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From: bcw@rti.rti.org (Bruce Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Win. Terminal Emulation Problem
Summary: Windows Terminal is not a good VT100 emulator
Message-ID: <1991Feb16.022434.26688@rti.rti.org>
Date: 16 Feb 91 02:24:34 GMT
References: <3530@ac.dal.ca>
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC
Lines: 41

In article <3530@ac.dal.ca>, mclarke@ac.dal.ca writes:
> Has anyone else had problems with editing keys like
> backspace, cursor keys, etc. while using the Windows Terminal
> program connected to a Vax, emulating a VT 100 term.
> 
> After trying all variations of communications choices I have to 
> concede that it doesn't work for me.  I am using a null modem.

I assume that you are probably trying to connect to VAX/VMS, which
wants you to be able to generate a DEL (hex 7f) when you hit the
backspace key.  (Actually VMS finds both BS [hex 08] and DEL to
be useful characters with VERY different meanings - but that's a
different story).  Unfortunately the Windows Terminal program
doesn't have a setting to allow you to generate the DEL character
by just typing the backspace key.

The Windows Terminal program is not a terribly good VT100 emulator
program.  There are numerous bugs (the inability to generate a DEL
is one of them - this used to be available but inconvenient under
Windows 2.11, but seems to have gone away in 3.0).  The VT100 special
graphics font isn't all there either (relatively minor), and there 
is a problem with insert/overstrike mode that will trash your command 
line if you use command line editing on VAX/VMS (significant
annoyance).  I'm sure there are other problems but I haven't tried 
to compile an exhaustive list - sometime when I have nothing better 
to do I might run my VT100 torture test programs and files against 
it;  I suspect it will fail miserably, since I know that it fails on 
a lot of the easy stuff. On the whole it is tremendously better than 
the version of Terminal for Windows version 2.11, which says more 
about Windows 2.11 than it does about the Terminal program.

(BTW, I've written a VTxxx emulator for a commercial product for a 
non-PC-based system, which _does_ work with these tests, so I have 
some idea what I'm talking about).

There are numerous alternatives - both shareware and commercial.
I'd suggest you try some of them out & see which one you like (this
is a subject that, like editors, can be somewhat of a religous issue
after the obvious bugs have been removed from the product).

						Bruce C. Wright