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From: valentin@cbmvax.UUCP (Valentin Pepelea)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech,comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Should I go commercial?
Message-ID: <8263@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 25 Oct 89 00:59:34 GMT
References: <8910240722.AA22726@postgres.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: valentin@cbmvax.UUCP (Valentin Pepelea)
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 48

In article <8910240722.AA22726@postgres.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@POSTGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes:

>	I have also written a couple of new programs.  One especially,
>    Getty, is really awesome.  It sits on the serial.device (you can
>    run a getty for each of your serial ports) and waits for incomming
>    calls.  It is completely passive to any program that uses SERF_SHARED.
>    It deals with connecting, Login:, Password:, and runs an arbitrary
>    program specified from a Passwd file.

Great, this is something really needed. You see, the best language a BBS should be
be written in is REXX. Why? Because all a BBS does is present menus and type up
files to the user. Sometimes it also shuffles files around. It is to this
purpose that macro s(scripting) languages such as REXX excel.

On the IBM mainframe I used at university, the news and mail readers were all
written in REXX. And they blow the UNIX rn readers away.

And here we see that even the password requester should be written in REXX. All
that Getty should be doing is calling the PASSWD program, giving it the name,
unit number, parity and baud of the connecting call.

>	The Getty takes all the work out of writing a serial port
>    interaction program in that it deals with accepting the calls,
>    the CONNECT message, getting the baud rate right, etc...  and
>    it deals with the disconnect sequence after the program it runs
>    exits.

Wonderful! Now get the password requester out of there!

>    Lastly, I have written a UUSER: device which works like AUX: but is
>    really meant for programs run from Getty.... It allows you to write
>    very general programs that use stdin and stdout to talk to the
>    serial port in a relatively clean fashion instead of having to 
>    write complicated serial.device routines, which is what most people
>    do now.  This is what my BBS will use to communicate.  Since stdio
>    is used the BBS could be run from a CLI just as easily as from the
>    Getty.

Neat, but I'd say that AUX: should handle the problem right anyway. You have
to explain a little more just what exactly UUSER: does that AUX: does not.

Valentin
-- 
"An  operating  system  without        Name:    Valentin Pepelea
 virtual memory is an operating        Phone:   (215) 431-9100
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                                       Bitnet:  cbmvax!valentin@uunet.uu.net
         - Ancient Inca Proverb        Claimer: these aren't Commodore thoughts