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From: info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac)
Newsgroups: fa.info-mac
Subject: Re: Reply to: macterminal
Message-ID: <1559@uw-beaver>
Date: Fri, 24-Aug-84 20:03:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: uw-beave.1559
Posted: Fri Aug 24 20:03:25 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 26-Aug-84 06:43:04 EDT
Sender: daemon@uw-beave
Organization: U of Washington Computer Science
Lines: 45

From: Dan Tappan <Tappan@BBNG.ARPA>
There are definite bugs in the Macterminal 0.5X vt100 handling, enough
that it is very difficult to use with Tops20 EMACS - it tends to leave
old garbage on the screen while moving around in the file. After
some playing around I've determined that the problem is that
Clear-to-end-of-screen (<esc>[J) and Clear-to-end-of-line (<esc>[K)
do not work if there is data in the mac's input buffer. To test it try
writing a program the repeatedly outputs something like

	<esc>[H<esc>[J<fill the screen with text>

A good part of the time (depending on the system load) it will
leave the screen blank except for the top line (which will be
the @i(2nd) line of the text that was on the screen).

I suspect that your changing the termcap entry to 'ovt100' 
invoked more padding and got around the bug.

While I'm beating on Macterminal there are also a few features
I don't like.

o	to get a <delete> you have to type <control>BS (or some other
	keys). This is inconvenient on a Tops20 when you have to
	use delete alot (and backspace rarely). There should be
	some way to switch the meanings of BS and <control>BS.

o	You can't save the state of 'Record lines off top'

o	There are no arrow keys. The 'option-mouse' almost works,
	except when you're in something like the TV editor which
	keeps the terminal cursor at the bottom of the screen
	at all times.

o	The 'option-mouse' function makes no attempt to optimize the
	cursor keys, in fact it usually takes the worst possible
	path, to move down one line in the same column it moves 
	back to column 0, THEN goes down, and forward to the right
	column.


(This is the version of Macterminal dated July 12,1984. Admittedly
it's a Beta test, hopefully these will be fixed by the real release.)

Dan
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