Foundation or terminal standard

ANSI / ECMA-48

Terminal Control Sequences

Widely used Documented current use

Provides color, cursor movement, text styling, and the presentation substrate used by most MUDs.

Protocol overview

First seen
1970sā€“1980s
Present-day status
Widely used
In use today?
Yes, with documented current use.
Legacy?
No.
Layer
Foundation or terminal standard
Transport
In-band terminal escape sequences
Research validated

Current use and fit

Universal in practice at varying capability levels.

Implementation essentials

  • Gate 256-color, truecolor, and advanced cursor features on capabilities.
  • Calculate display width separately from encoded length.
  • Reset styles defensively.

Compatibility and safety notes

  • Unsupported sequences can make output unreadable.
  • Control sequences embedded in untrusted text must be sanitized.

Original specifications and sources

Where an original site has disappeared, a preservation archive is linked and identified as such. MUDVerse does not claim authorship of the original protocol.