Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ucbvax!LF-SERVER-2.BBN.COM!jr
From: jr@LF-SERVER-2.BBN.COM (John Robinson)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: GNU Emacs mucking with stty settings
Message-ID: <8801151538.AA17911@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 15 Jan 88 14:47:38 GMT
References: <586@necis.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: jr@BBN.COM
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Organization: The ARPA Internet
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>> 	1) Is anything going to break if Emacs doesn't see a character
>> 	   size of 8 with no parity?
> 
>> 	2) If not, does anybody know why this code is here?

Some terminals and workstations generate an 8-bit characer set.  The
8th bit is often set using a "meta" shift key (called different things
in different hardware; on the Sun it is "left" and "right").
Disabling the 8th bit will lose the meta half of these terminals'
character sets.

The VT220 is an example of a terminal that uses an 8-bit characrer set
(in its native mode).

As to how to fix this, the code commented out has to be enabled
dynamically based on something like a terminal type, or ideally a
termcap component (but none seems to be in the standard set).  Since
the code in question is in the sysV stuff, I'll have to stop here (no
expertise).  Maybe it should be more careful to check whether the
terminal was checking parity when emacs started, and preserve things
in this case.

/jr
jr@bbn.com or jr@bbn.uucp