A-Shell emulates some of the more common ZTERM ESC sequences, as described below.

Note that most of the features provided by the ZTERM escape sequences are also available in A-Shell/Windows via a Tab(-10,x) sequence or a subroutine. The advantage of the Tab(-10,x) or XCALL method is that the same code will work under A-Shell/Windows and A-Shell/UNIX with ATE on the client. But the advantage of the ZTERM ESC sequences is that they would work on any server platform (i.e. one that you telnet to) provided the client is ZTERM or ATE. But in the latter case, you should test to make sure you aren't running locally on A-Shell/windows, where the ESC sequences would not make much sense.

Many of the ZTERM ESC sequences use a CHR(0) (aka null byte) as a delimiter. However, if for some reason you have difficulty sending null bytes, you can use CHR(128) as an equivalent alternative.

Examples

Execute or print windows file ("shell execute")

?CHR(27) CHR(12);OP$;FSPEC$;CHR(0);

   (OP$ is "O" to "open" or "P" to "print)

INPUT A              ! CR for ok, Control-C for error

Execute windows command (aka "win exec")

?CHR(27);CHR(22);CMD$;CHR(0);

INPUT A               ! CR for ok, Control-C for error

Get client ip address

?CHR(27);CHR(15);

INPUT "",IP'ADDR$

ftp file transfer

?CHR(27);CHR(1);CHR(127);DIR$;HOSTDIR$;CHR(0); &

   HOSTFILE$;CHR(0);PCFILE$;CHR(0);

INPUT A

ATE supports transferring entire directories, in addition to single files, by setting the HOSTFILE$ or filename portion of PCFILE$ to “*”.

Label window

?CHR(27);CHR(13);TITLE$;CHR(0);

! sets title for both normal and minimized window

Set window state

?CHR(27);CHR(25);CMD$ !(CMD$ is M, X, R, or N)

Flash window

?CHR(27);CHR(16);"1"            ! start flashing

?CHR(27);CHR(16);"0"            ! stop flashing

Set ftp login name/password

?CHR(27);CHR(29);NAME$;CHR(0);PW$;CHR(0);