Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mcnc!uvaarpa!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.terminals
Subject: Re: Why magic cookies?
Message-ID: <15421@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 10 Mar 91 21:47:16 GMT
References: <1991Mar09.215153.27776@eecs.wsu.edu>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 8

In article <1991Mar09.215153.27776@eecs.wsu.edu> rnelson@yoda.UUCP (Roger Nelson) writes:
>1. Why did terminal manufactures go with magic cookies?

Cheaper hardware implementation (less RAM required).
They could get away with this when selling to contracts that called
for certain video attributes but did not further constrain them to
be provided on a per-character basis without loss of displayable
characters.  If you're writing terminal specs, watch out for this.