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NAPLPS

North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax

image/naplps Released 1983 · by ANSI / CSA (Based on Canadian CRC's Telidon)

The image/naplps MIME type represents the North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax, an obsolete protocol for encoding vector graphics and text. Developed in the early 1980s from the Canadian Telidon system, NAPLPS was designed for low-bandwidth Videotex services over dial-up modems. Rather than storing a grid of pixels, it uses geometric 'Picture Description Instructions' (PDIs) encoded in ASCII escape sequences to draw scalable lines, polygons, and text, making it famous as the graphics backbone of early online services like Prodigy.

Legacy & Videotex Animation Progressive Production Ready

Technical Specifications

MIME Type
image/naplps
Extensions
.nap.naplps
Container
NAPLPS Byte Stream
Compression
Uncompressed (Tokenized ASCII Commands)
Algorithms
None (Coordinate encoding)
Color Depth
16-color palette (Indexed from larger color spaces)
Metadata
None
Capabilities
Transparency
Animation
Progressive Loading
Alpha Channel
HDR Support
Official Specification
Aliases: image/x-naplps

Magic Bytes & HTTP Headers

File Signature (Magic Bytes)
1B (Variable / ESC sequences)
ASCII: \x1B
HTTP Headers
Content-Type: image/naplps
HTML Accept Attribute
accept="image/naplps, .nap"

Browser Support Matrix

Browser Status Min Version
Chrome Chrome
Not Supported
Firefox Firefox
Not Supported
Safari Safari
Not Supported
Edge Edge
Not Supported
Internet Explorer Internet Explorer
Not Supported Legacy

Advantages & Limitations

Advantages
  • Extremely bandwidth-efficient, enabling colorful graphical interfaces over early 300 baud dial-up connections
  • Resolution-independent vector scaling allowed the exact same file to be displayed accurately on varied early PC monitors and television sets
Limitations
  • Completely obsolete and unsupported by modern web technologies
  • Relies heavily on stateful parsing and terminal emulators rather than straightforward file decoding
  • Easily misidentified by MIME sniffers as plain text or generic binary streams due to the lack of a standardized file header

Developer Code Snippets

import magic
# Libmagic will frequently fail to identify NAPLPS accurately, falling back to 'text/plain' or 'application/octet-stream' due to the ASCII control codes.
print(magic.from_file('graphic.nap', mime=True))
const FileType = require('file-type');
const type = await FileType.fromFile('graphic.nap');
console.log(type?.mime); // Modern libraries usually do not carry definitions for NAPLPS.
import "net/http"
// http.DetectContentType will not recognize the geometric instruction sets and will generally default to "application/octet-stream".
$mime = mime_content_type('graphic.nap');
echo $mime; // Standard setups will likely report generic text or binary types depending on the initial bytes.

File Detection Steps

How to programmatically detect a image/naplps file by reading its raw bytes:

  1. 1 Due to its nature as a character-oriented data stream, NAPLPS lacks a fixed universal magic header.
  2. 2 Parsers must scan for ISO 2022 escape sequences (typically beginning with Hex 1B / ESC) invoking the geometric PDI instruction sets.

Software Support

P
Prodigy Client (Legacy)
T
Telidon Emulators
M
Microstar (Legacy Terminal)

Conversion Tools

Share & Embed

Markdown Badge
NAPLPS Format Badge
[![NAPLPS Format](https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/naplps/badge.svg)](https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/naplps)
Interactive iframe Widget
<iframe src="https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/naplps/embed" width="100%" height="280" style="border:1px solid #cbd5e1;border-radius:8px;" title="NAPLPS Specs"></iframe>

JSON API

All data on this page is available as a free, open JSON API. Use it in your project, documentation, or tooling.

GET https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/naplps.json Open JSON
Free to use
No auth required
CORS enabled
Use from any domain
Cached 24h
Cache-Control headers set

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between NAPLPS and ANSI art?

While both were popular in the 1980s BBS era, ANSI art is strictly character-cell based, relying on text blocks and background colors on a fixed grid. NAPLPS, on the other hand, is a true vector format using Picture Description Instructions (PDIs). It draws geometric shapes (lines, arcs, polygons) based on screen coordinates, meaning NAPLPS graphics are resolution-independent and scale smoothly to any monitor size.

Where was the NAPLPS format actually used?

NAPLPS was the core graphics standard for early 1980s Videotex systems, most notably the Canadian Telidon network and US-based services like Viewtron. Its most widespread consumer adoption was by the Prodigy online service, which used NAPLPS to deliver colorful, graphical user interfaces over extremely slow 300 and 1200 baud modems.

Can I view an image/naplps file today?

Not natively. No modern web browser or standard image viewer supports NAPLPS. Viewing a .nap file requires running a legacy terminal emulator, specialized historical software, or using niche conversion scripts to translate the vector instructions into modern SVG or PNG formats.

Related Formats

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