Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mandrill!hal!ncoast!allbery From: allbery@ncoast.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.terminals,comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: termcap/terminfo stupidity? Message-ID: <4476@ncoast.UUCP> Date: Sun, 6-Sep-87 20:11:59 EDT Article-I.D.: ncoast.4476 Posted: Sun Sep 6 20:11:59 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 8-Sep-87 00:56:36 EDT References: <1894@encore.UUCP> Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) Followup-To: comp.terminals Organization: Cleveland Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, Oh Lines: 37 Xref: utgpu comp.terminals:395 comp.unix.wizards:3834 As quoted from <1894@encore.UUCP> by loverso@encore.UUCP (John LoVerso): +--------------- | Can someone in-the-know tell me why magic-cookie glitches are not fully | described in either termcap or terminfo? Termcap lets you specify | a magic cookie for standout or underline (sg,ug); terminfo only | has a capability for one magic cookie value (xmc). Neither try to | describe cookies on attributes (blink, bold, dim, invis, rev). +--------------- Wyse terminals are properly described as "even more braindamaged than Televideos". (You want _real_ brain damage? I have a Teleray 1061! You have two options for attributes: _asymmetrical_ invisible magic cookies, or symmetrical but visible (dual parallel vertical bars) ones. The standard termcap uses invisible attributes and fixes the asymmetry by including an extra space at appropriate points and setting sg#2!!!) Wyse has other problems. I can hang a Wyse 50 to the point that the power has to be cycled to fix it by sending it VT100 control codes. (Happened a lot at TDI: they have both, and move them around periodically. And no reason for it in the control codes; [ is a cursor position command.) I have yet to see a Wyse terminal with the yoke on straight (the text looks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa). The stupid handling of attributes has already been mentioned; with memory so cheap nowadays, *why* can't they release a terminal which does attributes right??? After all, it's not as if they don't build new models constantly -- they sell them to Altos; seen the "Altos V"? RS422, forsooth! And of course they had a chance to do it right with the 60, and didn't.... I, personally, will take a cheap PC clone running Procomm over a Wyse so-called "VT100 compatible" any day. It's cheaper, and the attributes are done _right_. -- Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc {{harvard,mit-eddie}!necntc,well!hoptoad,sun!mandrill!hal}!ncoast!allbery ARPA: necntc!ncoast!allbery@harvard.harvard.edu Fido: 157/502 MCI: BALLBERY <> All opinions in this message are random characters produced when my cat jumped (-: up onto the keyboard of my PC. :-)