Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!burl!codas!uflorida!gatech!hubcap!rchampe
From: rchampe@hubcap.UUCP (Richard Champeaux)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Amiga Keyboard Buffer
Summary: I don't think that terminal programs are faster than key repeat speed.
Message-ID: <1375@hubcap.UUCP>
Date: 12 Apr 88 14:56:18 GMT
References: <3138@gryphon.CTS.COM> <2021@amiga.UUCP> <1815@sugar.UUCP>
Organization: Clemson University, Clemson, SC
Lines: 38

In article <1815@sugar.UUCP>, peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
> In article <3138@gryphon.CTS.COM> bilbo@pnet02.cts.com (Bill Daggett) writes:
> >I was wondering if there was any hidden, unknown, easy, hard, etc. way of
> >clearing the keyboard buffer.  A programming friend said NO and WHY.
> 
> For your situation, namely going to sleep on the space bar and finding
> you've skipped all your news, I don't think that clearing the Amiga's
> keyboard buffer will help. Terminal programs on the Amiga are generally
> way ahead of your keystrokes, so by the time you've woken up to the problem
> all the typeahead is either in the serial.device or even in the raw queue
> on your UNIX system.
> 
> -- Peter da Silva      `-_-'      ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter

     As I mentioned earlier I usually have my key repeat speed at maximum
because CLI has no problem keeping up with it (particularly if you're running
something like FastFonts.)  When I hold down a key, it prints on the screen
much faster than it ever could at 1200 baud.  Although a good many keystrokes
have most likely aready been sent to the UNIX system, the Amiga is most likely
still pumping them out after you release the key. (a good way to tell would
be to look at the transmit LED on your modem.  My modem has no such LEDs
so I haven't been able to look)  This question is much broader than just
terminal programs, however.  As I mentioned in my previous message, the word
processor that I use is rather slow.  Although I've trained myself not to now,
I would often hold down the backspace key when trying to delete a sentence.
When I released the key, the word processor would continue to backspace over
three pages of text. (This is no joke, it has happened many times)  Also
when playing Hack, I have held down the search key for too long and have
starved to death as a result (this too I've trained my self not to do).  Such
behavior from a keyboard device is not desirable.  An unlimited keyboard buffer
is neither necessary or desirable.  I would like to see a limit setable through
preferences on the next release of AmigaDos.  Hell, even the serial port buffer
has a setable limit.  At least, I recently played with changing the serial port
configuration through preferences and I seem to remember seeing a gadget for
setting a buffer limit.  I believe mine was set to 150 characters.

Rich Champeaux
Clemson University