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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcrware!jejones
From: jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: paging in the terminal driver
Message-ID: <550@mcrware.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Oct-87 11:54:41 EST
Article-I.D.: mcrware.550
Posted: Tue Oct 27 11:54:41 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Oct-87 07:16:51 EST
References: <573@elxsi.UUCP> <682@its63b.ed.ac.uk> <796@quacky.UUCP> <421@nuchat.UUCP>
Organization: Microware Systems Corp., Des Moines, Ia.
Lines: 35
Keywords: output pagination
Summary: read [xt]mode docs--you can turn it off.

<insert your favorite disclaimer here>

In article <421@nuchat.UUCP>, steve@nuchat.UUCP (Steve Nuchia) writes:
> The default configuration of OS/9 for serial terminals pauses.  It
> is a royal pain in the %^&((*&, especially since OS/9 commands tend to
> be of the old fashioned verbose "announce every move" kind.
> ...
> There is no describing the feeling of coming back from a meeting
> or extended coffee expedition to find that the compile you fired
> off half an hour ago only got through the first screenful of
> compiler version number announcements.  GRRRR!

I'm not sure why this is in comp.arch, but to correct possible misconceptions:

Device descriptors for SCF devices (i.e.  those controlled by the
Sequential Character file manager) under OS-9 have two fields important
to this discussion; one tells whether to pause after a certain number of
lines goes by, and the other contains the "certain number." I've not
stared in detail at how SCF decides about this, but it is smart enough
that if you sit and type CR at the shell, it does not pause after the
nth CR--the only gripe I personally have about it is that it doesn't
notice when a line wraps around, so that you can lose stuff off the top
sometimes. 

One can tweak these settings either by modifying the device descriptor
module or by means of either of two utilities, tmode and xmode.  (Tmode
affects the path descriptor, which contains a copy of the salient piece
of the device descriptor, while xmode mungs the loaded device descriptor
module.) Indeed, one could put "tmode .2 nopause" in one's .login file
if one is using the OS-9/68000 shell (.2 says "mung path #2", needed for
the .login file since .0, the default, would be the .login file--not
what one wants to mess with).  There's also something to be said for the
"-q" option on cc. 

		James Jones