Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU!LEICHTER
From: LEICHTER@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU ("Jerry Leichter ", LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: re: Remote terminal through DECnet from application
Message-ID: <8805170948.AA05356@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 15 May 88 18:34:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 35


	I'm looking for a way to create a remote terminal, which emulates a
	hardwired terminal on a DECnet node.  So on one node I'd like to have
	a device called _RTAx:  which connects, through DECnet, to a terminal
	TTAx: on another DECnet node.  Then I want to use the SMG$xxxx library
	calls to do single character i/o on it.

	In the VMS manuals, the only way that it's described is through the
	DCL command SET HOST.  After using this command, a new device with the
	name _RTAx:  is created on the host to which I'm switching; and a
	DECnet link is set up to an object called CTERM in the REMACP image.
	I can't find any description of this in the VMS manuals.

	I wonder, does anyone know of a way to do this kind of thing  from
	within an application?

It's not entirely clear from your description what you are trying to accomp-
lish, but going by the final question, it looks as if you want, in effect,
a "callable SET HOST" facility.

No such thing exists; you'd have to write it yourself.  I'm not sure whether
the CTERM protocol is among the published DECnet protocols; it has certainly
been implemented as part of various 3rd-party DECnet implementations for
non-DEC machines.  It's NOT a simple protocol.

The simplest approach may be to spawn a subprocess on a pseudoterminal, using
one of the various PTY drivers that have floated around the net and DECUS (and
that have finally become fairly solid and usable tools), then send through a
SET HOST command.  Ugly, but a lot less work than any alternative I can think
of.

Then again, as I said, it's not clear what you are trying to accomplish.
Perhaps you really should look at your whole application again to see if there
isn't a better approach.
							-- Jerry