Purely historic question: VT200 text graphic programming

[Grant Edwards]

On 2011-03-12, Martin Gregorie <martin at address-in-sig.invalid> wrote:

> Sorry if I wasn't clear: I was intending to compare APIs rather than the 
> display mechanisms - I am aware that both text terminals and vector 
> graphics terminals are raster devices, not vector like oscilloscopes.  
> What I was getting at is that the API used to cause graphics or text to 
> be output on a dot-matrix printer is totally unlike that used to draw to 
> same representations on a pen plotter.

You're right.  The point I was trying to make was that the 240 was a
superset of the 220, and could be used identically as the 220 was
used. Back in the years when I used a 240 for 8 hours day the the
exact same API was used for the 240 as was used for a 220. The only
exception was the afternoon I decided to write a clock app just to see
how the graphics mode on a 240 worked.  I have no idea why my employer
bought 240's instead of 220's.  It's not like anybody spent a lot of
time looking at drawings of wombats -- in fact, I was probably the
only person at the company who knew you could. [Talk about obscure VMS
allusions...]

-- 
Grant