ANSIVT100

ANSIVT100 is a proposed standard intended to standardize the interpretation of VT100-style control sequences within environments that use ANSI escape codes. It seeks to provide a single specification enabling terminal emulators, shell interfaces, and text-based applications to render content consistently across platforms.

Background: The term originated in developer communities during the 2010s and 2020s as a way to bridge legacy VT100 behavior with modern ANSI-compatible terminals. It is not an official ANSI standard; rather, it is an informal specification used by some projects to promote compatibility.

Technical scope: ANSIVT100 defines a compatibility layer that translates or interprets ANSI escape sequences to support essential VT100 functions. It covers cursor positioning, screen clearing, and mode settings, as well as text attributes like bold, underline, and reverse video. It includes color handling to map foreground and background colors, and provides support for DEC private modes and the DEC line-drawing character set through a deterministic mapping. A finite-state parser is described to ensure predictable handling of interleaved sequences.

Status and implementations: Adoption is varied. Several open-source terminal emulators and libraries implement partial ANSIVT100 compatibility, mainly to improve cross-platform rendering. The standard emphasizes deterministic behavior, but real-world support depends on project scope and maintenance.

Relation to related standards: ANSIVT100 builds on established ECMA-48/ISO/IEC 6429 escape sequences and DEC VT100 conventions. It is distinct from, yet complementary to, existing terminal emulation specifications and is not universally endorsed.