Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!mouse
From: mouse@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (der Mouse)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Utility to print terminal memory.
Message-ID: <1991May30.083643.25468@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu>
Date: 30 May 91 08:36:43 GMT
References: <15710005@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com> <15710006@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com>
Organization: McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines
Lines: 41

In article <15710006@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com>, markw@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Mark Wolfe) writes:

> Well, I have my answer, and I was very surprised at the responses I
> got.  Most of the "wizards" said this was impossible to do in most
> cases and difficult at best.  I guess terminals with their own memory
> are rare outside HP (hah!).

No, terminals with their own memory are not rare; every terminal must
have somewhere to store the stuff displayed on the screen, and most use
ordinary RAM for this.

What *is* comparatively rare is terminals that provide any way for the
computer on the other end of the serial line to get at this data.  And
of those that do, the required actions vary widely.

> It turns out all you need to do is issue 'lp' so it's reading from
> stdin and use the cursor control keys to send the cursor to the point
> on the screen you want to copy and hit enter until you've printed
> what you need, then control D to stop.  All this is obviously very
> standard stuff.

Not at all.  There is not a single terminal in use here where
attempting what you describe will do anything useful.  Some of the
terminals don't have cursor keys; on those that do the above will
generally result in printing a copy of the sequences generated by the
cursor keys (with interspersed newlines); on the rest, I believe it
will result in printing nothing but newlines.  One of the terminals we
use does have the capability to do what you want, but it requires magic
escape sequences (not useful for anything else) and a program on the
host to make sense of the mishmash generated by the terminal.

> I think some of you should go back to wizard school.

This is undoubtedly true, but you've brought no arguments to bear to
support it.

					der Mouse

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