Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: where to do line editing? Message-ID: <8339@smoke.ARPA> Date: 14 Aug 88 03:44:25 GMT References: <623@root44.co.uk> <939@esunix.UUCP> <12216@ncoast.UUCP> Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB)) Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 36 In article <12216@ncoast.UUCP> allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) writes: >How about the AT&T 630? (Doesn't the V8/V9 "sam" editor download parts of >itself to the 630?) Yes, in normal use "sam" starts up its terminal part (which handles bitmap display, mouse, and keyboard interaction) as a process running in the terminal, which for a Blit, 5620, or 630 means downloaded code. (The 630 has the ability to restart from its cache after the first download.) The Blit family of terminals frequently uses such a technique, putting the terminal-specific interactive part in the terminal and running a terminal-independent protocol to communicate with the host part. There are typesetter previewer, drawing tools, statistical data viewers, and lots more applications using this technique. A non-downloaded window ("layer") in a Blit descendant typically runs a "dumb CRT" emulator, with built-in mouse-driven cross-window local text editing. (On the 5620, you need to have replaced the firmware terminal emulation by downloading Rob Pike's "mux" or Dave Prosser's "myx" in order to obtain local text editing.) By the way, Rob recently announced that a more recent version of "sam" (than in the "dmd-pgmg" package, which also contains "myx") is going to be made available any day now through the AT&T UNIX System ToolChest. The current version has terminal parts for SunTools, X-Windows, and the Blit descendants; the host part, while not fully portable, runs on Crays, VAXes, Goulds, Alliants, SGI Irises, Suns, 3Bs, et al. Based on usual pricing, "sam" will probably cost only a couple of hundred dollars for unlimited site-wide use (source code provided). If you want to find out more before ordering, beyond whatever write-up the ToolChest provides, read "The Text Editor sam" in Software--Practice and Experience, Vol. 17(11), 813-845 (November 1987). Rob also gave a brief overview in a posting to comp.unix.questions dated July 14, 1988. "sam" is said to be the main editor in use by the Bell Labs computer science research staff, and it has been adopted by several of us at BRL.