DEVICE=ANSIPLUS.sys

* ANSIPLUS can load itself into upper memory blocks. At load time, the driver
can divide itself into two sections: sharable code totaling 13K to 28K
depending on driver version and available upper memory, and unsharable code/
data totaling 5K to 11K. The shared code can be placed in XMS upper memory
blocks (from 640K to 1M), in high memory (1M to 1M+64K), or in expanded
memory (EMS), leaving only the unsharable 5K to 11K in low memory. Under
DOS 5.0 or later, this option should work whether DOS=UMB appears in
CONFIG.sys or not. The following CONFIG.sys command loads ANSIPLUS into the
XMS upper memory blocks:

DEVICE=ANSIPLUS.sys /U

* ANSIPLUS can load itself into the high memory addressed just above 1
megabyte (the "HMA"). Under DOS 5.0 or later, with the DOS=HIGH line in
CONFIG.sys, ANSIPLUS shares this memory with DOS; if DOS=HIGH is not used,
but an XMS driver is installed, the HMA is obtained from the XMS driver; or,
for earlier DOS versions or systems not using an XMS driver, the HMA is
taken in the same manner as the VDISK.sys driver allocates extended memory.
When ANSIPLUS is loaded into the HMA, certain (antique) programs that assume
memory addresses over one megabyte will "wrap around" to addresses starting
at zero may not operate correctly. If you experience any problems, load
ANSIPLUS into XMS upper memory blocks, expanded memory or low memory
instead. The following CONFIG.sys command will load ANSIPLUS into the high
memory area:

DEVICE=ANSIPLUS.sys /H

* ANSIPLUS can load itself into expanded memory (EMS) which conforms to LIM
(Lotus-Intel-Microsoft) Specification 4.0, eliminating the need for up to
28K of scarce UMB, HMA or low memory resources. This loading method is not
recommended unless you really need to free up the extra memory. Executing
in EMS carries a performance penalty because the EMS pages must be mapped
and restored each time ANSIPLUS needs to execute in EMS, and this can be
especially noticeable under Windows. And because expanded memory may be
shared with other programs, drivers or TSRs, there is a chance of a software
interaction that may prevent an application from running, keep Windows from
loading, or cause the system to fail. (For example, Version 6 of 386MAX
will refuse to let Windows start in 386 Enhanced mode when ANSIPLUS is
running in EMS. This limitation does not exist for the EMM386 or QEMM386
memory managers.) If you experience any problems using ANSIPLUS in EMS, do
not use the feature. Load ANSIPLUS into XMS upper memory, the HMA, or low
memory instead. The following CONFIG.sys command will load ANSIPLUS into
expanded memory:

DEVICE=ANSIPLUS.sys /E

16


* ANSIPLUS can be loaded high by DEVICEHIGH or equivalent. This method is not
recommended for users of Windows 3.0 386 Enhanced Mode because the variables
in the ANSIPLUS driver will not be localized. Localization of upper memory
blocks is done correctly by Windows 3.1. See "ANSIPLUS and Windows 3,"
starting on page 43 for a discussion of this issue if you are using Windows
3.0. The following CONFIG.sys command will load ANSIPLUS high using EMM386:

DEVICEHIGH=ANSIPLUS.sys

* ANSIPLUS can be loaded high, and then its shared code can be placed in HMA.
This requires only 11K of XMS upper memory after ANSIPLUS has completed its
initialization (5K for the reduced driver). However, upper memory space for
the entire driver must be available when it is first loaded:

DEVICEHIGH=ANSIPLUS.sys /H

* ANSIPLUS can be loaded high, and then its shared code can be placed in EMS:

DEVICEHIGH=ANSIPLUS.sys /E





































17

Keyboard

* By default, ANSIPLUS increases the keyboard buffer capacity to 128
characters, which should hold at least as much as most users can type ahead
accurately. To expand the computer's keyboard buffer capacity, an extension
buffer is retained within ANSIPLUS, and whenever the ROM BIOS buffer has
space available for keys held in the ANSIPLUS buffer, they are moved into
the standard ROM BIOS buffer. You configure this buffer by specifying the
total number of keys to be buffered.

* The keyboard repeat rate determines how fast keys will be generated when a
key is held down and not lifted. For systems with enhanced keyboards,
ANSIPLUS lets this rate be configured anywhere from 2 to 300 characters per
second. For most applications, an ANSIPLUS repeat rate setting greater than
30 characters per second will take precedence over the keyboard repeat rate
set by other programs, such as the DOS MODE program. Because of imprecise
timing under Windows, however, this feature is disabled when Windows is
running. If desired, it may also be disabled entirely to use the standard
rate.

* The keyboard typematic delay, which determines how long a key must be held
down before repeated keys will start to be generated, is also configurable.
ANSIPLUS accepts four settings from 250 ms to 1000 ms.

* Normally, the Caps Lock key locks the alphabetic keys in upper case, and
when a shift key is held down, letters are entered in lower case. This
continues until Caps Lock is pressed again to unlock the Caps, and can often
be confusing if you forget that Caps were locked. ANSIPLUS has an option to
have shift+alphabetic keys cause the Caps to unlock, much like a typewriter
releases its shift lock whenever a shift key is pressed.

* In many cases, when Caps Lock has been released by a shift+alphabetic key
combination, mixed upper and lower case characters are needed for only a
single entry, and Caps Lock should be reinstated thereafter. ANSIPLUS
includes an option to turn Caps Lock back on again when the Enter key is
pressed after Caps were unlocked by a shift+alphabetic key, thus restoring
Caps Lock on completion of an "entry."

* For those users who find it more convenient to break out of programs with
the Ctrl+C key combination than with Ctrl+Break, ANSIPLUS has an option to
generate a keyboard break whenever Ctrl+C is entered.

* The "Non-Destructive" read function of the DOS driver reads an input key
from the keyboard unofficially just to see what it is, allowing it to really
be read later. This function is used to see what has been typed, and to
read it or flush the keyboard buffer only if it matches some criterion (such
as Escape or Ctrl+C). Because the standard DOS keyboard driver always looks
at the first key in the buffer, if it doesn't meet the criterion, no matter
what is typed later will not be checked. ANSIPLUS gets around this with an
option to return the last key from the buffer instead of the first.

* Key stacking can be disabled to use another key stacking driver (for

example, NDOS KEYSTACK.sys), or when typing files that contain unknown ANSI
escape sequences that might execute undesired commands. When disabled, a
warning tone will sound on any attempt to stack keys by ANSI escape
sequence.

18


Assigning Keys

* ANSIPLUS has the ability to translate single keystrokes to full commands or
other pre-determined key sequences. This feature is called key
reassignment, and it can be enabled or disabled without affecting the
contents of the key reassignment tables stored within the ANSIPLUS device
driver.

* Ordinarily, key reassignment applies only to input keys requested from DOS,
so programs that bypass DOS and use BIOS Interrupt 16h for keyboard input
will not have any keys reassigned. This is usually desirable, since major
applications generally have built-in assumptions about the meaning of
function and Alt keys, and these should be operative. An ANSIPLUS feature
is provided for those cases when you want to reassign keys for applications
that bypass DOS and use Int 16h for keyboard input. If you enable this
feature, key reassignment will apply to all keystrokes entered through both
Int 16h and DOS. If it is disabled, key reassignment will only apply for
keys requested from DOS.

* ANSIPLUS can also prevent ANSI key reassignment redefinition. This can be
useful before trying ANSI files that contain unknown ANSI sequences that
might redefine keys to execute undesired commands. A warning tone (like the
theme from "Dragnet") will sound whenever an attempt to redefine a key
reassignment is detected. If this feature is enabled by either NEWAPLUS or
SETAPLUS, SETAPLUS must be used to disable it -- it cannot be disabled by an
escape sequence alone.

* The space allocated for storing ANSI keystroke reassignments may also be
configured. Each key reassignment requires approximately four bytes plus
the length of the reassignment. You configure the total table size in
bytes. If you save and restore key reassignments with the PUSHKEYS.com and
POPKEYS.com programs, the storage space must be large enough for all saved
ke reassignments plus the current reassignments.


Tone Definition

* The ANSIPLUS driver includes a timer-interrupt controlled Ctrl+G beep tone
generator that lets the beep tone be finished in parallel with subsequent
processing. Multiple beeps are ignored if a tone is currently being output,
so programs cannot be slowed down by a rapid series of beeps. The tone
generator is used for both standard DOS console output and BIOS Int 10h
Write TTY calls. If the tone generator is disabled, the original DOS beep
tone will be used.

* When Windows 3 is running in 386 Enhanced mode, and a DOS program running in
the background outputs a Ctrl+G, the background program's virtual 8086 may
not be running fast enough to accurately time the tone. Because of this,
the tone can drag out and sound strange. Disabling ANSIPLUS tone generation
under Windows restores the original Windows sound driver, but makes the tone
frequency and duration non-configurable.

* The beep tone definition is stored in a table in the ANSIPLUS driver that
requires four bytes per frequency and duration. You can configure the size
of this table by specifying the maximum number of notes allowed in the beep.

19


Color Control

* The ANSIPLUS driver ordinarily traps all video mode changes and installs the
palette and/or DAC colors of the user's, or of ANSIPLUS's default color
scheme. Applications that set their own palettes will continue to do so,
but those that do not will use the installed color choices. If this feature
is disabled, the VGA/EGA controller manufacturer's colors (the "OEM" colors)
will be loaded when the video mode changes.

* Some 256-color DOS applications assume that the OEM 256-color palette has
been loaded when the 256-color mode was selected, and never define the
colors that they will use. A feature is provided to disable ANSIPLUS color
loading for DOS 256-color modes if you are running such an application.

* Some 256-color drivers for Windows apparently assume that the OEM 256-color
palette has been loaded when the 256-color mode was selected, and never
define the colors that Windows will use. Because of this, ANSIPLUS normally
does not load its default colors when a 256-color mode is selected under
Windows. However, a separate feature is provided to allow this if desired.

* In color text modes, the VGA and EGA allow either sixteen background colors
with no blinking foreground text, or eight background colors with foreground
text that may or may not blink. In monochrome text mode 07h, when blinking
is disabled there are three backgrounds possible: black, gray or white, and
with blinking enabled there are two: black and gray. If blinking is
disabled, ANSIPLUS will display sixteen (or three) background colors, and
when it is enabled, you will see only eight (or two) background colors.

* ANSIPLUS highlights user-typed keys when they are displayed on the screen,
giving a clear visual separation of typed entries from computer output.
Over dark backgrounds, the key is shown in white, and over light backgrounds
it is shown in black. If this feature is not wanted, it can be disabled.

* Because application developers with VGA color monitors sometimes need to see
how their systems will look when run with a VGA monochrome monitor, ANSIPLUS
provides emulation of monochrome monitor VGA on a color monitor. In normal
operation, this feature should be disabled.

* When the VGA/EGA video controller does not allow setting a palette register
unless a vertical retrace is in progress, or when "snow" or other problems
occur during palette color changes, ANSIPLUS provides an option to wait for
a vertical retrace whenever setting a palette register. Otherwise, this
feature should remain disabled.













20
Display Control

* The ANSIPLUS screen saver blanks the VGA/EGA screen after several minutes of
screen, keyboard and mouse inactivity. The screen is brought back by any
keystroke, including shift keys, or, if a mouse is connected, by moving it
or pressing a button. The screen saver is automatically disabled when not
in full screen DOS sessions under OS/2 or Windows, in DESQview, and when
games or other programs that change the timer are running, and does not
interfere with any known programs. However, if this feature is not desired,
it can be turned off.

* The time of inactivity before the screen goes blank is configurable between
one and thirty minutes.

* The ANSIPLUS screen blanking technique, which sets the VGA sequencer clock
mode register, apparently is incompatible with a few VGA controllers (eg.,
Cirrus Logic GD610/20). For such controllers, a special feature is provided
to select an alternative (EGA compatible) method which blanks the screen
using the attribute controller instead.

* As a "last resort" test for system activity, the screen saver can read scan
codes from the keyboard controller at port 60h. This test should only be
needed when you are running an application that completely takes over all
keyboard interrupts and directly controls the screen display as well. On
some computers, enabling this feature can interfere with processing of the
arrow and page up/down keys on enhanced keyboards, or with a PS/2 type
mouse, so the feature should be disabled unless it is really needed to keep
the screen saver from blanking the screen during a specific application.

* During periods of keyboard inactivity, ANSIPLUS's screen saver uses MS mouse
Int 33h calls to test the status of the mouse. In the unlikely event these
calls interfere with the mouse driver, they can be disabled.

* On the IBM PS/2, the mouse is usually connected to the pointing device port,
and mouse activity will cause interrupts on the Mouse Event interrupt number
74h, so ANSIPLUS monitors this interrupt to unblank the screen. If this
interrupt is used for another purpose on your computer, this feature should
be disabled.

* The DOS console drivers do not show a cursor on the screen when using a
graphics mode. ANSIPLUS can display a pseudo-cursor when keyed entries are
requested by DOS in a graphics mode. If this feature is desired, it can be
enabled. If it interferes with the appearance of a graphics mode program,
it should be left disabled.

* Because almost all applications that use 256-color graphics modes assume
that DOS does not place a cursor on the screen, the ANSIPLUS pseudo-cursor
is normally disabled when in a 256-color mode. If desired, you can enable
the cursor.

* Programs that write screen output using ROM BIOS Int 10h Function 14 (Write
TTY) ordinarily cannot use ANSI Escape sequences for screen control.
ANSIPLUS includes a feature to allow this.

* ANSIPLUS contains an internal storage area for saving and restoring driver
context information (rows and columns, colors, display modes, etc.). The
default size allows 25 items to be saved, but this can be configured to a
larger value if needed.
21
Screen Scroll-Back

* As lines are scrolled off the top of the screen, the ANSIPLUS driver can
save them for later viewing. This viewing is called screen scroll-back.
Most of the time this is a very useful and unobtrusive feature, but if it is
not desired, or if storage of the saved lines in either expanded memory
(EMS) or unused portions of the video RAM is found to interfere with
something, it can be disabled.

* Ordinarily, when ANSIPLUS is initialized by DOS, it will try to allocate 64K
of expanded memory (LIM EMS 4.0) for scroll-back. When EMS is used for
scroll-back, storage capacity will be about 1,000 lines, and the scroll-back
data will be preserved as long as the computer is on. (If the ANSIPLUS
shared code was loaded into EMS, it will share the same 64K area as scroll-
back, reducing capacity by 40 percent.) If EMS memory is unavailable, then
scroll-back will be stored in unused portions of the video RAM instead,
cutting capacity to about 500 lines, which will be lost every time the
display mode changes. A configurable feature is provided that can prevent
DOS EMS memory from being allocated for scroll-back and force any
scroll-back data to reside in video RAM.

* Under Windows, when a 386 Enhanced Mode DOS session starts, ANSIPLUS will
try to allocate 64K of private expanded memory (EMS) for scroll-back (48K if
ANSIPLUS shared code was loaded into EMS). If the EMS is not available (for
example, if the Windows PIF file for the application does not provide
expanded memory), then video RAM will be used for scroll-back instead.
ANSIPLUS provides a configurable feature that can prevent Windows EMS from
being allocated for scroll-back and force any Windows DOS session
scroll-back to reside in video RAM. This is not recommended, however,
because scroll-back in video RAM under Windows is not reliable when used
with many Windows video drivers.

* The recommended location for scroll-back data under Windows is expanded
memory (EMS). When EMS memory cannot be used, if you want to use
scroll-back under Windows, you must enable a feature that allows using video
RAM for scroll-back instead. When running DOS applications in 386 Enhanced
Mode, Windows will not maintain a full 32K of text mode RAM unless the
Windows PIF file specifies "High Graphics" and "Retain Video Memory", and
even then some Windows 3.1 video drivers (eg., 256-color ET-4000) will not
work correctly when video RAM outside the visible screen is accessed,

resulting in loss of scroll-back text or incomplete updating of the screen.
You therefore should exercise caution before relying on this feature. For
further information, see "ANSIPLUS and Windows 3" starting on page 43.

* Another feature only applies when video RAM is used instead of EMS to hold
scroll-back data. On systems running a suitable XMS driver such as QEMM or
HIMEM, ANSIPLUS can allocate XMS memory to hold scroll-back data when
changing video modes or running graphics applications (including Windows).
DOS sessions under Windows 3.1 can also use XMS memory for this purpose if
they are run from a PIF file that provides at least 32K of XMS memory. If
ANSIPLUS is loaded into the High Memory Area (HMA) and is not sharing this
area with DOS, then scroll-back will be preserved in HMA instead of XMS
memory. Because calls to some XMS drivers may require a lot of stack space,
this feature should be disabled if you have reliability problems during
display mode changes. And because the feature is now rarely needed, if it
is disabled at system bootup, the code to perform its function will be
deleted from the driver (saving 650 bytes), and the feature will not
operate.
22


* ANSIPLUS captures for scroll-back all standard DOS output that is scrolled
off the top of the screen or cleared from the screen. An option is provided
to capture full lines scrolled off the top by BIOS calls, as well as screens
not containing DOS output, when they are cleared by BIOS call.

Under Windows 3.1, when a DOS session is running in a window, some Windows
video drivers (for example, the Microsoft Windows 3.1 VGA driver) trap BIOS
scrolling calls completely and do not pass them through to the DOS virtual
8086, making it impossible for ANSIPLUS to reliably capture lines scrolled
by BIOS call when Windows is running.

* Every time that video page 0 (the normal video page for all DOS output) is
cleared, the first through last non-blank lines on the screen (plus one
above and below) are captured for scroll-back. When the second and higher
video pages are cleared, they will not be saved unless lines have been
scrolled off the top. An option is provided to capture the higher video
pages too when they are cleared.

* To simplify writing or adapting applications, ANSIPLUS has the ability to
restrict DOS, ANSI and BIOS screen output to user-defined scrolling regions
or "windows." Because scrolling regions are generally used only within
applications, when a subscreen scrolling region is in effect, lines scrolled
off the top of the region are not usually captured for scroll-back. An
option is provided to capture such lines.

* When EMS memory is not used for scroll-back, ANSIPLUS stores captured screen
lines in unused parts of the video RAM, with usage based on whether a
display page has ever been selected for display. Almost all text mode
applications select a page before filling it with text, so ANSIPLUS should
generally know what is used and what isn't. However, a few applications,
such as the Norton Utilities Version 7, appear to use the second video page
without ever selecting it to save the original contents of the screen as the
program starts up. This action will wipe out any scroll-back data in the
second page, and when the original screen is cleared by the program,
scroll-back lines may be stored into the saved screen, causing gibberish to
be restored to the screen when the program terminates. To address this
problem, a configurable feature is provided to protect the second video page
from scroll-back storage. However, when this feature is enabled, storage
capacity for scroll-back in the video RAM will be reduced by one page.


Other

* ANSIPLUS uses the Scroll-Lock key as a hot key for freezing fast screen
output and for activating screen scroll-back. If these features are not
desired, or to run those few applications that use Scroll-Lock for other
purposes, the ANSIPLUS Scroll-Lock key can be disabled. However, before you
completely disable ANSIPLUS's Scroll-Lock key, try the Alt+Scroll-Lock
combination instead (see next option).

* An alternative hot key is Alt+Scroll-Lock. If this key is enabled, the Alt
key must be pressed simultaneously with the Scroll-Lock key to cause the
ANSIPLUS Scroll-Lock function to be activated. If it is disabled, the
Scroll-Lock key will function with or without any other simultaneous key.


23


* Smooth scrolling can gradually move the entire screen's text up so it can be
read while it moves. This feature can also be toggled on and off by the
Shift+Scroll Lock key combination. Smooth scrolling will appear
unacceptably choppy on computers with lower powered CPUs and/or video
controllers that cannot move a full screen of text in the video RAM
completely during a vertical retrace. If this occurs, the feature should
not be used.

* Because scrolling performance is reduced when Windows is running, smooth
scrolling under Windows may appear jerky even though it works correctly
under DOS. Smooth scrolling also may interfere with many Windows video
display drivers when the DOS session is run in a window, not full screen.
For example, the 256-color drivers for the Tseng ET4000 may leave undrawn
black areas on the screen when scrolling occurs in a window while smooth
scrolling is active. Because of these problems, smooth scrolling is
disabled by default under Windows, and is kept disabled unless the VWFD.386
Windows virtual device driver (VxD) is installed. See "ANSIPLUS and Windows
3" starting on page 43 for further information.

* Because it takes time to smoothly scroll the screen, smooth scrolling of
large amounts of screen output can significantly delay the computer. An
option is provided to increase the scrolling rate when the smooth scrolling
operation is taking a significant proportion of the computer's time. This
can help, for example, to prevent data overruns when smooth scrolling is
used with a communications program that scrolls the entire screen.

* ANSIPLUS normally handles all text mode scrolling itself directly in the
video display RAM. This may confuse some other device drivers or TSRs that
are installed and need to know when the screen is being scrolled. In such
cases, a feature can be enabled to cause BIOS calls for screen scrolling.

* In full screen operation, ANSIPLUS should automatically detect whether the
current running program is using the mouse, and not try to take over the
mouse for copy and paste. In case this mouse activity detection logic
fails, and ANSIPLUS interferes with a program's mouse usage, a configurable
feature is provided to correct the problem by keeping ANSIPLUS from taking
over the mouse unless the screen has been frozen by the Scroll Lock key.

This feature affects only standard DOS and full screen Windows or OS/2
sessions, because ANSIPLUS always requires that Scroll Lock be on before it
takes over the mouse in windowed OS/2 or Windows sessions or in DESQview
windows. This keeps the mouse from being activated as you move it from
window to window or when you leave the mouse cursor sitting over an ANSIPLUS
DOS window.












24
IV. USING ANSIPLUS

This chapter describes your controls over ANSIPLUS when it is running. Five
subjects are covered: special keyboard and mouse functions; selecting and
defining colors with the SETCOLOR.exe utility program; controlling other
ANSIPLUS features with the SETAPLUS.exe utility program; creating batch files
for configuring applications; and editing ANSI-type escape sequence programs
and files with the ANSICOM.exe program.

SPECIAL KEYBOARD AND MOUSE FUNCTIONS

Hot Keys

To access its special keyboard control functions, ANSIPLUS uses three hot key
combinations, all involving the Scroll-Lock key:

* To activate scroll freeze, scroll-back, and copy/paste, use the Scroll-Lock
key alone, or combine it with the Alt key:

Scroll-Lock Enable or disable Scroll Lock: scroll freezing,
scroll-back and copy/paste
Alt+Scroll-Lock Enable or disable Scroll Lock (alternative keys)

* To turn smooth scrolling on and off, add a Shift key:

Shift+Scroll-Lock Enable or disable smooth scrolling

* To blank the screen immediately (if the ANSIPLUS screen saver is enabled),
add Alt and Ctrl keys to Scroll-Lock, or use the alternative Alt+Shift+Num
Lock key combination:

Alt+Ctrl+Scroll-Lock Blank the screen immediately
Alt+Shift+Num Lock Blank the screen immediately (alternative keys)


Scroll Lock

When your Scroll-Lock toggle is recognized by the computer, you will hear a
short tone. When the screen is frozen by Scroll-Lock, (as indicated by the
Scroll Lock light on enhanced keyboards), normal key input is disabled and the
following keys apply:

Home Go to the top of the lines saved for scroll-back
PageUp Scroll up one page
Shift+Tab Scroll up one-half page
Up arrow Scroll up one line

End Go to the bottom (i.e., the original screen display)
PageDn Scroll down one page
Tab Scroll down one-half page
Down arrow Scroll down one line

Ctrl+Home Delete all scroll-back older than that visible on the screen
Ctrl+End Delete all scroll-back visible on the screen or newer

Left arrow View a lower numbered display page
Right arrow View a higher numbered display page

25

Gray Plus Set a bookmark at the current scroll-back location
Gray Enter Display the next bookmark location

Escape Cancel Scroll Lock, return to normal key processing
Scroll lock Cancel Scroll Lock, return to normal key processing

Insert Paste the current text selection to the keyboard from the
screen, the local clipboard or the Windows clipboard. Then
cancel Scroll Lock (see "Copy and Paste" below)

Ctrl+Insert Signal that the arrow keys will be used to start a text
selection for copy and paste (see "Copy and Paste" below)

Delete Clear the clipboard

If you try to exceed the limit of travel up, down, left or right, a short low
pitched tone will sound. If you enter any key other than those above, you will
hear a short warbling sound, Scroll Lock will be canceled, the screen will
return to its normal display, and the key will be passed back to the running
program.

If the screen was frozen during output, the PageDn, Tab and Down arrow keys
will allow one page, one-half page, and one line of additional output,
respectively, before freezing the screen again. Pressing a Shift key will
release the screen as long as the shift key is held down.

Copy and Paste

ANSIPLUS supports copy and paste so that you can recover data or commands that
have scrolled off the screen without having to retype the data. Under Windows,
this feature lets you copy text easily between a full screen text mode DOS
application and the Windows clipboard without having to switch to a window.

To hold text for later pasting to the keyboard, the ANSIPLUS driver contains a
local clipboard. The default size of this clipboard is limited: 384 bytes plus
the amount of free space in the storage area for key reassignments, and the
driver will issue a buffer full tone if it ever overflows. If this happens,
the local clipboard capacity can easily be increased by raising the size of the
ANSIPLUS key reassignment tables with the NEWAPLUS.exe configuration utility.

Whenever Scroll Lock is on, ANSIPLUS lets you use the mouse and/or keyboard to
select text, copy it to the clipboard, or paste it to the keyboard. When
Scroll Lock is off, if the currently running program or command shell does not
use the mouse, the mouse may be used for copy and paste without requiring entry
of the Scroll-Lock key.

The local clipboard is cleared only when the first text selection is added to
it after Scroll Lock has been turned on, or when key input pasted from the
Windows clipboard is completed. Thus, a series of text selections can be added
to the clipboard from various places on the screen or scroll- back, and then
left in the clipboard until you need to paste them. Because the clipboard can
retain data for a long time, you should be sure of what is in your clipboard
before you paste to the keyboard. In Windows, whenever selected text is saved
to the clipboard (by the Enter key or right mouse button click), the local
clipboard is automatically copied to the Windows clipboard so that other
programs may have access to the data.

26

Pasting text to the keyboard is simple, once it has been selected or if it is
already present in the Windows clipboard: just hit the Insert key or click once
on the left mouse button after Scroll Lock is on.

Selecting text with the keyboard is a little more complicated because it
requires two steps: starting the selection by positioning the cursor to the
beginning of the text, and then extending the size of the selection. Selecting
text with the mouse is covered below in "Using the Mouse".

The following keys are used when starting a text selection:

Insert Paste the local or Windows clipboard to the keyboard
Escape Cancel the text selection
Delete Clear the clipboard
Space Select the word at the cursor position

Home Move the cursor to the start of the current line
End Move the cursor to the end of line

Up arrow Move the cursor up one line
Down arrow Move the cursor down one line
Left arrow Move the cursor left one character
Right arrow Move the cursor right one character

Once a text selection appears on the screen (i.e., after hitting the Space bar
to select a word or after selecting something with the mouse), the following
keys can be used to extend and complete it:

Insert Paste the selection to the keyboard
Alt+Insert Paste selection, suppressing leading spaces on each line
Enter Complete the selection and add it to the clipboard
Alt+Enter Add selection to clipboard, suppressing leading spaces

Escape Cancel the text selection
Delete Clear the clipboard
Space Add a word to the selection

Home Extend the selection to the start of the current line
End Extend the selection to the end of line

Up arrow Extend the selection to the line above
Down arrow Extend the selection to the line below
Left arrow Delete the last character from the selection
Right arrow Add one character to the end of the selection


Using the Mouse

In order to use the mouse for copy and paste or for scrolling back, you must
first "wake it up" by moving it or pressing one of the buttons. This tells
ANSIPLUS that the mouse will be used, and the mouse cursor will appear on the
screen. If the program that is running already was using the mouse, then
Scroll Lock must be on or ANSIPLUS will NOT take control of the mouse.




27

In full screen operation, ANSIPLUS should automatically detect whether the
current running program is using the mouse, and not try to take over the mouse
for copy and paste. In windowed OS/2 or Windows sessions or in DESQview
windows, ANSIPLUS requires that Scroll Lock be on before it takes over the
mouse. This keeps the mouse from being activated as you move it from window to
window or when you leave the mouse cursor sitting over an ANSIPLUS DOS window.

Once ANSIPLUS recognizes the mouse, if you move the mouse cursor to the top
line on the screen, the screen will scroll backward (turning on Scroll Lock if
necessary). If the screen is scrolled back, moving the cursor to the bottom
line will cause the screen to scroll forward.

To select text, just move the mouse cursor to it and use any of the following
mouse functions:

Left button drag Select text by holding down the left mouse button
and dragging the mouse.

Left single click Paste the clipboard to the keyboard and cancel Scroll
Lock. Any current text selection will be copied to the
local clipboard first, and if the local clipboard is
empty a copy of the Windows clipboard will be pasted.
This action is the same as hitting the Insert key.
There is one special case: If Scroll Lock was off and
the 4DOS/NDOS popup command history window was showing,
the current selected command will be executed as though
Enter was hit.

Left double click Select the word under the mouse cursor, or if the mouse
cursor is already within the text selection, add another
word to the selection. This action is the same as
hitting the Space bar.

Right single click Add the current text selection to both the local and
Windows clipboards. This is the same as hitting the
Enter key. If there was no text selection, cancel
Scroll Lock, release the mouse, and return to normal key
entry (same as hitting the Escape key).

Right double click Cancel the current selection or Scroll Lock. This is
the same as hitting the Escape key.

Middle single click Same as the Page Up key, except when the 4DOS/NDOS
history window is showing, when it generates an Up
arrow.

Middle double click Same as the Page Down key, except when the 4DOS/NDOS
history window is showing, when it is a Down arrow.

The act of selecting text will turn on Scroll Lock if it is not already on. If
you have a two button mouse, the functions for the "middle" button can be
simulated by pressing both the left and right buttons simultaneously.





28

SELECTING AND DEFINING COLORS

The SETCOLOR.exe utility program provides extensive control over colors for
your running system. With this program, the user can view the current colors,
select colors for use, create and apply named color schemes, edit the color
palette, set the border color, and save and load color definitions. Changes
made with SETCOLOR.exe are in effect only as long as your system is running.
To change the colors for system bootup, use the NEWAPLUS.exe program.
SETCOLOR.exe is executed by a command of the form:

SETCOLOR [ ...]

where each selects a foreground or background color or other option.
If no is supplied, you are presented with a menu of choices:

* Color selection submenus let you choose from the current 16-color palette
the screen colors that will be used for text foreground and background.
ANSIPLUS maintains two sets of foreground and background colors: those that
are currently on the screen, and default colors to be applied when an ANSI
Set Graphics Rendition reset (i.e., Esc [0m) is detected. You can control
both color combinations from this sub-menu.

* The color palette determines the precise colors you will see in 16 color
video modes. ANSIPLUS maintains two palettes: the current palette on the
screen, and a default palette that is loaded when ANSIPLUS first starts and
whenever the video display mode is changed. You can control both palettes
using this option, but unless you specifically set the default for each
color you redefine, your colors will only apply until the next display mode
change.

* The border color is generated for the "overscan" region on the outside edges
of the screen. Again, ANSIPLUS maintains both a current border color and a
default border color. You can select any available color as border color,
and can control both the current and default borders with this option. As
for palette changes, unless you specifically set the default border color,
your border color will apply only until the next display mode change.

From the command line, colors may be selected by name or code number, where
codes 0-15 identify the 16 palette colors, 128-143 select foreground colors,
and 192-207 select background colors. The relationship between color names and
code numbers is depicted in Table 4-1:
















29

+--------------------------------------------------------+
| Table 4-1 |
| Color Names and Codes |
+-------------------+--------+--------------+------------+
| | Color | Foreground | Background |
| Color Name | Code | Code | Code |
+-------------------+--------+--------------+------------+
| BLACK | 0 | 128 | 192 |
| DKGRAY | 8 | 136 | 200 |
| GRAY | 7 | 135 | 199 |
| WHITE | 15 | 143 | 207 |
| RED | 9 | 137 | 201 |
| DKRED | 1 | 129 | 193 |
| BROWN | 3 | 131 | 195 |
| YELLOW | 11 | 139 | 203 |
| GREEN | 2 | 130 | 194 |
| LTGREEN | 10 | 138 | 202 |
| CYAN | 6 | 134 | 198 |
| LTCYAN | 14 | 142 | 206 |
| BLUE | 4 | 132 | 196 |
| LTBLUE | 12 | 140 | 204 |
| MAGENTA or PURPLE | 5 | 133 | 197 |
| LTMAGENTA or PINK | 13 | 141 | 205 |
+-------------------+--------+--------------+------------+

In 256 color modes, you may also use 256-511 to select the foreground, 512-767
to select the background, or 0-255 after the BORDER keyword to select the
border color.

Several modifying keywords can assist the color selection:

DARK, DIM or NORMAL for low intensity colors,
LIGHT, BRIGHT or INTENSE for high intensity colors,
FOREGROUND or FGD for foreground following,
BACKGROUND, BGD, or ON for background following,
REVERSE to swap the current foreground and background,
BORDER for border color selection following, or
DEFAULT to select the current colors as the default colors.

If named colors or color codes 0-15 are specified without the foreground or
background keywords, then the first color is assumed to be the foreground and
the second the background. Keywords may also be shortened; the first partial
match will be used. Several examples may help to clarify these rules:

SETCOLOR bgd blue sets the background to dark blue
SETCOLOR light cyan blue default default colors are light cyan foreground
and blue background
SETCOLOR 7,0 gray foreground, black background
SETCOLOR bright green on blue high intensity green foreground, dark blue
background
SETCOLOR border cyan set the border color to cyan
SETCOLOR reverse reverses (swaps) the current foreground
and background colors
SETCOLOR rev reverses foreground and background



30

Any unmatched keywords are checked against user-defined color schemes in a file
named SETCOLOR.sch. This editable ASCII text file, which should be placed in
the same directory as the SETCOLOR.exe program, contains any number of named
color schemes of the user's choice. User supplied color schemes are entered
into the file with a text editor, with each line entered in the form:

= [ ...]

where is the name of the user supplied color scheme, and is
any valid SETCOLOR program keyword or other option. Table 4-2 shows the
SETCOLOR.sch file included with ANSIPLUS as a sample:

+---------------------------------------+
| Table 4-2 |
| Sample Color Schemes File |
+---------------------------------------+
| evening = light cyan blue border 17 |
| night = light blue black border 17 |
| dawn = yellow cyan border 35 |
| daylight = light blue white border 17 |
| sun = bright red yellow border 46 |
| sky = blue light blue border 17 |
| forest = black green border 24 |
| earth = yellow brown border 38 |
| regal = pink purple border 21 |
| candycane = dark red pink border white|
| bw = gray black border dkgray |
+---------------------------------------+

A user color scheme may be specifically selected on the SETCOLOR command line
by preceding its name with the keyword SCHEME, for example:

SETCOLOR SCHEME JOE selects a color scheme named JOE

The SETCOLOR program also includes keyword options to reset, edit, load and
save the current color configuration. These include:

RESET Install defaults as the current colors
IBM or OEM Install the OEM VGA/EGA palette as the current colors
PALETTE Edit the color definitions for the 16-color palette
SAVEFILE Save the current 16-color definitions in a file
SAVE256 Save the 256 VGA DAC color definitions in a file
LOADFILE Load a color definition file
SAVECURRENT Save the 16 current colors as an executable program
SAVEDEFAULT Save the 16 default colors as an executable program
SAVEPROGRAM Save both the current and default colors as a program

The SAVEFILE, SAVE256 and LOADFILE keywords generate and load color definition
files. The color definition files created by SAVEFILE contain 36 lines: 32
lines define the red, green and blue intensities for colors 0 to 15, both
current and default, and the other four define the current and default
foreground, background and border colors. Files created by SAVE256 contain 512
lines: 256 for the default DACs and 256 for the current DACs. Table 4-3 is a
sample of lines from a SAVEFILE color definition file.



31
+------------------------------+
| Table 4-3 |
| Sample Color Definition File |
+------------------------------+
| Default = 142,196 |
| DBorder = 0,81,162 |
| DColor 2 = 16,162,81 |
| DColor 3 = 113,65,16 |
| DColor 4 = 0,0,105 |
| DColor 5 = 97,0,97 |
| Current = 135,192 |
| Border = 0,0,0 |
| Color 2 = 0,170,0 |
| Color 3 = 0,170,170 |
| Color 4 = 0,0,170 |
| Color 5 = 170,0,170 |
+------------------------------+

Users are free to edit color definition files to create their own colors, to
delete any lines from them, or to put the lines in any order except that all
default color definitions must precede all current color definitions in the
file. If no file name is given for a LOADFILE, SAVEFILE or SAVE256 request,
the file name SETCOLOR.def in the current directory will be used. LOADFILE
checks the system PATH for color definition files to be loaded, so any commonly
used color files can reside in a directory on the PATH.

The SAVECURRENT, SAVEDEFAULT, and SAVEPROGRAM keyword options create executable
".com" files that can be called later by name to install colors. These
programs can also be edited by the ANSICOM.exe utility program.

To provide additional user control over 16-color programs, such as DBASE III or
DOS 5.0 EDIT.com, that set their own palettes or border colors but do not
restore the palette on completion, or to simply force a color scheme on a
program that defines its own, ANSIPLUS can lock the color palette, preventing a
program from loading the PAL/DAC and border color registers by BIOS calls.
This feature is controlled by two SETCOLOR options:

LOCKPAL enable locked color palette, ignore BIOS calls defining colors
UNLOCKPAL disable locked color palette, allow programs to define colors

Palette locking should only be used when all other means of control fail. It
is intended to be invoked as part of batch files that execute applications to
be controlled, locking the palette before the program runs, and unlocking it
after it completes. The feature should never be enabled all of the time
because it will keep well behaved programs from making color changes too.

The SETCOLOR program also controls ANSIPLUS VGA monochrome monitor emulation.
Two keywords enable or disable this feature:

MONOCHROME begins VGA monochrome monitor emulation; and
COLOR ends VGA monochrome monitor emulation and restores colors.

And finally, SETCOLOR provides three reporting options:

SHOW displays the 16 current colors in a band across the screen
HELP gives a brief description of how to use the SETCOLOR program
SCHEME HELP lists the available color schemes in file SETCOLOR.sch

32

CONTROLLING OTHER ANSIPLUS FEATURES

The SETAPLUS.exe utility program is used to enable and disable various ANSIPLUS
features while the system is running. It can also be used to set the video
display mode, character height, video page and graphics mode text treatment
options, to define or list key reassignments, or to define the Ctrl+G beep
tone. Changes made with SETAPLUS.exe are in effect only as long as your system
is running. To change ANSIPLUS features for system bootup, use the NEWAPLUS
program. SETAPLUS.exe is executed by a command of the form:

SETAPLUS [ ...]

where each selects an ANSIPLUS feature or other option. As for the
SETCOLOR.exe utility, if no is supplied, you are presented with a
menu of choices. These choices are shown in Table 4-4 below.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Table 4-4 |
| SETAPLUS Main Menu Options |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| Report | Display current ANSIPLUS optional feature settings |
| Mode | Set the video display mode |
| Height | Set the displayed character height |
| Tone | Ctrl+G beep tone generation options |
| Keyboard | Caps Lock, Ctrl+C and key read-ahead options |
| Assign | Key reassignment enable/disable option and key definition |
| Color | Mode set color, blink, bright key echo and VGA mono options|
| Display | Screen saver and graphics mode cursor options |
| Scrollback| Scroll-back options |
| Other | Scroll-Lock, smooth scrolling and copy/paste options |
| Undo | Undo all feature changes since starting the main menu |
| Quit | Quit and return to DOS |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------------------+

From the SETAPLUS command line, you control each ANSIPLUS feature with its own
selection keywords. These selectors are shown in Table 4-5 on page 34. When
used in combination with the following keywords, each controllable feature can
be enabled and disabled easily:

ON, YES, or TRUE to enable the preceding feature,
ENABLE to enable all following listed features,
OFF, NO, or FALSE to disable the preceding feature,
DISABLE to disable all following listed features, and
RESET to set all features to their default values.

The following examples illustrate use of the SETAPLUS command line to control
ANSIPLUS features:

SETAPLUS bright off Disable bright key echo
SETAPLUS enable capsunlock saver Enable screen saver and Caps reset on
Shift+alpha
SETAPLUS reset Reset all features to their default status





33



+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Table 4-5 |
| SETAPLUS Feature Selection Keywords |
+------------+------------------------------------------------------+
| SETCOLORS | Install default (ANSIPLUS) colors on mode sets |
| DOSSET256 | Load default colors on DOS 256-color mode sets |
| WINSET256 | Load default colors on Windows 256-color mode sets |
| NOBLINK | Enable 16-color text mode background (disable blink) |
| BRIGHT | Highlight echoed keys (bright key echo) |
| LOCKPAL | Prevent palette/DAC color changes by programs |
| MONOCHROME | VGA monochrome monitor emulation |
| RETRACE | Wait for retrace before setting palette registers |
| | |
| SAVER | Enable screen saver (blanker) |
| EGASAVER | Use alternative method for blanking VGA screen |
| READ60H | Read key controller scan codes in screen saver |
| MSMOUSE | Use MS mouse Int 33h polling in screen saver |
| PS2MOUSE | Use PS/2 Int 74h mouse event interrupts in saver |
| PSEUDOCURS | Generate pseudo-cursor in VGA/EGA graphics modes |
| CURSOR256 | Generate pseudo-cursor in 256-color graphics modes |
| TTYTRAP | Trap ANSI escape sequences in BIOS Write TTY |
| | |
| CAPSUNLOCK | Unlock Caps Lock with shift/letter key combination |
| CAPSRELOCK | Relock Caps with carriage return after shift/letter |
| CTRLC | Generate Ctrl+Break when Ctrl+C is entered |
| NDLAST | Read last key in buffer with non-destructive input |
| STACK | Enable key stacking |
| | |
| KEYASSIGN | Enable ANSI key reassignment |
| BIOSASSIGN | Apply key reassignment at BIOS Int 16h level |
| NODEFKEY | Prevent ANSI key reassignment redefinition |
| | |
| BEEP | Use ANSIPLUS Ctrl+G beep tone generator |
| WINBEEP | Allow ANSIPLUS beep tone under Windows |
| | |
| SCROLLBACK | Enable scroll-back of lines scrolled off top |
| DOSEMS | Use expanded memory for DOS scroll-back |
| WINEMS | Use expanded memory for Windows scroll-back |
| WINVRAM | Allow video RAM for Windows scroll-back |
| XMSBACK | Preserve scroll-back data using XMS or HMA memory |
| BIOSBACK | Capture lines scrolled by BIOS call |
| CLSBACK | Capture erased pages never scrolled up |
| REGIONBACK | Capture lines scrolled from subscreen regions |
| PAGEPROTECT| Protect 2nd display page from scroll-back storage |
| | |
| LOCK | Allow Scroll Lock key to freeze screen |
| ALTLOCK | Require Alt+Scroll-Lock when freezing screen |
| SMOOTH | Enable smooth scrolling |
| WINSMOOTH | Allow smooth scrolling under Windows |
| SPEEDUP | Speed up smooth scroll when delaying computer |
| BIOSCROLL | Use BIOS calls for text mode screen scrolling |
| MOUSELOCK | Require Scroll Lock for full screen mouse copy/paste |
+------------+------------------------------------------------------+


34

Other command line options include:

MODE to set the video display mode,
HEIGHT to set the text character height,
PAGE to set the video page,

KEYDEF to enter key reassignment definitions from the keyboard,
LISTKEYS to list all current key reassignments,
SAVEKEYS to save current key reassignments in a file,
LOADKEYS to load key reassignment definitions from a file,

KEYSTACK to add keys or delays to the keyboard buffer,
RATE to set the keyboard "typematic" repeat rate,
DELAY to set the typematic key delay,

SAVESCROLLTEXT to save scrollback to a file (text only),
SAVESCROLLANSI to save scrollback with ANSI color control,

SAVECLIP to save the clipboard to a file,
LOADCLIP to load the clipboard from a file,

BLANKTIME to set the screen saver blanking time,
TONE to set the Ctrl+G beep tone,

TEXT or TREATMENT to reset graphics mode text treatments,
SHADOW, BOLD, ITALICS, UNDERLINE or OUTLINE to enable text treatments,

STATUS to report the current video mode, number of colors, etc.,
FEATURES to report the settings of all ANSIPLUS features,
REPORT to show both STATUS and FEATURES, and
HELP to show all keyword options.

Two keyword options are provided for managing the interrupt vectors used by
ANSIPLUS:

INTERRUPT Displays, to the extent possible, the chain of programs
attached to each following selected interrupt
LINK Relinks ANSIPLUS to the selected interrupt(s)

You may specify interrupt selectors as either hexadecimal numbers or special
keywords:

KEYEVENT Interrupt 09h Key Event
VIDEO Interrupt 10h Video
SYSTEMSERVICE Interrupt 15h System Services
KEYREQUEST Interrupt 16h Keyboard Request
KEYBREAK Interrupt 1Bh Keyboard Break
TIMERTICK Interrupt 1Ch User Timer Tick
DOSIDLE Interrupt 28h DOS Idle
DOSTTY Interrupt 29h DOS Fast TTY Output
MULTIPLEX Interrupt 2Fh Multiplex
MSMOUSE Interrupt 33h Mouse
PS2MOUSE Interrupt 74h PS/2 Mouse Event

For example, SETAPLUS INTERRUPT 2F will list the programs attached to the DOS
Int 2Fh Multiplex interrupt.

35


All the features controlled from the SETAPLUS command line are described in
Chapter 3 under "Changing the ANSIPLUS Startup Configuration", starting on page
15, except for three:

* To reassign keys, use the KEYDEF keyword. You will be prompted for the key
to reassign; after that, you type in the corresponding key reassignment, and
terminate it with the End key.

* To add keys to the keyboard buffer, use the keyword KEYSTACK, followed by
any number of quoted strings, key scan and character codes (scan code times
256 plus ASCII character code), or time delay directives (/Wnnn for timer
ticks, or /Dnnn for milliseconds). The following example enters "Dir",
waits one second, then enters " *.*" and a carriage return:

SETAPLUS KEYSTACK "Dir" /W18 " *.*" 13

* To define the beep sound from the command line, use SETAPLUS and follow the
keyword TONE with zero, one or more frequencies in Hertz and durations in
milliseconds. For example,

SETAPLUS TONE installs the default 880hz 385ms tone, and
SETAPLUS TONE 1397,110,1047,165 defines a two-tone Ctrl+G beep.

To define the beep sound from the SETAPLUS main menu, select Tone Definition
and run through the feature options.































36

CREATING APPLICATION BATCH FILES

Almost all DOS applications should run without change when ANSIPLUS is
installed. However, in a few cases it may be desirable to create a batch file
that prepares the system for an application, runs it, and then cleans up
afterward. There are four common reasons for creating these application batch
files:

* To restore the normal DOS command shell video mode and colors after the
program ends;

* To install a color palette for the program to use when it runs;

* To save key reassignments, change them, run a program, and restore the keys;

* To enable or disable ANSIPLUS features that conflict with the program.

Many DOS application programs do not completely restore the video state on
completion. The common problems seen (with examples in parentheses) are:

* The program sets the color palette, usually to the OEM default, but doesn't
restore it on completion (DOS 5.0 EDIT.com, DBASE III).

* The program sets the border color, but doesn't restore it, or sets it to
black on completion (DBASE III).

* The program turns blink on, but doesn't restore it on completion (DOS 5.0
EDIT.com, DBASE III).

* The program selects a video mode, but doesn't restore the original one on
completion (DOS 5.0 EDIT.com, DBASE III).

* The program selects a video mode and restores it on completion, but doesn't
restore the text height if it is not standard for the video mode (Quattro
Pro 3.0 and others).

There are four simple options for restoring the ANSIPLUS video mode and colors
after running an application that sets its own mode, palette or border color:

* The first option can be used to restore only the border color after an
application has run. Suppose the border color is normally palette code 17,
then the following batch file will set the border after the application (in
this example, DOS EDIT.com) runs:

@ECHO OFF
C:\DOS\EDIT.com %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
SETCOLOR BORDER 17

* The second option will restore the entire default ANSIPLUS palette and
border color after the application runs:

@ECHO OFF
C:\DOS\EDIT.com %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
SETCOLOR RESET



37


* The third option requires creating a small .com file that will load an
entire color scheme. This can be done at any time by hitting the letter "S"
from the SETCOLOR.exe palette definition screen, or it can be done from the
DOS command level with a command like:

SETCOLOR SAVEPROGRAM MYCOLORS

This will create a program called MYCOLORS.com, which loads the 16-color
palette and border colors that were in effect when the program was created.
The batch file for the application can then use this program to restore the
color scheme on completion:

@ECHO OFF
C:\DOS\EDIT.com %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
MYCOLORS

* The fourth option saves and restores the video mode, character height and
foreground/background color selection, and loads the ANSIPLUS default
palette after the application completes. The batch file uses the
PUSHVID.com and POPVID.com programs provided with ANSIPLUS:

@ECHO OFF
PUSHVID
C:\DOS\EDIT.com %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
POPVID

This is the best technique to use when running DOS in a text mode other than
25 lines by 80 columns, because it will restore both the video display mode
and text height.

The options for controlling colors used by applications depend on whether
custom colors are desired for the application and whether the application loads
its own palette:

* If the application ordinarily uses ANSIPLUS's colors when it runs, then it
will use any ANSIPLUS color palette in effect when it begins execution, so a
.com color scheme file saved from the SETCOLOR.exe palette definition
screen, or by a SETCOLOR SAVEPROGRAM APPCOLOR command, can be used to load a
custom color scheme before running the application:

@ECHO OFF
APPCOLOR
%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
MYCOLORS

Because most DOS application programs select a video mode when they start
up, be sure that the color scheme saved in APPCOLOR.com is saved as a
default color scheme.








38

* To use the ANSIPLUS palette for an application that installs its own
palette, the palette must be locked before the program starts and unlocked
after it completes:

@ECHO OFF
LOCKPAL
%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
UNLOKPAL

Warning: Palette locking should only be used when all other means of control
fail. The feature should never be left enabled all of the time because it
will keep well behaved programs from making any color changes.

* To use custom colors for an application that wants to install its own
palette, the custom colors are loaded before the palette is locked:

@ECHO OFF
APPCOLOR
LOCKPAL
%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
UNLOKPAL
MYCOLORS

If you run your system using a certain set of ANSI key reassignments most of
the time, but also run an application that sets up its own key reassignments,
the PUSHKEYS.com and POPKEYS.com programs supplied with ANSIPLUS can be used in
a batch file to save the keys before the application is started and to restore
them after it completes:

@ECHO OFF
PUSHKEYS
%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
POPKEYS

If you want to set up a special set of key reassignments before running an
application, just define the reassignments using the SETAPLUS utility program,
and then save them to a file (in this example, named APPKEYS.com) with a
SETAPLUS SAVEKEYS APPKEYS.com command. You then run APPKEYS.com in your batch
file after savng the keys, but before the application:

@ECHO OFF
PUSHKEYS
APPKEYS
%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
POPKEYS

In the event of a conflict between an ANSIPLUS feature and an application, the
feature can be disabled before running the application and enabled again after
it completes. For example, the following batch file turns off the screen saver
while running an application:

@ECHO OFF
SETAPLUS DISABLE SAVER
%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
SETAPLUS ENABLE SAVER


39

EDITING ANSI ESCAPE SEQUENCE PROGRAMS

After using ANSIPLUS for a while, the user will find it desirable to create
short programs for frequently used video modes, color selections or
definitions, key reassignments, etc. The ANSICOM.exe utility program provides
this facility: with it, the user can create and edit small executable ".com"
files or small printable text files that contain ANSI escape sequences.
ANSICOM is executed with the following command:

ANSICOM

where is the name of the file to be edited. Your file to edit is
selected using the following rules:

* If no file name is supplied, you will be presented with a menu of ".com"
files to select from.

* If a file name is supplied, and it does not include a file type, a file type
of ".com" is assumed.

* When an existing ".com" file is edited, it is first checked for program code
that outputs the ANSI escape sequences. If this is not found, ANSICOM will
refuse to edit the file.

* If the file to be edited is not a ".com" file, then it is assumed to be a
non-executable printable text file.

* If the named file is not found (including a search of the system PATH),
ANSICOM will ask if a new file is to be created.

Once the file has been properly identified, a full-screen editing display is
presented, and you can go to work. Use the F1 key for context sensitive help.

The ANSICOM full screen editing display automatically parses the user's entries
and identifies the kinds of ANSIPLUS escape sequences entered, including
incomplete escape sequences. ANSICOM will not allow the user to save a file
containing an incomplete escape sequence. Beyond that, it is the user's
responsibility to be sure that the escape sequences entered will do what he
wants.


















40
V. ANSIPLUS ESCAPE SEQUENCES

This chapter lists and briefly describes each of the "ANSI" Escape sequences
recognized by ANSIPLUS. They are described in detail only in the printed
ANSIPLUS User's Guide. In the table, "#" represents any numeric parameter and
"Esc" is the Escape character (decimal 27, hexadecimal 1Bh):


Control Sequence Description
---------------- -----------

DISPLAY MODE AND CHARACTER SET

Esc [#;#h Set video display mode
Esc [#;#l Reset video display mode

Esc [!#t Select character set height: 8, 14 or 16 scan lines
Esc [!#;...;#e Select graphics mode text treatment options

Esc [!#v Select video page
Esc [#U Select next page
Esc [#V Select preceding page


CURSOR POSITIONING

Esc [#;#H Set cursor position
Esc [#;#f Set cursor position

Esc [#A Move cursor up
Esc [#B Move cursor down
Esc [#C Move cursor right
Esc [#D Move cursor left

Esc [#E Move cursor to next line
Esc [#F Move cursor to preceding line

Esc [#G Move cursor to absolute column in same line
Esc [#a Move cursor to absolute line in same column

Esc [#;#;#g Reset tabs
Esc [#;...;#W Tab control

Esc [#I Horizontal tab
Esc [#Y Vertical tab
Esc [#Z Backward tab

Esc [#;#s Save cursor position or other driver context
Esc [#;#u Restore cursor position or other driver context


COLOR SELECTION AND DEFINITION

Esc [#;...;#m Select current color attributes for output characters

Esc [!#;#;#;#;#c Define colors available, select palette, set up color
blinking, restore color definitions or palette

41

Control Sequence Description
---------------- -----------


ERASE, INSERT AND DELETE

Esc [#;#J Clear the screen
Esc [#;#;#K Clear the current line
Esc [#;#X Erase characters on the current line

Esc [#;#L Insert lines on the screen
Esc [!#;#L Insert lines from scroll-back
Esc [#;#M Delete lines from the screen
ESc [!#;#M Delete lines and add to scroll-back

Esc [#;#@ Insert characters on a line or a column range
Esc [#;#P Delete characters from a line or a column range

Esc [#b Repeat last output character

Esc [#;#;#;#;#S Scroll up
Esc [!#;#;#;#;#S Scroll up and add to scroll-back
Esc [#;#;#;#;#T Scroll down
Esc [!#;#;#;#;#T Scroll down from scroll-back

Esc [#;#;#;#;# @ Scroll left (Note: a Space must precede "@")
Esc [#;#;#;#;# A Scroll right (Note: a Space must precede "A")

Esc [#;#;#;#r Set scrolling region


DRIVER STATUS AND CONTROL

Esc [#;#n Query ANSIPLUS status: cursor position, current color
selection, video mode and number of colors, screen and
character dimensions, color definitions, feature
settings, tone definition, key reassignment, etc.

Esc [!#;...;#d Enable or disable ANSIPLUS driver feature settings

Esc [!#;...;#g Define the Ctrl+G beep tone

Esc [#;...;#p Define key reassignment (accepts quoted strings)

Esc [!#;...;#k Add keys to keyboard buffer (accepts quoted strings)

Esc [!#w Wait for specified time to elapse


Besides supporting all the escape sequences accepted by the MS-DOS ANSI.sys
driver, ANSIPLUS accepts additional parameters for many, and includes several
entirely new control functions. See "ANSIPLUS Extensions and the ANSI Standard"
on page 48 for differences between ANSIPLUS and the ANSI.sys driver.




42

VI. TECHNICAL NOTES


ANSIPLUS AND WINDOWS 3

Users of Windows 3.0 and 3.1 should consider using ANSIPLUS as well. The
ANSIPLUS driver works well with DOS programs under Windows 3, and there are
advantages to using it in Windows 386 Enhanced Mode. Because ANSIPLUS is a CON
driver, local copies of it are included in each Windows 386 Enhanced Mode
virtual 8086. This means that all the ANSIPLUS internal state variables, and
those of its integrated console features, will be local to each virtual 8086,
so there is no way they can interfere with each other. This section discusses
how to work around the limitations imposed on ANSIPLUS DOS sessions by Windows
or by Windows in combination with other software.


Loading Options

With DOS 5.0 or later, or with an XMS memory manager such as QEMM (using
LOADHI) or 386MAX, ANSIPLUS can be loaded into upper memory blocks above 640K
to provide a larger program area below 640K. All ANSIPLUS memory loading
options are compatible with Windows, with the following exceptions:

* When the ANSIPLUS shared code has been loaded into expanded memory, Version
6 of 386MAX (and possibly other versions) will refuse to let Windows start
in 386 Enhanced mode. The 386MAX memory manager complains that expanded
memory cache software is running. This limitation does not exist for the
EMM386 or QEMM386 memory managers. To get Windows to run with ANSIPLUS and
386MAX, load the ANSIPLUS driver into XMS upper memory, HMA, or low memory
instead.

* If Windows 3.0 (not 3.1!) will be run in 386 Enhanced mode, it is strongly
recommended that the entire ANSIPLUS driver (or any other ANSI driver) not
be loaded into high memory by DEVICEHIGH or equivalent, and that ANSIPLUS
load itself high instead. This is because Windows 3.0 does not localize the
XMS upper memory block area above 640K for its virtual 8086's, and so only
one global copy of ANSIPLUS would be shared among all virtual machines.
This can cause trouble: if, for example, a program in one window selects
colors, then those colors would also be in force for all DOS programs in
other windows!



Beep Tone

When Windows is running in 386 Enhanced mode, and a DOS program running in the
background outputs a Ctrl+G, the background program's virtual 8086 may not be
running fast enough to accurately time the tone. Because of this, the tone can
drag out and sound strange. Disabling ANSIPLUS tone generation under Windows
restores the original Windows sound driver, but makes the tone frequency and
duration non-changeable.






43


Scroll-Back

The recommended storage location for scroll-back data under Windows is expanded
memory (EMS). Use of EMS for scroll-back instead of video RAM (as was done by
ANSIPLUS drivers before Release 3.10) eliminates compatibility problems with
Windows video drivers apparently caused by memory accesses to video RAM not on
the visible part of the virtual screen.

The standard Windows 3.1 DOSPRMPT.pif and _DEFAULT.pif files both allow
programs to access EMS memory. A sample PIF file with suggested PIF settings
(for the MS-DOS prompt) is included with the ANSIPLUS package in the file
APLUS.pif. These settings are recommended, but not necessary, for all DOS
applications that depend on scroll-back under Windows.

Under Windows, when a 386 Enhanced Mode DOS session starts, ANSIPLUS will try
to allocate 64K of private expanded memory (EMS) for scroll-back (48K if
ANSIPLUS shared code was loaded into EMS). If the EMS is not available (for
example, if the Windows PIF file for the application does not provide expanded
memory), then the driver will attempt to use video RAM for scroll-back instead,
if that option has been specifically enabled. ANSIPLUS provides a configurable
feature that can prevent Windows EMS from being allocated for scroll-back and
force any Windows DOS session scroll-back to reside in video RAM. This is not
advised, however, because scroll-back in video RAM under Windows is not
reliable when used with many Windows video drivers.

Using video RAM for scroll-back under Windows has problems, particularly for
DOS applications run in a window. One difficulty is that when a DOS
application is run in 386 Enhanced Mode, Windows will not maintain a full 32K
of text mode RAM unless the Windows PIF file specifies "High Graphics" and
"Retain Video Memory". If these PIF settings are not used, then the first time
that ANSIPLUS needs to access the scroll-back storage area, Windows may present
a message claiming that there is not enough memory for the application to
correctly display information. If this happens, just click on OK, then hit
Alt+Enter to switch to a full screen display and proceed. Scroll-back data
will also likely be lost when the focus is switched from task to task, as with
the Alt+Tab key, or when changing display modes. Even with these PIF settings,
some Windows 3.1 video drivers (eg., 256-color ET-4000) will not work correctly
when video RAM outside the visible screen is accessed, resulting in loss of
scroll-back text or incomplete updating of the screen. You therefore should
exercise caution before relying on video RAM for scroll-back under Windows.

Starting with ANSIPLUS Release 3.1, scroll-back lines are captured under
Windows as they are completed, rather than as they scroll off the top of the
screen. This change was necessary because some Windows video drivers (eg.,
Microsoft VGA) trap BIOS scrolling requests completely and do not pass them
through to the DOS virtual 8086 when running a DOS session in a window. This
makes it impossible for ANSIPLUS to know when the screen has scrolled if a BIOS
call was used to do it. Some important DOS programs now mix DOS output and
BIOS calls for scrolling (eg., 4DOS 5.0 and NDOS 8.0 when displaying
multi-colored directories).






44
Smooth Scrolling

Smooth scrolling should operate correctly for full screen DOS programs under
Windows. However, when a DOS session is run in a window, the direct access to
video controller I/O ports required for smooth scrolling may interfere with
some Windows video display drivers. For example, the 256-color drivers for the
Tseng ET4000 may leave undrawn black areas on the screen when scrolling occurs
in a window while smooth scrolling is active. Because of this, smooth
scrolling must be prevented when a DOS session is in a window, and allowed only
when it is full screen.

The VWFD.386 Windows Virtual Device Driver, which is supplied with ANSIPLUS, is
required to test whether a DOS virtual machine is full screen or in a window.
If VWFD.386 is not installed, ANSIPLUS will have no way of knowing whether it
is running full screen under Windows, and so will disable smooth scrolling
completely when Windows is running. VFWD.386 is also called by the ANSIPLUS
screen saver to test for full screen operation before blanking the screen, and
by the ANSIPLUS copy/paste routines before waking up the mouse if Scroll Lock
is off. If the VWFD.386 driver is not installed, ANSIPLUS must assume that the
DOS session is in a window and disable screen blanking and mouse usage too.

To install the VWFD.386 VxD, copy the VWFD.386 file to the WINDOWS\SYSTEM
directory, and add the following line to the [386Enh] section of the Windows
SYSTEM.ini file:

DEVICE=VWFD.386


Color Palettes

Full screen DOS programs in Windows will use the same colors that they do when
run under DOS. When the same program is run in a window, its 16-color palette
will be determined entirely by Windows and the Windows video driver. ANSIPLUS
will have no control over the palette when running in a window.

Under Windows, with ANSIPLUS versions prior to 3.10, when a DOS session was run
in a window using Microsoft's 16-color VGA video driver, only 13 distinct
colors were available on the ANSIPLUS 16 color palette (i.e., 3 colors were
duplicated: brown was the same as dark red, light blue was the same as light
cyan, and pink was white.) Other video drivers do not seem to have this problem
because they do not try to adapt to color palette settings made by programs
running in a window.

Starting with ANSIPLUS Release 3.10, the standard ANSIPLUS palette has been
adjusted slightly to allow brown to show as dark yellow and light blue as light
blue under the Microsoft VGA driver. Users of the Microsoft VGA driver can
convert pink to light magenta by running the WINVGA16.com program provided with
ANSIPLUS. Including WINVGA16.com in AUTOEXEC.bat will change pink to light
magenta for all DOS applications in and out of Windows. Running it within a
Windows DOS session will change the color for only that DOS session.
WINVGA16.com will not work if run in WINSTART.bat because it is not a TSR.

Some 256-color drivers for Windows apparently assume that the OEM 256-color
palette has been loaded when the 256-color mode was selected, and never define
the colors that Windows will use. Because of this, ANSIPLUS normally does not
load its default colors when a 256-color mode is selected under Windows. This
can be overridden by a configurable feature.

45
International Usage

When the DISPLAY.sys driver is used with Windows 3.0 or 3.1, the colors and
other variables of either ANSIPLUS or the DOS ANSI.sys driver are not localized
to each virtual 8086. This appears to be because DISPLAY.sys is a CON device
driver that calls the previous CON driver (i.e., ANSIPLUS) to control the
console, so DOS actually has two CON drivers active at the same time. Windows
only localizes the first CON driver it finds on the DOS device chain, and this
will be the most recent CON device installed, which is DISPLAY.sys, not
ANSIPLUS. Two system setup changes are required to circumvent the problem:

(1) Enter the following command to change the name of the ANSIPLUS driver in
memory from "CON" to "CONAPLUS":

SETAPLUS LOCALCON

This command is automatically inserted into AUTOEXEC.bat by the ANSIPLUS
INSTALL program when DISPLAY.sys is detected.

(2) Add the following command to the [386Enh] section of the Windows
SYSTEM.ini file (put it right after the "LOCAL=CON" line):

LOCAL=CONAPLUS

This causes Windows to localize the ANSIPLUS driver to each virtual 8086.
The SYSTEM.ini file is not altered by the ANSIPLUS INSTALL program.

If the DISPLAY.sys driver is in use and ANSIPLUS shared code has been loaded
into expanded memory, the SETAPLUS LOCALCON command must be executed before
Windows is started, and the LOCAL=CONAPLUS line MUST be added to SYSTEM.ini!
If it is not, Windows will probably crash the first time a DOS program or
session is started.

These system setup changes are totally unnecessary if the DISPLAY.sys driver is
not being used.

ANSIPLUS AND THE 4DOS OR NDOS COMMAND SHELLS

The ANSIPLUS driver is compatible with the 4DOS and NDOS command shells. Two
ANSIPLUS features are specifically adapted to 4DOS/NDOS:

* ANSIPLUS supports key stacking (for 4DOS 4.0+ and NDOS Version 7.0+), so the
KSTACK.com TSR does not need to be loaded. When ANSIPLUS key stacking is
enabled, ANSIPLUS emulates the 4DOS/NDOS Int 2Fh function D44Fh key stacking
interface, so the 4DOS/NDOS KEYSTACK command will work, and loading the
KSTACK.com driver will report that it is already installed.

ANSIPLUS key stacking capacity is limited to the size of ANSIPLUS's key
buffer, which is configurable by INSTALL/NEWAPLUS up to 512 keys. ANSIPLUS
key stacking can be disabled if KSTACK.com or KEYSTACK.sys is preferred.

* The SETCOLOR.exe utility program can be used as a replacement for the 4DOS
or NDOS internal COLOR command, since SETCOLOR supports the syntax and all
options of COLOR, plus many additional options. To do this, two commands
should be added to AUTOEXEC.bat:

SETDOS /i-COLOR
ALIAS COLOR SETCOLOR
46

ANSIPLUS AND MULTITASKERS OR TASK SWITCHERS


OS/2

The ANSIPLUS INSTALL program can recognize and alter the OS/2 CONFIG.sys file
just as it can for MS-DOS. Once ANSIPLUS is installed, it will be available to
all OS/2 full screen and windowed DOS sessions. ANSIPLUS features will not be
available to OS/2 sessions because ANSIPLUS is currently a DOS, not an OS/2
device driver. Only three other minor issues affect ANSIPLUS under OS/2:

* The $i PROMPT, which is part of the default prompt inserted by OS/2 install,
interferes with ANSIPLUS scroll-back because at every DOS command shell
prompt the top line on the screen is replaced by an OS/2 help message. When
the screen scrolls, this message is then added to scroll-back instead of the
original content of the top line. It is best to remove the $i from your
DOS prompt.

* You must disable VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION if you want to use smooth scrolling
in full screen DOS sessions. Otherwise, OS/2 will ignore ANSIPLUS's smooth
scrolling control. Rough scrolling always applies in DOS windows.

* Because virtual DOS machines are created and initialized so often by OS/2,
the ANSIPLUS signon message is suppressed when ANSIPLUS is loaded as a
device driver by CONFIG.sys. When ANSIPLUS.exe is loaded as a TSR, the
signon message will always be displayed. The unregistered Shareware driver
will display the ANSIPLUS signon (with the 9 second delay) about one percent
of the time when it initializes in a new virtual DOS machine.


DESQview

Because of DESQview's handling of device drivers loaded before it starts, and
because it takes over an interrupt vector used by ANSI drivers, DESQview
presents a challenge for an attached console driver like ANSIPLUS:

* If a device driver, such as ANSIPLUS, is loaded before DESQview is started,
a single copy of the driver will be shared by all DESQview windows (virtual
8086's), because DESQview does not create local copies for each window.
This means, for example, that changing colors by ANSI escape sequence in one
window would affect the colors used in other windows.

* As each DESQview window is created, the Int 29h fast console output
interrupt, which ANSIPLUS and other ANSI drivers depend on to receive much
of their character output, is taken over by DESQview. This means that DOS
output, including ANSI escape sequences, will never be processed by the
driver, because DESQview will get it first.

Because of these problems, any console driver that will be used in a DESQview
window must be loaded as a TSR after the window has started. The best method
is to create a batch file that loads ANSIPLUS and does anything else needed to
set up the window, and then executes the command associated with the window.






47


And there are a few more complications:

* It is desirable to use ANSIPLUS both inside and outside of DESQview. This
means that if an ANSIPLUS driver is already loaded when DESQview is started,
it should detect this event so that the driver can disable itself. When
DESQview terminates, the disabled driver must then reactivate itself.

* To save memory, any TSR copies of ANSIPLUS loaded in a window should be able
to execute using the shared code from the ANSIPLUS driver loaded before
DESQview, so that the TSR copy in each window will require only about 6K.

* Expanded memory, which is used by ANSIPLUS to hold its scroll-back data and
sometimes its shared code, is managed globally under DESQview, so the
ANSIPLUS driver must allocate separate EMM handles for scroll-back and
assign them different names in each DESQview window.

The registered ANSIPLUS.exe device driver satisfies all these requirements.
The Shareware ANSIPLUS.sys driver, however, cannot be loaded as a TSR except by
another program, such as Quarterdeck's DEVICE.com. And because loading the
CON device driver ANSIPLUS.sys will change the system console, DEVICE.com does
not appear to completely install the driver, at least as far as the MS-DOS
command shell, COMMAND.com, is concerned. This must be corrected by entering a
CTTY CON command in each window after ANSIPLUS.sys has been loaded.

The ANSIPLUS driver is DESQview aware: After it is loaded in a DESQview window,
it uses alternative video buffers for video output if the screen is not
"virtualized", calls the BIOS for cursor positioning instead of writing
directly to the video controller, releases time slices when waiting for key
input, disables the ANSIPLUS screen saver, and prevents video RAM from being
used to store scroll-back (EMS scroll-back is still allowed).


Task Switchers

When a task switcher, such as MS-DOS DOSSHELL, is running, the user should have
independent ANSIPLUS consoles for each task. To provide this functionality,
ANSIPLUS supports the Microsoft Int 2Fh functions 4B01h-4B05h task switcher
interface, which is used by both DOSSHELL and Windows 3.1 Standard Mode. Via
the interface, ANSIPLUS reports its instance data to the task switcher and
monitors switcher activity to control allocation and destruction of EMS handles
for session scroll-back, if the task switcher allows this. ANSIPLUS should
also work with other task switchers that support this interface.














48
ANSIPLUS EXTENSIONS AND THE ANSI STANDARD

ANSIPLUS uses a number of added control parameters and includes entire new
control functions that are not part of the ANSI X3.64 standard or the MS-DOS
ANSI.sys driver, so do not expect them to be supported by any other drivers or
devices. The following added ANSIPLUS functions are not standard ANSI:

Esc [!#t Select character set height
Esc [!#;...;#e Select graphics mode text treatment options
Esc [!#v Select video page
Esc [!#;#;#;#;#c Define colors available, select palette, setup blinking
Esc [!#;#L Insert lines from scroll-back
Esc [!#;#M Delete lines and add to scroll-back
Esc [!#;#;#;#;#S Scroll up and add to scroll-back
Esc [!#;#;#;#;#T Scroll down from scroll-back
Esc [!#;...;#d Enable or disable ANSIPLUS driver features
Esc [!#;...;#g Define Ctrl+G beep tone
Esc [!#;...;#k Add keys to keyboard buffer
Esc [!#w Wait for specified time to elapse

The following ANSI control sequences accept both standard ANSI parameters and
extra ANSIPLUS parameters, but are not included in MS-DOS ANSI.sys:

Esc [#;#g Reset tabs
Esc [#;...;#W Tab control
Esc [#;#X Erase characters on the current line
Esc [#;#L Insert lines on the screen
Esc [#;#M Delete lines from the screen
Esc [#;#@ Insert characters on a line
Esc [#;#P Delete characters from a line
Esc [#;#;#;#;#S Scroll up
Esc [#;#;#;#;#T Scroll down
Esc [#;#;#;#;# @ Scroll left
Esc [#;#;#;#;# A Scroll right
Esc [#;#;#;#r Set scrolling region

The following are standard ANSI terminal control sequences that are not
included in MS-DOS ANSI.sys:

Esc [#U Select next page
Esc [#V Select preceding page
Esc [#E Move cursor to next line
Esc [#F Move cursor to preceding line
Esc [#G Move cursor to absolute column in same line
Esc [#a Move cursor to absolute line in same column
Esc [#I Horizontal tab
Esc [#Y Vertical tab
Esc [#Z Backward tab
Esc [#b Repeat last output character

The following control sequences, which are also included in ANSI.sys, accept
both standard ANSI parameters and extra ANSIPLUS parameters:

Esc [#;#h Set video mode
Esc [#;#s Save cursor position or other driver context
Esc [#;#u Restore cursor position or other driver context
Esc [#;#J Clear the screen

49

Esc [#;#;#K Clear the current line
Esc [#;...;#m Select current color attributes for output characters
Esc [#;#n Query ANSIPLUS status: cursor position, colors, etc.
Esc [#;...;#p Define key reassignment

The following are ANSI sequences that are in both MS-DOS ANSI.sys and ANSIPLUS:

Esc [#A Move cursor up
Esc [#B Move cursor down
Esc [#C Move cursor right
Esc [#D Move cursor left


ESCAPE SEQUENCE RECOGNIZER ENHANCEMENTS

To simplify program generation of control sequences, the ANSIPLUS escape
sequence recognizer syntax has been relaxed:

* Blanks between parameters in escape sequences are ignored. Note, however,
that a blank space immediately before the ANSI command letter may be
significant. For example, Esc [A moves the cursor up, while Esc [ A scrolls
the screen left;

* Commas are allowed as separators in addition to semicolons;

* Either single or double quotes may be used around character parameters;

* Parameter values over 255 (i.e., up to 65,535) are accepted for certain
commands. Plus and minus signs are also accepted.

Unrecognized escape sequences are passed through by the driver unaltered. With
a few exceptions, the Esc character is trapped only when followed by a left
bracket ("["), so programs that write the escape character (a left arrow) to
the screen will continue to do so after the driver is installed. The
exceptions are Esc E, Esc H and Esc J, which are all ANSI standard.


DIRECT ACCESS TO VIDEO RAM VS. BIOS CALLS

ANSIPLUS uses direct access to video RAM in all VGA/EGA text and most common
graphics modes. However, BIOS calls will be used to output characters in four
cases:

* Graphics modes with 256 or more colors;

* Graphics modes that require more than 64K bytes of video RAM (i.e., 16 color
graphics modes exceeding 800x600 resolution).

* Unrecognized (usually CGA or Hercules) display modes.

* All graphics modes under the reduced capability ANSIPLSR.sys driver.

When BIOS calls are used, output is much slower, and "transparent" mode output,
graphics mode text treatments, insert/delete characters and scroll left/right
are also not supported. Future versions of ANSIPLUS may extend direct video
RAM access to some of these modes.

50

INSTALLATION CHECK AND INTERRUPT 2FH API

ANSIPLUS responds to the Interrupt 2Fh test for ANSI.sys installation. When
Int 2Fh is called with AX=1A00h, ANSIPLUS will return AL=0FFh to indicate that
ANSI.sys is installed.

Besides responding to the MS-DOS ANSI.sys Int 2Fh functions, the ANSIPLUS
driver also supports several Int 2Fh calls of its own, which provide
infrequently needed or special functions that programmers and the ANSIPLUS
utility programs may need, but that general users will not need. This
application program interface (or "API") currently includes functions for
detecting the presence and version number of the ANSIPLUS driver, reporting on
the status of the ANSIPLUS driver, disabling or enabling the driver or certain
driver features, accessing screen lines saved for scroll-back, accessing the
clipboard, controlling the screen saver blanking time and key repeat rate,
loading the VGA/EGA character generator without affecting colors, and emulating
4DOS/NDOS key stacking.

Full descriptions for all of the ANSIPLUS Interrupt 2Fh functions are included
only in the printed ANSIPLUS User's Guide. The following description documents
one function, the ANSIPLUS Installation Check:


AX=1A00h: ANSIPLUS Installation Check

Version: 2.00 or later

Purpose: Provide emulation of the MS-DOS ANSI.sys installation check,
with an extension to identify ANSIPLUS. The Int 29h segment
returned by this function is used by ANSIPLUS utility programs
to access variables within the running ANSIPLUS driver.

Arguments: AX = 1A00h
BX = 'AN' (414Eh)
CX = 'SI' (5349h)
DX = '++' (2B2Bh)

Results: AL = 0
CH = major ANSIPLUS version number (3.10 or later)
CL = minor ANSIPLUS version number (3.10 or later)
DL = 00h for full capability driver (4.00 or later)
01h for reduced capability driver (4.00 or later)
2Bh full capability driver (before 4.00)
other values reserved for future use
ES:BX = ANSIPLUS Int 29h entry point

If the BX, CX and DX arguments do not all match the magic argument values
above, then BX, CX, DL and ES will not be altered on return.

CX was not returned for driver versions before 3.10, so register CX will return
5349h for the earlier versions. The minor version number returned in CL is
coded as two hexadecimal nibbles. Thus, for Release 3.10, CL will return 10h.

A further installation confirmation can be made by checking the 8 bytes at
ES:[BX-12] for the string "ANSIPLUS". The ANSIPLUS version number will be a 4
character string at ES:[BX-4], containing, for example, "4.00".

51
HOOKED INTERRUPTS

To implement all of its features, ANSIPLUS attaches itself to up to eleven
system interrupts. Two are replaced (1Bh and 29h), and the remaining nine are
supplemented (i.e., ANSIPLUS calls the original interrupt but extends its
function). If possible, ANSIPLUS should always be installed after any other
drivers that take over any of these interrupts without passing calls through.
The following table lists the ANSIPLUS hooked interrupts and reasons for each:

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Table 6-1 |
| ANSIPLUS Hooked Interrupts |
+----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+
|Interrupt Description | Reason |
+----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+
|09h Key Event | Screen saver; scroll lock; scroll-back; key buffer |
| | extension; repeated key suppression; smooth scroll |
| | toggle; other special key processing |
| | |
|10h BIOS Video | Palette/DAC control; beep tone generation; screen |
| | saver; smooth scroll; scroll lock; scroll-back; BIOS |
| | Write TTY ANSI trap; set scrollable region |
| | |
|15h System Services | Key processing; screen saver |
| | |
|16h BIOS Get Key | Key buffer management; highlighted key echo; scroll- |
| | lock and scroll-back; key reassignment; key stacking; |
| | key repeat rate; copy and paste |
| | |
|1Bh Keyboard Break | Promote Ctrl+Break to front of key buffer |
| | |
|1Ch User Timer Tick | Screen saver; smooth scroll; color blinking; beep |
| | tone generation; copy and paste |
| | |
|28h DOS Idle | Copy and paste |
| | |
|29h DOS Write Char | Faster DOS screen output |
| | |
|2Fh Multiplex | Installation checks; ANSIPLUS special functions API; |
| | Windows initialization and exit processing; 4DOS/NDOS |
| | key stacking; DESQview detection; task switching; |
| | command prompt detection; OS/2 CLS command |
| | |
|33h MS Mouse | Copy and paste; set scrollable region |
| | |
|74h PS/2 Mouse Event | Screen saver; set scrollable region |

+----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+











52


The MS-DOS KEYB program for international keyboard support hooks the Int 09h
Key Event interrupt without passing calls through to whatever was installed
before (i.e., to ANSIPLUS). However, the Novell DOS version of KEYB does pass
calls through to the prior Int 09h handler. Therefore, under MS-DOS (but not
Novell DOS) if the KEYB program is being used to set up the keyboard, the
following command MUST be executed after loading KEYB, otherwise most ANSIPLUS
keyboard related features will not work:

SETAPLUS LINK KEYEVENT

This command will re-install ANSIPLUS on the key event interrupt. The INSTALL
program will automatically add this command to AUTOEXEC.bat if it finds a
reference in it to KEYB and you are not using Novell DOS.

If the DISPLAY.sys device driver for code page switching is being used, the
ANSIPLUS.sys device driver must be installed before DISPLAY.sys in CONFIG.sys.
The INSTALL program will also automatically handle this.

If you suspect that a system interrupt is no longer accessible to ANSIPLUS
because of a TSR or device driver that has been loaded after ANSIPLUS, you can
test this with the command:

SETAPLUS INTERRUPT

which displays, to the extent possible, the chain of programs attached to any
selected interrupt. The may be either a hexadecimal interrupt number
or one of the following keywords:

KEYEVENT Interrupt 09h Key Event
VIDEO Interrupt 10h Video
SYSTEMSERVICE Interrupt 15h System Services
KEYREQUEST Interrupt 16h Keyboard Request
KEYBREAK Interrupt 1Bh Keyboard Break
TIMERTICK Interrupt 1Ch User Timer Tick
DOSIDLE Interrupt 28h DOS Idle
DOSTTY Interrupt 29h DOS Fast TTY Output
MULTIPLEX Interrupt 2Fh Multiplex
MSMOUSE Interrupt 33h Mouse
PS2MOUSE Interrupt 74h PS/2 Mouse Event

If ANSIPLUS is missing from the listing, it can be relinked with the command:

SETAPLUS LINK













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