Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!seismo!ll-xn!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!walton From: walton@tybalt.caltech.edu (Steve Walton) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Diga! review Message-ID: <3621@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> Date: Thu, 13-Aug-87 13:28:14 EDT Article-I.D.: cit-vax.3621 Posted: Thu Aug 13 13:28:14 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 15-Aug-87 09:30:53 EDT References: <1052@vu-vlsi.UUCP> Sender: news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu Reply-To: walton@tybalt.caltech.edu (Steve Walton) Organization: California Institute of Technology Lines: 92 In article <1052@vu-vlsi.UUCP>, Wilson Cheung writes: > Aegis Diga! 1.0 As another new Diga! owner, I am largely in agreement with Wilson on his positive reaction to the package and in particular his praise for its ergonomics. >[Diga!] is a program that you can't run on 256K and will find >near impossible to multi-task in a 512K Amiga. In fact the release >disk is set up so that Diga! takes over the whole machine. I find this surprising. (I have 1 MB.) Does this mean that you don't get the screen depth arrangers if you run Diga! on 512K?? I've certainly never had trouble multitasking with it; in fact, it's friendlier than most. > Diga! currently supports about five different terminal emulations >including a tektronix 4010, a vt100, and even a talking terminal. The >tektronix terminal is one of Diga!'s premier features. It should be emphasized again that it emulates a *4010*, not a 4014. Really, it only has the MOVE and DRAW functions. What the world *really* needs is a 4125 emulator!! >Aegis >achieves low [interlace] flicker by choosing low contrast colors. >This, although fine for graphics, was near unacceptable for text. I find the interlace text colors (some pale color on black) to be very good, better than the dark gray background and black letters I use on my Workbench. Of course, I'm red-colorblind :-). >Diga!'s VT100 emulation failed to draw the screen correctly when logged >into the screen editor of my University's VAX. What's worse is that >they don't tell you how the VT100's keypad and function keys are mapped >unto the Amiga. There is a sheet of Diga! hints on Aegis's BBS (1-213-399-7316) which is required reading; wasn't it posted here recently? Anyway, you have to select 24 lines (overscan or not) and a transparent cursor before loading the VT100 emulation. Also, there is a genuine bug in the emulation: they got the escape sequences for turning autowrap on and off exactly backwards. After I tell my UN*X system I'm on a VT100, I have to manually turn Wrap back On, since ^[[?7h turns it off instead of on. Then it works fine, at least with GNU Emacs. Haven't tried VMS EDT or TPU (tm's of Digital Equipment). Yes, the keys are in a very strange place. I think nearly everyone will remap them. By the way, PF1, PF2, PF3, and PF4 on a VT100 send OP, OQ, OR, and OS, respectively. >Diga! also claims to support user created terminals >which is pretty misleading, since it amounts to submitting a written >request to Aegis to create the emulation for you. The emulation docs floating around have sources for all the custom emulations and instructions for your own; however, they are in C and communicate with the rest of Diga! via Exec messages, so you'll need to be a programmer. I see a market for add-on Diga! emulations, myself :-). >While existent the ASCII transfer does not have any settings for >character delays or end of line delays; it just sends the text at full >speed without pauses. I always have ^S/^Q (XON/XOFF) flow control enabled when I ASCII send anyway. You VMS'ers will have to do a SET TERMINAL/HOSTSYNC to tell the remote machine to send you ^S/^Q when it starts to overflow. On UN*X (or at least BSD) the command is "stty tandem". >Most [other communication] packages do have a function for hanging up >the modem but this never seems to work. This is because many >emulators assume all modems will hang up by dropping the DTR line >instead of sending a command such as the Hayes ATH command to hang it >up explicitly. Well, my Avatex 1200 doesn't have ATH or anything else like it, and only hangs up the phone when DTR is dropped. In fact, I thought all modems did this and some, in addition, had a hangup command for "by hand" invocation. When you tell Dave Wecker's VT100 V2.6 to hang up, it drops DTR. >[After putting PF1-PF4 on F1-F4], I have 46 function keys which I >can't use for much more than sending one line strings, any ideas? Yes. The aforementioned Diga! hints file points out that you can put a carriage return into a function key sequence by hitting Ctrl-M (NOT the Return key!). You're still limited to 80 characters per key, though, I think. Steve Walton, guest as walton@tybalt.caltech.edu AMETEK Computer Research Division, ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu "Long signatures are definitely frowned upon"--USENET posting rules