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From: dgc@julia.math.ucla.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Slow Terminal emulator
Keywords: terminal, emulator, vt100,
Message-ID: <2150@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 15 Jan 90 23:06:17 GMT
Sender: news@MATH.UCLA.EDU
Reply-To: dgc@MATH.UCLA.EDU (David G. Cantor)
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Lines: 44
Expires:
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Followup-To:

I have just received my new NeXT and, with one significant exception, it
works very well indeed, just as I expected it would.

The exception is using it as a terminal over a telephone line.  For
years I have used a Mac as my local terminal in this way.  I would send
and receive messages and read the news on the a (Sun-based network)
using the vi editor.

I tried doing the same thing with my NeXT, using "tip" and was most
disappointed.  Because the NeXT (apparently) emulates a DEC vt100 and no
more, the vi editor does not shift characters to the right of the cursor
to the right when in "insert" mode (because vt100's don't have an insert
character sequence) It is terribly slow when deleting or inserting lines
near the top of the screen (there is no insert or delete character
sequence) because most of the screen has to be rewritten.

The latter problem doesn't occur locally, even though vi must be
redrawing the screen for each deleted lign.

I have conceived of the following solutions:

1.  Plug my old mac (or a terminal like a Wyse 50) into port B, with
    "getty" running, login and then use tip to connect to my remote
    system.

2.  Write a terminal emulator and tell vi (via a TERMCAP environmental
    variable) that the four commands {insert, delete} {character, line|
    exist.

3.  Become a UUCP site and have the mail and news both delivered
    directly to my home machine

The first two of these alternatives seem a little ridiculous, while the
third entails more work than I want to do.  Is there any other solution
to this problem?  Or, has someone already written a terminal emulator? 
Or perhaps a "terminal window" which understand the missing commands?

dgc

David G. Cantor
Department of Mathematics
University of California at Los Angeles
Internet:  dgc@math.ucla.edu
UUCP:      ...!{randvax, sdcrdcf, ucbvax}!ucla-cs!dgc