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From: hedrick@TOPAZ.RUTGERS.EDU (Charles Hedrick)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re:  RCTE
Message-ID: <8709261909.AA10409@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Date: Sat, 26-Sep-87 15:09:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.8709261909.AA10409
Posted: Sat Sep 26 15:09:09 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Sep-87 11:45:44 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 33

On Unix, my impression is that we have roughly three modes:
  - normally software lets the system do line editing.  In this
	mode, the terminal server could do the editing and
	then pass whole lines without echo
  - raw or cbreak mode is used by a few programs that do screen
	handling.  It is specifically enabled by a system call,
	which would give the kernel a chance to trigger
	negotiation of a different telnet mode.  THis would
	be full duplex, char at a time.
  - some screen-oriented programs are used enough that it is
	worth modifying them to give the terminal server
	instructions.  Emacs is probably the best example.
	The main screen-oriented programs I use are emacs nad
	vnews.  Vnews is not worth doing, I suspect, since
	normally the characters typed a single letters anyway,
	so not much improvement is to be had.  I understand
	that Encore already has support for emacs in their
	terminal servers.  I don't know what they are doing,
	but experiments were done with TOPS-20 Emacs based
	on the concept that Emacs should let the temrinal
	server echo, and should specify two things: a bit
	map - when any of these characteris is typed, the
	server should go back into char at a time mode, and
	let Emacs respond to that character; a count - when
	that many characters had been typed, ditto.  The idea
	was that most people spent most of their time typing
	text at the end of a line.  Emacs would set the bitmap
	to all of the command chars (in effect, all but printing
	characters), and the count to the number of characters
	left on the line (since Emacs will have to do some
	screen management when you reach the end of the line).
	probably Encore is in a position to make additional
	suggestions, but this seems a reasonable place to start.