So, here's the question. If I were a purchaser of
an Altair in 1977,
which printer would I have purchased? What control code would it have
interpreted? Were the early printers sophisticated enough to recognize
"bold", "underline" or "italic"?
The only certainty I can think of is Control-L (FF) == FormFeed,
e.g. top-of-form.
In '77, you got underline by backing up the carriage and putting
underlines underneath the text you'd just printed... you got boldface
by backing up the carriage and reprinting what you'd printed.
Italics required an minimum 80 proof software upgrade of the operator...
<hic!>
-dq