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From: mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: terminal emulation
Message-ID: <1040@spice.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Sun, 20-Jul-86 00:28:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: spice.1040
Posted: Sun Jul 20 00:28:49 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 24-Jul-86 06:04:51 EDT
Reply-To: mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi)
Distribution: net
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 86

Keywords:

Okay, folks.  I'm going to present all of you with an idea that I'm
surprised no one has thought of before.  I would follow through on
this idea myself, but since I am too poor to afford an Amiga to
develop software on I'll probably never get it done.  If you like
this idea, please steal it.

It amazes me how many people are offering terminal software that
emulates only a small number of terminals, such as vt-100, vt-52,
Televideo, Hazeltine, etc.  That's like offering a text editor that
has four different sets of key bindings and allows you to choose one
of them to use.  Emacs wasn't written around that philosophy, and I
don't think a terminal program should, either.  After all, a computer
is much more intelligent than the terminal it is trying to emulate.

First off, design a terminal emulator that has a large number of
"primitives" for manipulating the display.  Give them names like
"clear-to-end-of-line", "insert-line", "scroll-region", "cursor-up",
"clear-screen", etc.  Then provide a way in which a user can bind
control-character sequences to these functions.  Preferably, you want
to offer both an interactive mode and a simple programming language
to define these bindings.  The programming language has to be able to
allow the user to specify the order and format in which the screen
manipulation commands accept their parameters, in order to
accomodate the wide variety of terminals.  This way, users can define
their OWN terminal types.  Offer a few dozen or so common terminal
types with the package, including some very powerful terminal
definitions, so that I can use something more powerful than vt-52
mode with a system that supports more, such as Unix(tm).

Now, don't stop there.  Make the keyboard totally redefinable.  Allow
me to set up a keyboard macro and bind it to any key sequence on the
keyboard, not just the function keys.  Allow me to take my favorite
key macros, give them bindings, and place them in a pull-down menu
(updated on the fly, of course--does Intuition allow you to do
something like that?).  That way, I can do things on the remote host
as easily as selecting things off a menu with a standard Amiga
application.

Next, allow me to bind keyboard macros to mouse movement and button
clicks.  This way, I can bind ^B, ^F, ^N, and ^P to the movement of
the mouse, set-mark to the left-hand button and have a mouse-based
Emacs.  An arrangement can be worked out where the mouse pointer is
used for system activity when it is needed, e.g. on the menu strip
or in requestor boxes.

Next, offer as many file transfer protocols as can be supported.
XMODEM Christiansen (sp?), XMODEM CRC, Compuserve "B", Kermit, dumb
file transfer, and others I haven't thought of can be easily
included.  Why not provide a "hook" function so that programmers can
write code for their own protocols in the event one of them isn't
included?

Next, allow me to select things such as key click, screen colors,
font (You'll have to allow this one.  some terminals have their own
funky character sets), and interlace mode so I can have a 50-line
display (If I can brave the flicker).  I realize preferences allows
you to set some of these things, but I don't believe all settings
hold for custom screens.

Allow me to save all of the above customizations in an init file, so
I only have to bother with it once.  Better yet, allow me to bind
particular init files to entries in the auto-dial database (yes, the
program should have one of those too) so that the program
automatically adapts itself to whatever host I connect to.

I'm sure there's more things I could add to the specs above, but that
should be a good start.  If someone were to create a program of this
power, I guarantee it would sell like hotcakes.

The Amiga is a next-generation computer.  Is it too much to ask for
next-generation software as well?

-- 

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| Mike Portuesi								     |
| Carnegie-Mellon University Computer Science Department		     |
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