Megalextoria
Retro computing and gaming, sci-fi books, tv and movies and other geeky stuff.

Home » Archive » net.micro.apple » Re termcap for Apple IIe
Show: Today's Messages :: Show Polls :: Message Navigator
E-mail to friend 
Switch to threaded view of this topic Create a new topic Submit Reply
Re termcap for Apple IIe [message #78295] Sat, 01 June 2013 00:41
rbt is currently offline  rbt
Messages: 53
Registered: May 2013
Karma: 0
Member
Message-ID: <470@sftig.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Oct-84 17:47:59 EST
Article-I.D.: sftig.470
Posted: Wed Oct 31 17:47:59 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Nov-84 04:16:15 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Summit, NJ
Lines: 64

[bug food]

	[]

	Does anyone have a termcap entry for an Apple ][e running
	the extended memory, 80-col card?  Please mail directly to
	me (I imagine this is the nth time someone has requested this.)

	Also, someone complained in private mail that the above card
	is too slow for effective 1200 baud use.  Does anyone else
	have any experience with this card at 1200 baud?  I
	briefly glanced at the Rom listing for the card and it does
	look slow for page scrolling.

-- 
	Mike Eve     Boeing Aerospace, Seattle
	...uw-beaver!ssc-vax!ssc-bee!eve



I assume you are talking about the 'dumb terminal' program that comes in the
firmware for the super serial card from Apple.  I have successfully used this
combination (Apple SSC and extended 80 column card) as a terminal at 1200 baud
to a VAX running system V.  I had to specify 'stty nl1 cr3' to get it
to work.  (In case you are running BSD, that translates to the maximum
possible delay for both carriage returns and new-lines.)  It is painful to
watch the lines zip out and then scroll soooo slooowly, but it does work.
However, I have a complaint about this 'program'.  When you run it in 80
column mode, the cursor seems to be stuck in column 2.  This problem doesn't
happen in 40 column mode.  I called Apple tech support, and they told me that
this is a known problem, and an updated ROM should be available sometime in
the spring.  They did not promise that it would fix the slow scroll problem
though.  All in all, I recommend against trying to rely on this firmware for
using the Apple IIe as a terminal.  Buy a commercial terminal emulator instead,
(or do what I am planning on doing, write your own) Most of the commercially
available programs can handle 1200 baud and 80 columns just fine.

Along those lines, The guy I talked to in Apple tech support suggested that I
bug my dealer for a thing called the 'Apple II Programs Disc' which the dealer
could get a (presumably free) copy of by writing to Apple Tech support.
He said that it had been described in a newsletter for dealers called 'Apple
View'.  He said this disc has a dumb terminal emulator program that fixes the
column 2 cursor problem.  He said it did not scroll fast enough for 1200 baud
operation, but I expect that suitable delays from the host would make it
usable.  He also said that this disc contains a lot of useful and/or fun
programs that the dealer could use as demos.  Unfortunately, I asked both of
my local dealers, and neither of them had even heard of either the Apple II
programs disc, or the Apple View newsletter.  One of the people at one dealer
remarked 'We get so much @#$ from Apple, that nobody has the time to read it.
We just throw away most of it.'  I asked them both to look into getting the
disc, but I don't hold out much hope.  If you have better luck, let me know.

To answer your original question, I dont think the terminal emulator in the
firmware has enough smarts to make it useful with vi or anything else that
requires cursor motion sequences.  I specificly asked about this when I talked
to the tech support person, and he said that the firmware dumb terminal
did not support cursor motion sequences, even in 40 column mode.

Rick Thomas
{ihnp4, akgua, houxm, nearly any backbone site}!btlunix!rbt
(201)-522-6062

PS  If anybody knows of a public domain terminal emulator for the IIe with an
80 column card, please let me know before I start to write my own.
  Switch to threaded view of this topic Create a new topic Submit Reply
Previous Topic: Prodos Technical Reference Manual (at last)
Next Topic: I need hard disk info
Goto Forum:
  

-=] Back to Top [=-
[ Syndicate this forum (XML) ] [ RSS ] [ PDF ]

Current Time: Fri Mar 29 07:29:18 EDT 2024

Total time taken to generate the page: 0.04385 seconds