Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:30250 comp.sys.apollo:8698 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!boingo.med.jhu.edu!haven!uvaarpa!software.org!stluka From: stluka@software.org (Fred Stluka) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.sys.apollo Subject: Re: Type-ahead in unix Summary: Apollo DOMAIN does it great!! Message-ID: <1991Apr10.141518.2135@software.org> Date: 10 Apr 91 14:15:18 GMT References: <15686@smoke.brl.mil> <659@rufus.UUCP> <1991Apr9.112142.13195@robobar.co.uk> Sender: usenet@software.org (Usenet News/Mail Support) Organization: Software Productivity Consortium, Herndon VA Lines: 54 In article <1991Apr9.112142.13195@robobar.co.uk> ronald@robobar.co.uk (Ronald S H Khoo) writes (as part of an ongoing diuscussion in comp.unix.questions about how to best echo typeahead, for the sake of you comp.sys.apollo guys to which I am cross-posting): > Can someone explain how Rob Pike's Plan 9 stuff does *both* echoing > immediately *and* rearranging the display so that the output doesn't > have its appearance ruined? Sounds like the best of both worlds to me .. Not exactly an answer to Ronald's question, but along the same lines... The Apollo DOMAIN systems (running Unix) have a nice solution to this. The window is divided into 2 panes with a horizontal line between them. The top pane shows the command lines you have typed intermixed with the lines of output generated, in the usual style of a Unix system on which you have done no typeahead. The bottom pane is an editor window into which you can type commands. Ordinarily the bottom pane is one line long, and when you hit return the command you typed scrolls into the top pane. However, if your previous command has not yet completed, then the new command stays in the lower pane which grows one line longer so that you can continue to enter more commands. Each time you hit return, you get another line in the bottom pane. Each time a command completes, the top line of the bottom pane scrolls into the top pane and starts being processed. You get to see all of your typeahead, as well as a clear indicator of which commands have been processed so far. Also, the resulting top window shows a natural mix of input and output, with nothing scrambled. If you get ahead of the computer to the point that there are several command lines waiting to be processed, you can scroll back up to those lines and edit them, without affecting the lines which follow. You can cause this to happen intentionally, by hitting the HOLD key to direct the computer to stop processing commands (until you hit HOLD again), if you want to compose a series of commands before allowing any of them to be processed. You can also cut and paste, from any window including the output pane, into any window including the input pane. This makes it very easy to write your own command line recall mechanism, by defining a key to search backwards through the output pane for prompts and to copying the rest of the line you choose (the command) into the input pane. Unfortunately, HP has bought Apollo, and seems to plan to drop the DOMAIN Display Manager. Hopefully, someone else will pick up on the same idea, and it will become prevalent in Unix systems. --Fred -- Fred Stluka Internet: stluka@software.org Software Productivity Consortium UUNET: ...!uunet!software!stluka 2214 Rock Hill Rd, Herndon VA 22070 USA