From: james.harris.1@gmail.com   
      
   On 16/06/2021 07:22, muta...@gmail.com wrote:   
   > On Wednesday, June 16, 2021 at 3:59:50 PM UTC+10, Rod Pemberton wrote:   
   >   
   >> All I know is that the most powerful terminal I ever   
   >> used was a VT220. Of course, that was pre-html.   
   >>   
   >> VT220   
   >> -ANSI escape sequences   
   >> -international character sets   
   >> -define new character sets   
   >   
   > And would you consider HTML to be "just another   
   > terminal like the VT220"?   
   >   
   > Or is HTML considered to be a different paradigm?   
   >   
   > It seems to me that life would be a whole lot simpler   
   > if HTML was described in terms of just another   
   > terminal type.   
      
   Maybe it's not a terminal type. The OSI communications model recognised   
   the need for a presentation layer below applications. The Wikipedia page   
   about it   
      
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentation_layer   
      
   gives examples of EBCDIC-to-ASCII and text to XML. I don't see why HTML   
   and terminal types could not be included.   
      
   >   
   > I think Unix has a termcap file - what if HTML were to   
   > be added to that, if it wasn't already?   
   >   
   > The internet has always seemed to be rather mysterious   
   > to me. Introducing complications of MACing and other   
   > things I have no knowledge of. But if you simply tell me   
   > that a BBS can put out HTML instead of ANSI escape   
   > sequences, well, that's no big deal. BBSes often gave the   
   > user the choice of which terminal type they were using,   
   > and ANSI was just one of several options. If HTML were   
   > added to the Ten Minute Limit, no big deal.   
      
   AISI the idea of a presentation layer is a broader concept than just   
   terminal conversions. If it were to be implemented successfully then   
   applications would have to deal only with the logic of programs and   
   communicate in terms of objects, with the presentation layer translating   
   them for input and output.   
      
      
   --   
   James Harris   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)