Linux Journal: So You Like Color–The Mysterious ^[[ Characters

“Have you ever redirected the output of a curses program with
colors and wondered what those mysterious ^[[ symbols are? Have you
ever tried to produce colors with a printf command without using
curses? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, read on.
This article attempts to explain the mysterious characters that one
finds in the output of a curses program that produces colors.
Later, we extend this concept to produce colors with a mere printf
command.

“In the old days of teletype terminals, terminals were located
far away from computers and were connected to them through serial
cables…”

Complete
Story