! This information can not be found in the file NNANSI.DOC

! The files nnansi.asm config.inc and drivers.inc are not original!
! The original archive, if not included in this archive, can be found in
! many BBS:s with the name nnans591.* (asterisk presents one of the archive 
! extensions ZIP, LZH, ZOO etc.). Please don't blame Tom Almy if this 
! version refuses to work as documented.

Tom Almy was unwilling to support these features in his excellent
New, New Ansi driver (and I understand his point of view), so I made some
custom changes to NNAnsi myself. Hope someone else is satisfied, too.

! You can replace the original files (version 5/91) with the files in this
! archive and recompile the driver, or use enclosed, compiled version, which
! supports all the features listed below.


1. ENHANCED EXTENDED MODE SUPPORT: ******************************************

My Trident card supports many extended alpha modes, and I've been looking
for a possibility to use some of these modes as my default dos shell modes.
Many of the programs I use, set the video to mode 3 and leave it that way.
The only acceptable way to change it back is to place an ansi video 
mode change command in prompt string, and to build the ansi driver so that
unnecessary mode change requests are ignored.

In my version of NNAnsi, when requesting an extended video mode (50h and 
beyond), the mode won't be changed, if the mode already is the required 
one. This allows you to place a video mode command like $[=80h in prompt 
string. What comes to (standard) modes < 50h, the driver acts as the 
original one.

These extended modes and their behaviour, however, happens to be device
dependent, and I have built this feature to support only my trident card.
You may copy and modify the macro code in drivers.inc to suit your modes.

This feature may be easily enabled/disabled by setting a compiler switch 
in config.inc.


2. HIGH INTENSITY BACKGROUND SUPPORT ****************************************

The 4th character attribute flag, by default, controls blinking.
It can, however, be set to mean high intensity background instead.

For this purpose I have added two new ansi commands:
- Upper case I to set the high intensity flag. This disables blinking.
- Lower case i to disable high intensity and enable blinking.
No parameters are needed.

If these commands are not used, the driver acts like the original one,
except that, unlike the original, it allows the blink flag to be set for 
default fill character. Fill character is the one used when clearing the 
screen, or scrolling, i.e. revealing new lines. 

Example: $e[I to enable high intensity, $e[5m to set the blink / high
intensity flag (If not in PROMPT, replace $e with ESC (ascii 27).


3. SET BORDER COLOR COMMAND *************************************************

There is a command to make the border color to reflect the current
background color:

- Lower case b with any leading argument sets the feature.
- The same without an argument resets the feature.

Setting the feature only sets a variable, it doesn't yet call BIOS to
change the color. The color is changed merely whenever the screen is erased
by NNAnsi. When the command is used to disable the feature, however, 
the color will be immediately reset to black.

High intensity background color is converted to low intensity before
calling BIOS.


To find my modifications in the code, just search for lines with asterisks:
; ************************* Change the border color ************************

See the original documentation for any other information.

Any comments are welcome
(send the money to Daniel Kegel, the author of the very original NANSI),

Jouni V„„riskoski
J„mer„ntaival 11 J 197
02150 ESPOO
Finland                 

Internet: jouni.vaariskoski@tele.nokia.fi