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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: paging in the terminal driver
Message-ID: <8865@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 31-Oct-87 19:38:19 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.8865
Posted: Sat Oct 31 19:38:19 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Oct-87 19:38:19 EST
References: <573@elxsi.UUCP> <682@its63b.ed.ac.uk> <796@quacky.UUCP> <3619@sol.ARPA>, <1444@osiris.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 16
Keywords: output pagination

> Remember, guys ? Keep it simple. Keep it modular ? There used to be
> some silly operating system or another designed along those lines.

And if you look at even the earliest versions of said operating system,
you'll find interesting code in the tty driver which essentially provides
a complete virtual-terminal system for hardcopy terminals popular at Bell
Labs circa 1975.  (For those who haven't yet caught on, study things like
the definitions of some of the delay settings.)  Adding pagination is a
(minimal) attempt at updating this to better match more modern terminals.
The theoretical objections (which do have some merit) rapidly fall by the
wayside when you try the idea for a while.  This job really ought to be
done by the terminal, but the kernel is the closest we can come to that
with existing (cheap) hardware.
-- 
PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today.    |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry