June 12, 1985
To: All Sanyo 1200/1250 owners
From: E. Mark Kothe
RE: Sanyo inverse video
If you are one of the proud owners of a Sanyo 8-bit machine
(probably ALL Sanyo's) I really don't have to tell you that the
documentation for these machines leaves a little to be desired.
Hopefully this document will help, maybe it is common knowledge?
The Sanyo 1200/1250 (maybe others?) has four possibilities for
video character display:
Standard
Inverse video
Underlined
Overlined
These character types may also be combined for other effects
(except for inverse and standard)
Here is the description on how to use this feature in the Sanyo
MBC-1200 series users guide escape code section (incidentally MBC
stands for.....ya ready ?... My Business Computer)
If you have manual 9376411909401 on page R-17 you are greeted by:
ESC t 1B.74 Attribute Set (Inverse, underline
Upperline)
Now come on this is as CLEAR as possible, right?
If you happened to be blessed with manual 9376411909401A on page
R-18 they have expanded on the description to this:
ESC t 1B.74 Attribute On/Off(only 33-line mode)
(BIOS ver. 1.4
or after)
D7 ........... Fixed to 0
D6 ........... Fixed to 0
D5 ........... Fixed to 0
D4 ........... Fixed to 0
D3 ........... Overline
D2 ........... Inverse
D1 ........... Underline
D0 ........... Fixed to 0
What could be clearer, EH?
Ok, enough spouting off, now I'll try for a translation on this
What I find you must do is this. Say you wanted to print the
string `I love my Sanyo' underlined. You have to send the
following sequence to be printed.
1BH,'t',2,'I love my Sanyo',1BH,'t',0
or in BASIC it would be
PRINT CHR$(27);"t";CHR$(2);"I Love my Sanyo";CHR$(27);"t";CHR$(0)
What this does is prepares for Underline video, prints the string
then turns the underline feature OFF! Otherwise the following
characters would also be underlined.
The key to this whole escape sequence is the character that
follows the 1Bh,'t'. This is how it works with the character
broken down into 8 bits.
n n n n o i u n
o o o o v n n o
t t t t e v d t
r e e
u u u u l r r u
s s s s i s l s
e e e e l e i e
d d d d e n d
e
| | | | | | | |
v v v v v v v v
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 <- Binary value
If you set the underline bit you get underline
If you set the overline bit you get overline.
If you set both you get both.
But..
If you set JUST the inverse bit you get inverse, underline, and
overline.
Any bits set with the inverse bit set subtracts that
feature (actually it provides you with a non inverse under or
overline)
OK? I included a short (and primative) program for you to run to
demonstrate.
If there are any questions or comments you can try leaving me a
message on my system 313-465-9615 300/1200 baud 24 hours
Thanks, E. Mark Kothe
VIDEOBIT.DOC
10 PRINT CHR$(26): 'clear screen
20 FOR X=0 TO 16 STEP 2
30 PRINT CHR$(27);"t";CHR$(X);:'set the bits
40 PRINT " I Love my Sanyo "
50 PRINT CHR$(27);"t";CHR$(0): 'undo what we did
60 NEXT X
70 PRINT CHR$(27);"t";CHR$(4);
80 PRINT " "
90 PRINT " "
100 PRINT " >> ";
101 PRINT CHR$(27);"t";CHR$(0);
102 PRINT " WATCH OUT WORDSTAR ";
103 PRINT CHR$(27);"t";CHR$(4);
104 PRINT " << "
110 PRINT " "
120 PRINT " "
125 PRINT CHR$(27);"t";CHR$(0): 'all off