DEC ReGIS (Remote Graphics Instruction Set) The DEC VT330 was a Monochrome ReGIS terminal. The DEC VT340 was a color ReGIS terminal. The VT340 had a color pallette comprised of 64 colors where 16 of those colors could be displayed on the screen at one time. The screen resolution for the VT340 ReGIS terminal was 800x480 addressable pixels on the screen. The VT340 had an option for a serial mouse. The VT340 had multiple graphics planes that could be used for writing information infront of other information. What could this be usefull for....I don't know - the same way MS-Windows works by remembering what one wndow has underneath another one. This terminal came out around the time the PC was barley using EGA Graphics cards. Sample ReGIS Code: P1p S(I0,E,C0) W(I1) P[100,100]T(S2)'ReGIS VT340 Color Test' W(I2) P[400,220]F(C[+80]) W(I14) P[650,300]F(V[+100][,+100][-100][,-100]) W(I3) P[1,1][V+798][,+478][-798][,-478] \ ***NOTE: The "" character is the decimal value of ASCII 27 displayed in some PC editors as "^[" and not the typed character "".
ReGIS had some remarkable features for its time. For example, if you put the “W” (writing mode) command inside a drawing command, then it would be a temporary setting just for that drawing command, after which it would revert to the global setting. As I recall, commands could be nested in this way up to 3 deep.
Thanks for the ReGIS sample. I believe modern versions of XTerm can view it. The VT340 had a colour palette of 4,096 colours of which 16 could be displayed on the screen at one time. It was referred to as a "4-plane" system because it had four Video Processing ("VIPER") chips, which each handled a single plane: a 1-bit binary bitmap of the screen. When the four planes were taken together, you'd get 2*2*2*2 = 16 colours. The VT330 used only two of the processors, so it could show 2*2 = 4 shades of grey at one time. The same chips were used in 8-plane configurations for DECstations to allow up to 256 simultaneous colours.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 That's pretty neat. I'm just learning ReGIS and I like that it specifically has an interactive mode for noodling around in. (P3p).
I have a GiGi VK100 with a VT241 monitor. But no vax here... I wonder if there is any software on a normal pdp11 which could make use of the REGIS capabilities... Off course you can sent a text file with instructions to it, but I mean some real software to actually use it. Just like the Tektronix graphics monitors... The GiGi does not support the Tektronix format, does the VT340 support the Tektronix format?
Yes, the VT340 supports Tektronix format, but it is not as useful as ReGIS because it is not integrated with the usual text screen. It switches to a different screen when drawing Tek graphics and switches back to text when exiting Tek mode. ReGIS, on the other hand, draws graphics that can be embedded on text page.
