Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsrgv.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!dave From: dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) Newsgroups: net.cog-eng Subject: How do you tell users to press RETURN every so often? Message-ID: <2679@utcsrgv.UUCP> Date: Wed, 9-Nov-83 17:35:48 EST Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.2679 Posted: Wed Nov 9 17:35:48 1983 Date-Received: Thu, 10-Nov-83 09:06:42 EST Organization: The Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto Lines: 67 I have a problem with a specific explanation for novices (law students). In the CAI I have developed which teaches law (income tax), there is a "comment" routine which invites the student to make comments, suggestions, criticisms, etc. It can be invoked by the student at any time in the program (by interrupting with ESC and then selecting "Comment" from a menu), and it is automatically invoked when the student signs off. (I.e., they can't get away from the machine without first giving their reactions to the session.) Comments are typed in and recorded line by line. To signify the end of a comment, the student types DONE on a line by itself. (I also accept "done", "Done" and ".") The problem I have is with people who aren't used to pressing RETURN at the end of every line, and type in whole paragraphs nonstop. Some of them are used to word processors where one does such things, and so of them just don't know any better and have no model to follow. The problem is that the tty driver on the 11/23 (v7) throws away a whole buffer without warning when over 256 chars are typed, and I lose most of the comment. What is an effective way of telling them to press RETURN? I currently have: OK, , type your comments in, and press RETURN at the end of each line. If you don't press RETURN after every few words, your comment will not be properly recorded. The last two lines are highlighted with a dazzling white background on the VT100. It seems that I'm still getting a few people who type away without pressing RETURN. I also get some who type like this because they don't know how many words is "a few". Any suggestions for better wording? I've thought of If you type more than 256 characters without pressing RETURN, ... or s/256/80/, but I don't want to start students counting letters (assuming they know what a "character" is). Should I use a technical means of bypassing the problem? I have considered: 1. Changing the VT100's to turn off wraparound at end of line, so the student would see the comment not being echoed and would press RETURN. (This probably wouldn't break anything else, but you can never be sure.) 2. Putting the tty line into cbreak mode, and implementing character-erase (backspace) in my comment-reading software. (Any lines over 256 chars which were typed in might give my editor problems, though, when I edit the file to add my annotations to the comments.) 3. Hacking the terminal driver to spit the 256 characters into a file somewhere rather than throwing them away. (!) 4. Hacking the terminal driver to use a buffer large enough to avoid the problem (say 1024 bytes). All comments appreciated, whether on the net or by direct mail. Dave Sherman The Law Society of Upper Canada (utcsrgv!lsuc!dave) Toronto -- {allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!dave