The CGS color graphics system had a few line drawing operators, similar to
DEC R.E.G.I.S. or Tektronix G.I.N., as well as some interesting character
sets that were "shiftable/activatable" with a code.  The fonts included
online chess, as well as a 'bezerk' like font that included stone walls and
explosion effects.  There were also some character fonts such as old english
for medieval hack-n-slash, computer spacey for alien encounters, and army
stencil for shoot-'em-ups.  The first version of CGS needed a maxed out 130XE
to run.  Later versions could run on an 800XL but limited the fontset.  There
weren't that many maxed-out ATARI machines that could run the first release
and the interest waned.  I bet it would be interesting idea now that several
emulators are out.  The problem with CGS is that it is a terminal program,
which means that if two people wanted to form a link without using a BBS,
there would be no host program loaded that could actually "think", thus you
might as well run a game in BASIC with an altered character set.  I suppose
two people might be able to play a game of chess over a link if they wanted
to both load CGS terminals and draw out the board by hand.  The ideal
environment for CGS would probably be on an ATARI MUX.  It is an interesting
idea that was never fully developed.  If one of the two terminals could host
and the other could remote from it, you might have something, but you also
run into memory problems.  I like the general idea.  The concept of a remote
graphics terminal appeared to be quite sound.  It was certainly much snazzier
than color MS-DOS ANSI.SYS (although ANSI has musical notes, now...) !

 

--- Maximus 2.00

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