9. IBM Character Set

This is Mark Rejhon's version 2 of terminal support for the IBM graphics character set with a remote DOSEMU or a xterm DOSEMU. Don't take these patches as final or original, as there is some cleaning up to do, Look forward to version 3 of the terminal support...! :-)

Please give feedback or suggestions to Mark Rejhon at the <marky@magmacom.com> address. Thanks!

This prereleases updates supports:

• "xdosemu" script to run DOSEMU in a normal xterm/rxvt!
• IBM characters in telnet or kermit session from a Linux console.
• IBM characters in an IBM character terminal like minicom or a DOS-based ANSI terminal.

9.1 What's new in configuration

There is a new keyword called "charset" which accept either of these values: "latin" "ibm" and "fullibm". View ./video/terminal.h for more information on these character set. Here are the instructions on how to activate the 8-bit graphical IBM character set for DOSEMU:

IBM character set in an xterm

GREAT NEWS: You just use your existing ordinary "rxvt" or "xterm". Just install the VGA font by going into the DOSEMU directory and running the "xinstallvgafont" script by typing "./xinstallvgafont". Then just run "xdosemu" to start a DOSEMU window!

IBM character set at the console

This will work if you are using the Linux console for telnet or kermit, to run a remote DOSEMU session. Just simply run the "ibmtermdos" command on the remote end. It puts the Linux console to use the IBM font for VT100 display, so that high ASCII characters are directly printable.

NOTE: This will not work with "screen" or any other programs that affect character set mapping to the Linux console screen. For this, you should specify "charset fullibm" inside the "video { }" configuration in /etc/dosemu.conf.

IBM character set over a serial line into an IBM ANSI terminal

Simply specify "charset fullibm" inside the "video { }" configuration in /etc/dosemu.conf and then run "dos" in the normal manner. You must be running in an ANSI emulation mode (or a vt102 mode that is compatible with ANSI and uses the IBM character set.)

9.2 THE FUTURE by Mark Rejhon

• NCURSES color to be added. The IBM character set problem is solved.
• clean up terminal code.
• Add command line interface for character set and for serial port enable/disabling.
• Use a separate "terminal { }" line for all the ncurses/termcap related configuration, instead of putting it in the "video { }" line.