[Info-vax] I'm looking for samples of ReGIS and Sixel graphics.

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2018-01-19 05:22:34 +0000, Grant Taylor said:

> On 01/17/2018 02:57 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> 
> I was hoping that people may have had old Sixel or ReGIS graphics in 
> their various archives that they might be willing to share.

The main archives are at digiater.nl and decuslib.com; the freeware and 
DECUS SIG tapes are there.

Most folks using ReGIS and SIXEL and VT terminals weren't using 
separate images, they were generating output and graphs from their 
business apps.   Or generating SIXEL as part of printing some other 
format to a SIXEL printer.

I don't recall seeing many ReGIS or SIXEL files ever getting passed 
around, even back then.    Yes, there were some Christmas Tree 
"proto-memes" and other such VT-based ephemera files passed around via 
MAIL-11 back in the early days of VAX/VMS, but those files weren't 
using ReGIS or SIXEL.   The X formats (XBM, et al) and BMP and PNG (and 
GIF, particularly once the patents expired) other formats became far 
more common than the DEC-specific stuff, then JPG and the rest took 
over.

SIXEL was rare enough it hasn't yet made the Wikipedia article on image 
file formats, and I don't recall seeing ReGIS files around.  ReGIS 
sequences embedded in apps yes, but not separate files.

>> There's a pile of VT terminal documentation and tools referenced at the 
>> following site:
>> 
>> http://vt100.net
> 
> ...I'm aware of and have looked at some of the documentation from a 100 
> foot view.  I'm trying to keep from falling in too far, yet.

Please read the docs.  That's how the software from era that you're 
interested here was used; how things really worked.   Then consider 
converting some images using libsixel or such; some of the newer tools 
that work with these formats.

>> I'm sure there are previous discussions of SIXEL and ReGIS in the 
>> comp.os.vms newsgroup archives, as well.  Feel free to do a little 
>> searching based on these and other search terms and resources, too.
> 
> I need to get access to a good Usenet archive of this newsgroup.  My 
> news servers (that I run) only have history going back to when I stood 
> them up about three months ago.

Google Groups.  Google acquired the contents of Deja News and from 
other folks, and now has (the only?) archives of usenet.   Maybe 
Archive.org has some archives?

ReGIS and SIXEL displays weren't used and weren't implemented like HTML 
is.  Not by most folks using VAX/VMS, at least.  Folks wrote apps that 
used those as output, via GKS or otherwise.  Though it does look like 
DECwindows screen captures can be generated in SIXEL format.

Closest generic predecessors to how HTML is used and works are probably 
the DEC VTX product and the French Minitel implementations, and there 
are likely a few others.

-- 
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