Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!hplabs!hpda!hp-sde!hpfcdc!rjn
From: rjn@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Bob Niland)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: GNUemacs and HP2392
Message-ID: <5570041@hpfcdc.HP.COM>
Date: 14 May 88 16:08:14 GMT
References: <4698@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Organization: HP Ft. Collins, Co.
Lines: 32

re: "You won't change my mind, and I don't care to try and change yours."

Compared to most usenet "position statements", this is refreshingly direct.
Thank you for sharing your experiences with us.  And now, for those who
might be curious about the whole situation...

> After much struggling and hair pulling, we have come to the conclusion
> that while the HP2392 is a nice terminal, HP mode (which is more or less
> the escape codes used on most all HP terminals) suck pathetically. 
> Worst of all being the lame implementation of video attributes. 
> Everything we have (including EMACS) works 500% better when we switch
> the terminals to ANSI mode and use either the "ansi" terminfo driver, or
> "ansi-d", an enhanced version we made for ourselves.

The native command language of HP terminals is about 15 years old, and
predates both formal and defacto industry standards.  It has survived out of
respect for compatibility.  Applications written in 1975 for the HP 2640A
terminal should run on the new 700/92 without modification.  This is very
important for our commercial (HP 3000/MPE) customers in particular, who have
a huge investment in aging applications.  In some cases, I hear, they only
have their object code, and cannot modify it for new terminal types.

On the other hand, there now are both formal (ANSI) and defacto (DEC)
industry standard command languages in widespread use in the industry.
Consequently, native-mode HP terminals, for the past 5 years or so, have
included EM/52 and ANSI modes.

Several members of the new HP 700 family speak no HP escape sequences at
all.  The 700/22 is DEC-only, the 700/44 adds ANSI to that, and the 700/41
and /43 speak WYSE, ADM, Televideo, etc.

Bob Niland   ARPA:rjn%hpfcrjn@hplabs.HP.COM   UUCP:[ihnp4|hplabs]!hpfcla!rjn