From: utzoo!decvax!pur-ee!uiucdcs!grunwald
Newsgroups: net.micro.68k
Title: Re: SUN Terminal Software Query - (nf)
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.317
Posted: Thu Aug  5 12:26:38 1982
Received: Sun Aug  8 06:13:08 1982

#R:allegra:-44200:uiucdcs:23900003:000:1285
uiucdcs!grunwald    Aug  5 11:57:00 1982

Wonderful! Someone else to share our problems! We also have a Cadlinc SUN
workstation, and we have noticed the same trouble as you have when using the
thing as a "terminal" -- it is very slow once it starts scrolling and the
character set does look very strange. The scroll problem really can't be
helped, as such. It stems from the fact that scrolling the screen requires you
to move about 100Kb of memory, or about 50,000 iterations of a loop to move the
screen memory.
  We've come up with several possible solutions to this problem, but they are
kind of on hold right now. One involves just erasing the screen everytime it
reaches the bottom margin, or perhaps moving the bottom half to the top half
and then erasing the bottom half, so that you have at least 1/2 of your
screen sitting around.
   Another alternative would be to use the smaller character set (the z1 set,or
a home-made version thereof) and then have a smaller window on the screen,
which would require moving less memory. This would eliminate the slow scroll,
but it out also kill your eyes in short order.
   I would be interested in hearing what software & documentation they sent
you. We might be able to arrange sharing some utilities and whatnot. Send
mail to "pur-ee!uiucdcs!grunwald" if you're interested.