Why magic cookies? (was: Alternate character modes...)

[Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR]

As quoted from <9103100202.aa16074 at xenitec.on.ca> by :
+---------------
| In article <1991Mar09.215153.27776 at eecs.wsu.edu> rnelson at yoda.UUCP (Roger Nelson) writes:
| >1. Why did terminal manufactures go with magic cookies?  The magic cookies
| >   make display attributes useless.
| 
| Because memory was expensive, and saving memory by making the attributes
| take up a screen position helped the situation.  (They got one byte per
+---------------

That, and the fact that Televideo licensed their terminal emulation ROMs to
just about anyone for relatively cheap.  Why invent another VT100 emulation
when you could buy Televideo's inexpensively and get a product out the door
cheaper and faster?

Alas, in these days of programs that want screen attributes to play with, it's
become a problem.  We have customers who don't understand why we won't sell
them Wyse 50s to use with MS Word... until we show them the two possible
lossages.  (1:  program fails to start with an error message about magic
cookies.  2:  use the protect attribute... no on-screen underline, bold, etc.)

++Brandon
-- 
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