Display an ANSI file on the TCC screen

[Joe Caverly]

Here's some ANSI art displayed on the TCC Console.

The image was created using the theDraw MS-DOS program from 1999,
with the image saved in the file shuttle2.ans

C# Code was then used to display the image from the shuttle2.ans file onto the TCC console.

I am using dotnet version 10.0.303 from the TCC command line.

R:\AnsiScreenDemo>dotnet --version
10.0.303

The shuttle2.ans file is from theDraw MS-DOS program.

Download The Draw 4.x from WinWorld

The Draw 4.x

TheDraw, from Ian E. Davis of TheSoft Programming Service, was a popular shareware ANSI graphics and animation editor used to make graphics for BBSes and DOS programs. It supported drawing lines, shapes, animations, and large fonts on to a text screen using colorful IBM PC drawing characters and...

winworldpc.com

Yes, there are 64-bit clones of "The Draw" available to use,
but I am using the program I have previously used.

I extracted "disk1.img" from "The Draw 4.63 (3.5).7z"
to my r:\ drive.

NOTE: For this example,
all that is needed is the SHUTTLE2.ANS file
from the EXAMPLE folder in disk1.img

You can extract the SHUTTLE2.ANS file
from the EXAMPLE folder in disk1.img
using 7-Zip from

7-Zip

The TCC 7unzip will NOT work,
as it does not recognize the old format of disk1.img

R:\>7unzip /c disk1.img
TCC: Error in archive R:\disk1.img :
  Sevenzip signature is bad.

If you do not want to install theDraw into DosBox-X,
skip past the following instructions for installing
theDraw into DosBox-X.

I extracted the contents of "The Draw 4.63 (3.5).7z"
to "R:\The Draw 4.63 (3.5)"

From DosBox-X (I'm using version 0.83.21)

IMGMOUNT A "r:\The Draw 4.63.img" -t floppy

MD c:\theDraw

Copy the contents of drive A: to c:\theDraw
including sub-directories.

You will need the SHUTTLE2.ANS file
from the c:\theDraw\Examples folder.

From a folder on my system
(I used my r:\ folder)
I created a dotnet console project called AnsiScreenDemo.

dotnet new console -n AnsiScreenDemo
cd AnsiScreenDemo
dotnet add package System.Text.Encoding.CodePages

Put the SHUTTLE2.ANS file in the same folder as Program.cs

AnsiScreenDemo/
├── Program.cs
└── shuttle2.ans

The following will replace the existing Program.cs

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Text;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

Encoding.RegisterProvider(CodePagesEncodingProvider.Instance);

if (OperatingSystem.IsWindows())
{
    EnableVirtualTerminalProcessing();
}

Console.OutputEncoding = Encoding.UTF8;
Console.CursorVisible = false;

try
{
    // TheDraw commonly uses the IBM PC CP437 character set.
    byte[] bytes = File.ReadAllBytes("shuttle2.ans");
    string screen = Encoding.GetEncoding(437).GetString(bytes);

    Console.Write(screen);
}
finally
{
    Console.CursorVisible = true;
    Console.ResetColor();
    Console.Write("\x1b[0m");
}

static void EnableVirtualTerminalProcessing()
{
    const int STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE = -11;
    const uint ENABLE_VIRTUAL_TERMINAL_PROCESSING = 0x0004;

    IntPtr handle = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);

    if (GetConsoleMode(handle, out uint mode))
    {
        SetConsoleMode(
            handle,
            mode | ENABLE_VIRTUAL_TERMINAL_PROCESSING);
    }
}

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern IntPtr GetStdHandle(int nStdHandle);

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool GetConsoleMode(
    IntPtr hConsoleHandle,
    out uint lpMode);

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool SetConsoleMode(
    IntPtr hConsoleHandle,
    uint dwMode);

Add the following to the .csproj file
so that shuttle2.ans is copied to the output folder;

<ItemGroup>
  <None Update="shuttle2.ans">
    <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
  </None>
</ItemGroup>

dotnet run

This will (hopefully) become a future function in my jlcUtils plugin that will load an .ans file for display on the TCC console.

Joe