Aucbvax.5896
fa.info-vax
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!info-vax
Thu Jan 21 16:50:54 1982
Terminal drivers on Unix and VMS
>From decvax!duke!bcw@Berkeley Thu Jan 21 16:45:14 1982

This is in response to Terry Laskodi (ucbvax!teklabs!terryl)
discussing terminal drivers on VMS and Unix.  There are several
errors of fact in that article which I would like to correct:

1)  It is possible to change one's mode on VMS so that special
   characters are not processed.  It is also possible to turn
   off character echo, without special privilege.  It does
   require special privileges to be able to set terminal
   characteristics permanently so that all future users of
   the terminal will get those characteristics forever and
   ever amen.  This seems like a reasonable restriction.

2)  Although it isn't possible to change the meta-characters
   on VMS, it isn't always possible to do this under Unix
   either:  the \ character is an example.  This character
   can be extremely annoying, as there are times when it
   would be nice for the escape mechanism to go away so that
   it can be used as a normal character.

3)  The choice of turning form feeds into line feeds is not a
   bad choice -- the number is computed from the page size of
   the terminal and is done for the benefit of hardcopy output
   terminals.  You at least want the ability to turn form feed
   characters into something innocuous:  many terminals use a
   single form-feed character to mean screen clear.

4)  I'm not sure that you want a terminal driver which just
   dumps characters, even control characters, from the keyboard
   into a file.  At least there should be a way to turn this
   off -- it can be extremely annoying.  I have spent a lot of
   time on an OS (which shall go nameless, but I'm not thinking
   of Unix) which did just that, and when you tried to compile
   something you'd get lots of compilation errors ... and the
   offending characters were turned iwto ?'s.  Getting rid of
   them can be a real headache.  On the terminal which I had to
   use, generating extraneous control characters was just about
   the easiest thing in the world.

As far as terminal drivers go, I don't see much real difference
between Unix and VMS.  Both have some minor glitches and some
minor advantages, but both are much nicer to use than a lot of
software I've met.

                       Bruce C. Wright @ Duke University

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