Cowsay in C++
Tech stack: C++ License: (see repo) Serves: Marty Glitch (assigned by Josh; see cart map)
What it does
Section titled “What it does”A minimal C++ port of the classic cowsay: take a string, wrap it in an ASCII speech bubble, render a small ASCII cow underneath. Not a TUI in any serious sense. Captured here only as a tiny note: KN-86 has many places where a bordered speech bubble — CIPHER voice fragments, mission briefing callouts, error toasts — is the right unit of presentation.
Aspirational features for KN-86
Section titled “Aspirational features for KN-86”- ASCII speech-bubble / box-art callout as a primitive. A tiny helper — given text, render a CP437-bordered bubble. Reusable across CIPHER preamble on the main grid (Null cartridge only, per ADR-0015), mission brief callouts, transmissions, and Bare Deck Terminal hints.
UX / interaction patterns
Section titled “UX / interaction patterns”- N/A — single-shot CLI.
Visual style
Section titled “Visual style”- Plain-ASCII box-art bubble. The whole point.
Screenshot
Section titled “Screenshot”Notes / open questions for KN-86
Section titled “Notes / open questions for KN-86”- Mostly a decorative idea. The real KN-86 question is: do we want a sanctioned bubble glyph treatment (alongside box-drawing and braille) as a documented primitive in
software/api-reference/grammars/character-set.md, with bubble characters defined in CP437? Probably yes — it’s already an implicit pattern in some mission-brief drafts.