Talk:IBMgraphics

It would be nice to add directions or links here on how to set your system to use codepage 437 for users who want IBMgraphics but don't know how to set up their terminals. The list should ideally include Windows, Mac, and Unix systems (Linux console, BSD consoles, X11, others...).

For myself, I generally use a "vga" font under X11 for both Unix and Mac - in particular, the one that used to be distributed with bochs. Are there other nice, free "vga" fonts out there that people are using?

For Windows, it depends on whether you're using a 95-based version (95, 98, Me) or an NT-based version (NT, 2000, XP, posssibly Vista). I don't have a 95-based Windows within easy reach; from what I remember, it's necessary to add some lines to CONFIG.SYS so that the desired code page is available. For NT-based Windows, it should have been as easy as typing "chcp 437", but this works as expected only when running full screen or when the console font is Lucida Console. Bitmap fonts seem to load only the characters in the default code page, and changing the code page causes characters not in the default code page to display incorrectly. And then there's bug W343-3.

For X11, it depends on what terminal program you're using: xterm, Konsole, gnome-terminal, or something else. For these, it may be easier to use DECgraphics instead. Perhaps you might start that section, and tell us how you configure your terminal program? Be sure to note what terminal program you're using, or at least whether you're using KDE, Gnome, or something else.

This is actually not quite right. While individual terminal programs may offer additional codepages or translations of their own, every X11 program has access to all the installed X11 fonts, so if you just install the right X11 vga font, then any terminal program (or indeed, any other X11 app) should be able to make use of it. The above-mentioned vga font from bochs is in http://switch.dl.sf.net/bochs/bochs-2.0.tar.gz - explode it and look for vga.pcf. Another one is distributed with BitchX: ftp://ftp.bitchx.org/pub/BitchX/misc/vga11x19.tar.gz - explode it and look for vga11x19.pcf. In both cases, after installing the font, you just run your terminal program (xterm, rxvt, eterm, whatever) with "-fn vga" or "-fn vga11x19" as appopriate.

Later versions of Konsole and gnome-terminal had the brilliant idea of not providing any way to select a bitmap font (which anything ending in pcf will be). You'll have to run xterm or one of those others instead.--Ray Chason 15:37, 6 July 2007 (UTC)