Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!palo-alto!vixie
From: vixie@palo-alto.DEC.COM (Paul Vixie)
Newsgroups: comp.terminals
Subject: Re: Looking for a full-featured terminal
Message-ID: <3241@palo-alto.DEC.COM>
Date: 28 Jun 88 22:51:30 GMT
References: <758@lakesys.UUCP> <3249@encore.UUCP>
Organization: DEC Western Research Lab
Lines: 44

In article <3249@encore.UUCP> loverso@encore.UUCP (John Robert LoVerso) writes:
# The newer Televideos are also nice, but the lastest models I've seen
# (905, 955) still inflict the user with magic cookie characters for
# screen attributes.  I can't believe that they add all that ugliness
# just to save a few $$ on static rams.  I won't ever buy (another)
# Televideo as long as they use magic cookies.

Televideo still supports their old 912/920 line, in the form of new-looking,
sleek terminals that use magic cookies.  They also have a line of ANSI-type
terminals, starting with the 970 and lately continuing with the 965.  These
ANSI-type terminals don't have magic cookies.  The only reason they still
make the older ones is because lots of software depends on the cookies --
you can, for example, make something become underlined on the screen by
writing a close-attributes cookie at the end of the to-be-underlined-area
and writing an open-attributes cookie at the beginning -- you don't have to
rewrite the intervening characters.

Note that if you write the cookies in the wrong order, the whole screen
blinks in your start-attribute until you get the close-attribute written.
Note also that I hate magic-cookie terminals with a livid passion and I
would never own or use one except under duress.  I'm trying to explain
why they're still being made.  Lots of operating systems being run in
offices don't have termcap(3X), it's all hard-coded, and lots of the code
has been lost as the previous generation of programmers dies of old age.

# My greatest wish is that terminal manufacturers will quit adding silly
# features like calucator emulators and instead make a serious effort to
# produce terminals that can handle 19.2Kb w/o flow control and forever
# rid us of magic cookies!

Yes!  Yes!  I have no use whatever for a calculator or a calendar or any
of that hash.  Give me a terminal that can perform EVERY operation, not
just scrolling, not just writing characters, but EVERY OPERATION in one
byte-time.  If I'm running at 38,400 and I send an insert-10-lines or
clear-region command, DON'T QUEUE IT.  Do it in the time it takes to
receive the next 8 bits.  NO QUEUEING.  NONE.

I realize that I'm talking about a hard-coded terminal, probably implemented
in ECL gate arrays.  So be it.  I'll give up 600W of power to never have to
send "^S" except when I, the user, want the screen to freeze.
-- 
Paul Vixie
Digital Equipment Corporation	Work:  vixie@dec.com	Play:  paul@vixie.UUCP
Western Research Laboratory	 uunet!decwrl!vixie	   uunet!vixie!paul
Palo Alto, California, USA	  +1 415 853 6600	   +1 415 864 7013