INFO-VAX Wed, 30 Jan 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 59 Contents: Re: "file locked by another user" mystery Re: Anyone interested in building a vms-like OS? Re: Anyone interested in building a vms-like OS? Re: M$IE; was: DSPP Integrity remanufactured h/w... Re: M$IE; was: DSPP Integrity remanufactured h/w... Re: M$IE; was: DSPP Integrity remanufactured h/w... Re: M$IE; was: DSPP Integrity remanufactured h/w... Re: PowerTerm 525 & eXcursion Re: PowerTerm 525 & eXcursion Restricting Access to TCP/IP and DECnet Re: Restricting Access to TCP/IP and DECnet Re: Restricting Access to TCP/IP and DECnet Re: Restricting Access to TCP/IP and DECnet Telenet nieuwsgroepen mededeling: nieuwsserver adres aanpassen/Attention: modifi Re: VT100 standards Re: VT100 standards VT100 standards and EDT Re: VT100 standards and EDT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:14:44 -0800 From: Fred Bach Subject: Re: "file locked by another user" mystery Message-ID: <479FB364.4010505@triumf.ca> Mr Briggs, Holy crow! You're right. However, it is not explicitly stated in the DCL Help that if you have an ON SEVERE command that you cannot have a previous ON WARNING command and expect it to work. The HELP just implies that, in the absence of the ON WARNING or and ON ERROR command, execution would simply continue. The DCL HELP does *not* say that previous ON WARNING or ON ERROR commands are thereby nullified and rendered useless! Looks like the DCL HELP needs to be amended to say what it really should! The DCL Help says: >> ON >> >> Parameters >> >> condition >> >> Specifies either the severity level of an error or a Ctrl/Y >> interrupt. Specify one of the following keywords, which may be >> abbreviated to one or more characters: >> >> WARNING Return status of warning occurs ($SEVERITY equals >> 0). >> >> ERROR Return status of error occurs ($SEVERITY >> equals 2). >> >> SEVERE_ERROR Return status of error occurs ($SEVERITY >> equals 4). >> >> CONTROL_Y Ctrl/Y character occurs on SYS$INPUT. >> >> The default error condition is ON ERROR THEN EXIT. >> >> >> command >> >> Specifies the DCL command line to be executed. Optionally, you >> can precede the command line with a dollar sign ($). >> >> If you specified an error condition as the condition parameter, >> the action is taken when errors equal to or greater than the >> specified level of error occur. >> >> Examples >> >> >> 1.$ ON SEVERE_ERROR THEN CONTINUE >> >> A command procedure that contains this statement continues >> to execute normally when a warning or error occurs during >> execution. When a severe error occurs, the ON statement signals >> the procedure to execute the next statement anyway. Once >> the statement has been executed as a result of the severe >> error condition, the default action (ON ERROR THEN EXIT) is >> reinstated. [ snip ] Note that the help does NOT say that it is illegal to have an ON WARNING THEN CONTINUE or an ON ERROR THEN GOTO EXIT. The HELP doesn't even say it's futile. The above text would seem to say that the program executes "normally" for warning and error conditions. The word 'normally' is rather confusing - it would suggest that you could actually use an ON WARNING or ON ERROR command and expect its specified action to be taken when only a warning condition happened. At least that was the way I always understood the help. I did this all the time. FOR YEARS, and it really did seem to work just fine. I guess the ON command is really forgiving or maybe I got the order accidentally correct. ;-) Typically, to handle all possible conditions that might happen to the user, I feel that I need to specify different actions for the various ON conditions. Such as "ON WARNING THEN CONTINUE" and "ON ERROR THEN GOTO EXIT" and "ON SEVERE THEN STOP" which would be the typical set of ON commands I would use. They all seemed to function just fine together in the same DCL routine. Over all these years they did not appear to interfere with each other. Things worked very well and the desired action seemed to be taken. I just wrote a short script that would CONFIRM WHAT YOU SAY! I moved various ON command lines around to test their effects. $! test of error condition responses $! 29-JAN-2008 FWB. $ $TOP: $ Inquire filename "Enter file to type " $ on error then goto CONDITION_E $! on severe then goto CONDITION_S $ on warning then goto CONDITION_W $ on control_y then goto exit $ type 'filename' $ $ filename = "" $ goto top $ $EXIT: $ exit $ $CONDITION_W: $ write sys$output "WARNING" $ GOTO TOP $ $CONDITION_E: $ write sys$output "ERROR" $ GOTO TOP $ $CONDITION_S: $ write sys$output "SEVERE" $ GOTO TOP $ It would seem that the LAST "ON" command sets the course of events. In the above example the CONDITION_W: code is executed if I give a bogus filename in response to the question. If, however, I put the "on error then goto condition_E" statement after the "on warning" statement, then the Condition_W: code never gets executed!! Wow. Much like I do for $STATUS now, to handle errors in a custom way I suppose that now I will have to save and test the value of $SEVERITY if I really want different actions to be taken on different values! Can a fellow do that? Ya learns something every day.... Thanks for the correction! My above code did NOT check things in the other direction - that is: what if I want something special to happen on an ERROR condition and all I get is a WARNING condition, and the ON WARNING was specified LAST. I'm not quite sure how a fellow could cleanly create only an error condition while trying to type a file. Can you suggest some code to test this case? Thanks! ********* One thing that IS important to know is that after an "ON" condition is acted upon, the last pertinent ON statement is more or less rendered 'cancelled' by its having its specified action taken. The ON condition executed then returns to its default condition, so another set of ON ... statements is frequently needed. Now even though the HELP confirms this, that IS something that I learned the hard way. And I had built myself a little DCL test procedure to prove it and in some of my coding you would find a block of ON conditions repeated many times. The code looks funny, too. How does a fellow set the *default* ON conditions themselves?? Thanks again. .. fred bach .. briggs@encompasserve.org wrote: > In article , Fred Bach writes: > [snip good advice about defensive programming: > -- always close before you open. Just in case. > -- always close before you exit. On _all_ exit paths.] > >> $ON ERROR THEN GO TO EXIT >> $ON SEVERE_ERROR THEN GOTO EXIT >> $ON CONTROL_Y THEN GO TO EXIT >> $ON WARNING THEN CONTINUE > > This code will not do what it appears to do. The ON ERROR > and ON SEVERE_ERROR statements will not work. > > You can have only one "ON THEN" active at a time. If > you have an "ON SEVERE_ERROR THEN" handler active then setting up > an "ON WARNING THEN" handler will cancel the "ON SEVERE_ERROR THEN" > handler. And vice versa. > > The ON CONTROL_Y handler is not affected by this restriction. You can > have an ON CONTROL_Y handler active along with an ON handler. > > But only one of each. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jan 2008 22:35:13 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: Anyone interested in building a vms-like OS? Message-ID: <609o11F1q2bt0U1@mid.individual.net> In article , Keith Parris writes: > Richard B. Gilbert wrote: >> If you can afford couple of hundred man years and can find enough >> qualified people there is nothing to stop you from writing a VMS-like >> O/S. > > "The Mythical Man-Month" and jokes about nine women and the number of > children they can bear per unit of time aside, 200 man-years can also be > viewed as 100 people in a coordinated effort for a couple of years. And after looking at how quickly Linux went from garbage to top of the heap (OK, it's still garbage but at least it kinda works at this point) just hink about what 100 people with the skills of the average VMS professional could do!! > >> But, since the real thing is available, there's hardly any point >> in doing so. Unless, of course, you want to write such a thing to run >> on a different hardware platform. . . . I am glad to see someone of your stature actually consider the viability of this proposal, however.... > > Allowing VMS-like features and benefits to be available to users of > ProLiant and other x86[-64] architecture hardware could certainly be > valuable, One of the most valuable advantages. > but other reasons for an open-source VMS-like OS might include: > > o Zero acquisition price, which gives business users the flexibility to > adopt the operating system widely inside a company, without worrying > about license costs or entering PAKs or what Operating Environment > and/or layered products they need to order to get a given set of > features, or how many cores are in a system at any given point in time. Think if it were a "Zero acquisition pric" pure open source project it would be a dismal failure. I think it can be done cheap, but it would take dedicated effort by peoiple with a limited skillset and as such I think it will need to be done by a forlam group and probably not totally open source. > > o Ability for students (or potential business users) to download a copy > for free to try on any old PC hardware, play around with it, and learn > it. Students who use an operating system in college are more likely to > use it when they are in the business world later. This is true, but with possible limitations. > > o Ability for university professors to include samples of the code in > textbooks on operating systems theory, and include lab exercises for > their students which involve modifying code and trying out the behavior > of the resulting OS, or for advanced students to base their research and > theses on advanced developments starting with this code base. This is also a good idea and viable, even if it is not as opensource as Linux. It was done with BSD even under the days of the dreaded AT&T license and it couls be done again if academia could be convinced of its value. If it is nothing but another flavor of Linux (a perception that may be difficult to counter if it is released in the same manner) then it will likely not garner academic interest. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jan 2008 00:01:55 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: Anyone interested in building a vms-like OS? Message-ID: <609t3iF1pii97U1@mid.individual.net> In article , Keith Parris writes: > Bill Gunshannon wrote: >> Think if it were a "Zero acquisition price" pure open source project it >> would be a dismal failure. > > Sshhhh! You're spoiling the illusion! It's Open Source, so it's free! > Free! Free, I say! > > A successful Open Source business model these days seems to involve a > two-pronged approach: giving away a low-end, unsupported version for > free while providing a high-end version with support for a dollar cost. > This preserves the illusion of being "free" (in terms of acquisition > cost), preserves the perception of being "free" in terms of open source > availability, while providing sufficient money for development and > support. Red Hat, Novell (SuSE), and MySQL seem to be examples of > reasonably successful businesses built using this sort of model. Yes, but if you choose the GPL you have to either give away the high-end version as well or cheat on the license. That is one of the reasons I have stated that the GPL is no good if there is an interest in a project actually lasting long enough to accomplish something worthwhile. Programmers need to feed their families too. How many Open Source projects have withered on the vine? Status and ego are nice, but if there is no profit no one is going to stick around long. if this is going to be done, it needs to be done as a serious business otherwise, we might just as well let VMS die the natural death its current owners have planned for it. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:40:17 -0500 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: M$IE; was: DSPP Integrity remanufactured h/w... Message-ID: <01eadbae$0$10208$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Larry Kilgallen wrote: >> I read PDF with Preview. > > That is irrelevant in the long term. > A statement relevant in the long term would be "I always upgrade my > operating system to adapt to format changes." No, the correct statement is: I use an actively developped operating system where modern applications are readily available and updates to those apps made in a timely fashion to support the newest file formats. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:24:06 -0700 From: Mark Berryman Subject: Re: M$IE; was: DSPP Integrity remanufactured h/w... Message-ID: <479f5328$1@mvb.saic.com> VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > In article , Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) writes: >> >> In article , VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG writes: >>> In article , Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) writes: >>>> >>>> In article , VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG writes: >>>> >>>>> Sending them as PDF would make them more *universally* "compatable". (sic) >>>> Providing you do not generate the form of PDF that is unreadable >>>> by Adobe Acrobat 4. >>> I read PDF with Preview. >> That is irrelevant in the long term. >> A statement relevant in the long term would be "I always upgrade my >> operating system to adapt to format changes." > > :D > > I need to upgrade my OS (VMS) to support the gobbledegook reformatted > quoted-printable shite that Micro$oft mailers create whenever they send > out preformatted text! You might get a chuckle out of this (or a groan if you're stuck with it). Microsoft sells an email system they claim is fit for the enterprise called Exchange. The standard client for Exchange is Microsoft Outlook which, naturally, only runs on Windows. Microsoft also sells an Exchange client for Mac called Entourage. Remember, these are all Microsoft products. Here's the fun part: if folks exchange email messages where there is a mix of Entourage and Outlook clients, something somewhere in the message path, Outlook, Entourage, or Exchange, starts changing the font size on each message in the message stream. If you have a message containing multiple replies, each reply in the message is rendered in an ever decreasing font size, rapidly making the replies unreadable. If there is a fix for this, I have yet to find it. > I just received an email from a site which should have been text -- text > that was generated by some SDA commands I asked the customer to enter. > I now have a display full of "= 20" and similar shite. What is it with > M$ and text? It does NOT need to be encoded. Which is one of the reasons I now read all mail sent to my VMS account using Mac mail. Of course, I have the benefit of being able to forward all of my mail to a hobbyist machine where I can afford to run PMDF, which has the only decent IMAP server for VMS I've found (and I believe I have tried them all). > I with VMS would ship with ZIP. I'd write a procedure to BACKUP and ZIP > said files so that I can then get a proper attachment and unravel it to > see properly formatted text. Of course, the ZIP file would probably get > FTPed from the VMS box to the PeeCee as a text file and I'd still be out > in the cold. Seems to be an oversight. VMS now ships with Perl, Apache, Java, Kerberos, Mozilla, SSL, NetBeans, CDSA, and possibly others. You'd think Zip would have been included, especially since the distribution DVD includes zipped files. (As you can tell from the reference to a DVD, this is only true for VMS on IA64. Perhaps if Alpha VMS ever changed to DVD distribution, all of this software would be included in the distribution for that platform as well). Mark Berryman ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:00:36 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: M$IE; was: DSPP Integrity remanufactured h/w... Message-ID: <8TQnj.5$9z1.2@newsfe09.lga> In article <479f5328$1@mvb.saic.com>, Mark Berryman writes: > > >VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: >> In article , Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) writes: >>> >>> In article , VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG writes: >>>> In article , Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) writes: >>>>> >>>>> In article , VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG writes: >>>>> >>>>>> Sending them as PDF would make them more *universally* "compatable". (sic) >>>>> Providing you do not generate the form of PDF that is unreadable >>>>> by Adobe Acrobat 4. >>>> I read PDF with Preview. >>> That is irrelevant in the long term. >>> A statement relevant in the long term would be "I always upgrade my >>> operating system to adapt to format changes." >> >> :D >> >> I need to upgrade my OS (VMS) to support the gobbledegook reformatted >> quoted-printable shite that Micro$oft mailers create whenever they send >> out preformatted text! > >You might get a chuckle out of this (or a groan if you're stuck with it). > >Microsoft sells an email system they claim is fit for the enterprise >called Exchange. The standard client for Exchange is Microsoft Outlook >which, naturally, only runs on Windows. Microsoft also sells an >Exchange client for Mac called Entourage. Remember, these are all >Microsoft products. > >Here's the fun part: if folks exchange email messages where there is a >mix of Entourage and Outlook clients, something somewhere in the message >path, Outlook, Entourage, or Exchange, starts changing the font size on >each message in the message stream. If you have a message containing >multiple replies, each reply in the message is rendered in an ever >decreasing font size, rapidly making the replies unreadable. > >If there is a fix for this, I have yet to find it. Contact SPECTRE. Supply them with the latitude/longitude coordinates for M$ in Redmond. Request that they take over a missle silo in the midwest and input those coordinates into a MIRV which will shower the adjacent areas around M$ to insure that none of the brain-damaged, mind-clones of Billzebub survive to breed. I think this is the ONLY solution. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:23:53 -0500 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: M$IE; was: DSPP Integrity remanufactured h/w... Message-ID: <479fdfb0$0$90276$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > I need to upgrade my OS (VMS) to support the gobbledegook reformatted > quoted-printable shite that Micro$oft mailers create whenever they send > out preformatted text! > > I just received an email from a site which should have been text -- text > that was generated by some SDA commands I asked the customer to enter. > I now have a display full of "= 20" and similar shite. What is it with > M$ and text? It does NOT need to be encoded. Any characters outside 32-126 or any lines longer than 76 characters ? Arne ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:19:25 -0600 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: PowerTerm 525 & eXcursion Message-ID: <479FD09D.6881FB1E@spam.comcast.net> Marc Van Dyck wrote: > > Is there a Vista-compatible version of those two softwares > available somewhere ? What is the vista compatibility status > of the versions distributed on the OpenVMS consolidated > distribution CDs ? Unless Vista has something you absolutely, positively cannot live without, Vista is not recommended. Stay with XP/Pro for now, hold out until W/7. David J Dachtera DJE Systems ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:05:26 -0800 (PST) From: Doug Phillips Subject: Re: PowerTerm 525 & eXcursion Message-ID: <57bb7ebb-0218-47cb-94a2-4e5c938b15bd@q77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com> On Jan 27, 1:47 pm, Marc Van Dyck wrote: > Is there a Vista-compatible version of those two softwares > available somewhere ? What is the vista compatibility status > of the versions distributed on the OpenVMS consolidated > distribution CDs ? I run (have for a few weeks) PowerTerm v5.6 from the PW v7.4 CD on Vista without problem. I run (have for a few months) Reflection (as old as v6.0) on Vista without problem. I doubt that any of these configs would be "supported" but I've never needed "support." They all have licenses which predate Vista. I don't use eXcursion. Have you tried it? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:58:42 GMT From: "Robert Jarratt" Subject: Restricting Access to TCP/IP and DECnet Message-ID: Is it possible to restrict access to TCP/IP (5.1) and DECnet (IV) on a per-user basis? In other words I would like someone to be able to access my machine, but not to go from that machine to anywhere else on the network. Thanks Rob ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:23:01 -0600 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: Restricting Access to TCP/IP and DECnet Message-ID: <479FD175.EDA524D2@spam.comcast.net> Robert Jarratt wrote: > > Is it possible to restrict access to TCP/IP (5.1) and DECnet (IV) on a > per-user basis? In other words I would like someone to be able to access my > machine, but not to go from that machine to anywhere else on the network. I guess it depends what you mean by "access". If you mean command line, you've got a lot of work to do customizing a user-specific version of DCLTABLES. If you mean log in, select from a (DCL) menu and/or logout, then read up on captive accounts. I'm not aware of a way to do this in UN*X, either, without breaking almost the entire system. David J Dachtera DJE Systems ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:36:13 -0500 From: "Ken Robinson" Subject: Re: Restricting Access to TCP/IP and DECnet Message-ID: <7dd80f60801291736h7b0673ffrf9c149fa2048c5c6@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 29, 2008 6:58 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: > Is it possible to restrict access to TCP/IP (5.1) and DECnet (IV) on a > per-user basis? In other words I would like someone to be able to access my > machine, but not to go from that machine to anywhere else on the network. If I remember correctly, a user needs the NETMBX privilege to use DECnet (I'm not sure about TCP/IP). Take that away and I believe they can't use DECnet. Ken ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:51:54 +1100 From: Jim Duff Subject: Re: Restricting Access to TCP/IP and DECnet Message-ID: <479fd83a$1@dnews.tpgi.com.au> Robert Jarratt wrote: > Is it possible to restrict access to TCP/IP (5.1) and DECnet (IV) on a > per-user basis? In other words I would like someone to be able to access my > machine, but not to go from that machine to anywhere else on the network. > > Thanks > > Rob > > As David said else-thread, it depends on what you mean by "restrict access". Assuming you will allow them to e-mail and use other services on the machine you give them access to, and you just want to restrict them from telnet/ssh/set host to other machines: Create an identifier (for example, RESTRICT_NETWORK) and grant it to the user. Then create an access control list on SYS$SYSTEM:RTPAD.EXE, SYS$SYSTEM:TCPIP$TELNET.EXE, and SYS$SYSTEM:TCPIP$SSH_SSH2.EXE to grant ACCESS=NONE to the RESTRICT_NETWORK identifier. You may need to add this ACL to other images depending on what you have configured (e.g., LAT, RLOGIN, etc). HTH, Jim -- www.eight-cubed.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:00:48 GMT From: info@telenet.be Subject: Telenet nieuwsgroepen mededeling: nieuwsserver adres aanpassen/Attention: modifi Message-ID: Beste klant, Telenet heeft een migratie gedaan van haar nieuwsservers. Wat betekent dit concreet voor jou als gebruiker? Er verandert niets aan de service, maar om verder gebruik te maken van de Telenet nieuwsgroepen service moet je bij de instellingen van je nieuwslezer het adres van de nieuwsserver veranderen van news.telenet.be of newsbin.telenet.be in newsgroups.telenet.be. Verder dien je de authenticatie op deze nieuwsserver uit te schakelen. Met vriendelijke groeten, Het Telenet team ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cher client, Telenet a effectue une migration de ses serveurs de newsgroup. Pour continuer a utiliser les newsgroups de Telenet, modifiez dans la configuration de lecteur de nouvelles l'adresse du serveur de newsgroup: newsgroups.telenet.be a la place de news.telenet.be ou newsbin.telenet.be. Ceci ne necessite pas que vous vous identifiez pour acceder a ce serveur de newsgroup. Cordialement, L'equipe Telenet ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:51:40 -0800 (PST) From: AEF Subject: Re: VT100 standards Message-ID: <2abc37c2-82e1-40e2-af07-28b22a892ac0@t1g2000pra.googlegroups.com> On Jan 28, 3:06 pm, "FredK" wrote: > "AEF" wrote in message > > news:185ce25e-c6dc-4efd-83f0-9f3f45964819@w38g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... > On Dec 29, 2:10 pm, JF Mezei wrote: > > > > > Richard B. Gilbert wrote: > > > can't come up with a reference. I can recall doing things to DECTerm > > > titles with escape sequences from DCL. Unfortunately or, perhaps, not, > > > the code does not seem to have survived. > > > The DECterm window titles is fairly easy: > > > ]21;Window Title\ > > ]2L;Window Icon\ > > > the first one is a twenty one, not two eye. > > > I learned this right here on c.o.v a couple years ago. From an > > authoritative person, not from authoritative documentation > > > There is also some information around on the mouse support for VT > > operations. It would be a real shame if all this went away as employees > > leave VMS before its documentation is made "open source". > > Well, if Microsoft can be forced to share its code, why not HP for > this? > > Eh? The escape sequences are hardly secret. What code is it you want > shared? Well, I meant this differently: There was some talk in this newsgroup way back about what should be done if at some point in the future HP decided to destroy VMS source code. I initially said the code should somehow be saved by law or whatever and some people here came down hard on me for that and I retracted. They said it's their code and they can do what they want with it. Well, is forcing Microsoft to share its code or access to it or whatever it is any different at this level? Certainly MS has been fined and hauled into court over its anti- competitive practices including doing what it wants with its own code. So my point is why is it okay to force MS to be less anti-competitive with what it does with "its own code" but not HP with VMS source code? That's what I meant. My apologies for not having established proper context. AEF ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:35:32 -0800 (PST) From: Neil Rieck Subject: Re: VT100 standards Message-ID: <24a781bc-a453-437b-a280-8ab6dd823879@m34g2000hsb.googlegroups.com> On Jan 29, 11:27=A0am, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > In article , Neil Rieck writes: > > Those guys used to come to the DECUS trade shows back in the day. =A0I had= a > number of conversations with the folks that claimed to be the engineers of= > the product. =A0I'd demonstrate the problems with a certain escape sequenc= e > but they never did anything to correct it. =A0What you did was throw away = a > perfectly good VT420 programmer's manual. > They fixed my problem then asked me to test their beta. When the code was released they sent me about $100 worth of swag. Neil Rieck Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:12:30 -0500 From: John Sauter Subject: VT100 standards and EDT Message-ID: Bill Gunshannon wrote: > I remember back in my pre-academia days...... > > Working on a VT-xxx emulator, written in TurboPascal, with a good friend > and having it continuously bomb out running EDT. We used a datascope > (anybody remember them?) and hand documented all the apparently un-documented > things that DEC did with their terminals. Of course, I would have thought > that all stopped when the ANSI standard was published, but knowing the vendor > involved, maybe not. :-) > > bill > EDT supported the VT52, VT100 and its successors. All of the escape sequences it used were in the manual for the appropriate terminal. The only unusual thing it did was use scrolling regions on the VT102 and later terminals. Because some emulators didn't support scrolling regions you could turn off that optimization. When EDT entered screen mode it sent a rather complex series of escape sequences to the terminal, designed to get it into a known state from however it might have been left by a previous program. However, everything it sent was in the manual, because the manual was the only information we had on how the terminals worked. John Sauter (John_Sauter@systemeyescomputerstore.com) ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jan 2008 03:47:50 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: VT100 standards and EDT Message-ID: <60aab6F1q5o77U1@mid.individual.net> In article , John Sauter writes: > Bill Gunshannon wrote: >> I remember back in my pre-academia days...... >> >> Working on a VT-xxx emulator, written in TurboPascal, with a good friend >> and having it continuously bomb out running EDT. We used a datascope >> (anybody remember them?) and hand documented all the apparently un-documented >> things that DEC did with their terminals. Of course, I would have thought >> that all stopped when the ANSI standard was published, but knowing the vendor >> involved, maybe not. :-) >> >> bill >> > > EDT supported the VT52, VT100 and its successors. All of the escape > sequences it used were in the manual for the appropriate terminal. Sorry to disappoint oyu, but that just is not true. we found a number of undocumented control sequences and we did eventually get the terminal emulator running I supose we could have stepped back to VT52, but the customer had their heart set on VT100. :-) > The only unusual thing it did was use scrolling regions on the VT102 and > later terminals. Because some emulators didn't support scrolling > regions you could turn off that optimization. > > When EDT entered screen mode it sent a rather complex series of escape > sequences to the terminal, designed to get it into a known state from > however it might have been left by a previous program. However, > everything it sent was in the manual, because the manual was the only > information we had on how the terminals worked. All I can relate is what we found with the datascope. I (obviously) don't remember the specifics as that was over 20 years ago but it would frequently send the cursor off to never never land trashing the screen thoroughly. After a number of sessions with the datascope we found control sequesnces and were able to send them to a real VT100 to discover what they actually did. It was a long drawn out process and we certainly would not have done it if it was all documented. Sadly, I doubt even one copy of that program or its source has survived. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.059 ************************