There is a whole generation that has no idea how much cool stuff folks did with text and backspace.
One of my favorites was the “spinning cursor.” Thanks to slow speeds of 300 baud modems, you could get some interesting effects by printing a letter, then printing a character like a slash (“/”), then a backspace, then a dash (“-“), then a backspace, then a backslash (“\”), then a backspace, then a vertical bar (“|”) or exclamation mark (“!”) if your system did not have the vertical bar. Then a backspace and the next letter of the message.
Apparently I got nostalgic about this effect some time ago. I just found this “Spinning Cursor” C project I wrote on the Online GDB compiler:
https://onlinegdb.com/56zozL_gRp
Go there and you can RUN the project and see it in all its glory…
Curious to try this under OS9’s “C”
I wonder if \b worked in the early compilers. If no, using write() definately would.
Thank you – This was a nice flash back – I recall some Apple IIe BBSes and Commodore 64 as well. Their technique seemed to create a an effect which was similar but a little bit different. I think they used a backspace and printed the letter deleted it and printed it again but I do not quite recall.