The Mousetext Character Set
By Grant Kwai
Copyright (c) 1990 Apple Users' Group, Sydney
Republished from Applecations, a publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia.
By now, most people would have seen mousetext characters displayed on your Apple. To implement mousetext, you would require a //c, enhanced //e or a //gs with 80 column display capabilities.
What is mousetext? Basically, mousetext is a special character set which was added as an aid for software developers in writing programs which used the Apple mouse. However, a mouse is not essential for you to use them. Some mousetext characters which may have passed your notice in programs are the open and closed apple characters and the 'egg timer'.
While it is all very nice to see these characters in action in other people's programs, wouldn't it be great if you could do likewise? Below I will show how you can use these characters also.
Firstly, you must activate the 80 column firmware. This can be easily done by simply typing "PR#3". At this point, you can switch back to the 40 column display without deactivating the 80 column display by hitting 'ESC-4'. (You will know that the 80 column display is still active by a solid curser bar.)
Now, type in the line below:
PRINT CHR$(15): PRINT CHR$(27);
This commands informs the 80 column card that you want to display the mousetext characters to the screen. All upper case letters, and these symbols: @[\]^_ will be automatically printed as mousetext characters to your screen.
To turn off the mousetext characters, simply type in the below line:
PRINT CHR$(14): PRINT CHR$(24);
As an example of the mousetext, type in the program listed below. It does nothing except show all of the characters available from this character set. This program works under both ProDOS and Dos 3.3
Program Listing:
10 PRINT CHR$(4)"PR#3"
20 VTAB 3:GOSUB 4000
30 A$="C[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[C":REM There are 28 '['
40 GOSUB 3000
50 A$="ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZ"
60 FOR R=1 TO 4: GOSUB 3000:GOSUB 5000
70 A$=" Mousetext Demo Program ":VTAB 3: GOSUB 3000
80 A$=" Grant Kwai ":GOSUB 3000
90 A$="Mousetext Conversion Chart": VTAB 20: GOSUB 3000
100 A$="@ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^ "
110 PRINT :GOSUB 3000 : GOSUB 4000
120 PRINT: HTAB 8: FOR X=64 TO 95:GOSUB 4000:PRINT CHR$(X);: GOSUB 5000: PRINT " ";: NEXT X :REM 1 space in quote marks
130 END
2000 REM Below are subroutines
3000 HTAB 40 - LEN(A$) / 2 : PRINT A$ :
3010 RETURN
4000 REM: Turn on Mouse characters
4010 PRINT CHR$(15);CHR$(27);
4020 RETURN
5000 REM:Turn off Mouse characters
5010 PRINT CHR$(14);CHR$(24);
520 RETURN
End of listing.

THIS CONTENT COPYRIGHT © 2007, APPLE MACINTOSH USERS' GROUP, SYDNEY
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