From: utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!mcnc!taylor
Newsgroups: net.dcom,net.misc
Title: Re: How long is a break `character'\?
Article-I.D.: mcnc.1307
Posted: Tue Sep 14 10:48:23 1982
Received: Wed Sep 15 04:43:56 1982

References: hpda.229


VERY interesting question.  I checked my only 3 manufacterer-independent
references (Doll's Data Communications, Martin's 'Tech. Aspects of Data
Comm.", and McNamara's "Tech. Aspects of Data Comm." - Martin's is
"Telecommunications and the Computer"), and could not even find a 'normal'
break or interrupt defined!  The 'long space' is pretty clearly defined
for telco (modem) purposes as 1.5 to 4 seconds in various places, so the
normal break must be much shorter.  I've seen the range of 200 msec. in
common usage, but I does not seem to be defined by either EIA or ANSI.

I think that the two-character width definition is definitely unacceptable,
and I can think of absolutely no basis for it (other than ease of terminal
manufacturing.)  I can think of several places it could cause problems.

(For as close as I can find to an industry standard, the vt-100 Users Guide
defines break as .2333 sec. +/- 10% and long break as 3.5 sec. +/- 10%.
Page 37)

Steve Taylor
NC Educational Computing Service
(919) 549-0671