Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!oberon!sm.unisys.com!ism780c!mikep
From: mikep@ism780c.isc.com (Michael A. Petonic)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Character echo at read time
Message-ID: <15410@ism780c.isc.com>
Date: 8 Sep 88 08:45:36 GMT
References: <1059@nmtsun.nmt.edu>
Reply-To: mikep@ism780c.UUCP (Michael A. Petonic)
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp., Santa Monica CA
Lines: 36

In article <1059@nmtsun.nmt.edu> warner@hydrovax.nmt.edu (M. Warner Losh) writes:
 >In article <371@polyof.UUCP>, john@polyof.UUCP ( John Buck ) writes...
 >>I'm curious to know: do you folks who tolerate "invisible" type-ahead
 >>ever make mistakes in typing commands (ahead)?  If so, when do you detect
 >>the mistakes?  Before it's too late?
 >
 >This tends to be less of a problem than you might think.  "Type behind"
 >as one person called it is great.  It allows you to do things like have
 >a smart terminal driver that remembers the last thing you typed so you can
 >go back and edit it (not like that !$ stuff in csh, but less powerful).

Being able to edit "remembered" lines is totally unrelated to type-ahead
and type-behind methods of echoing.  For example, look at KSH.

 >I make mistakes with the invisible type ahead.  Many times I do catch it
 >before it's too late.  With VMS you can do a ^X anytime the terminal is
 >not in "raw" mode and clear the current type ahead buffer.  How does one
 >do this under unix?  (Really, I'd like to know, but I don't think it can
 >be done if you have entered several commands...)

On BSD systems, there is a key (default ^O) that flushes the input
queue.  It is specified by: ``stty flush <char>''.  Yes, it works if 
you have typed several lines ahead.

 >>   How do you see what you are correcting?
 >How do you see what you are correcting when you type the password to your
 >system.  It's the same sort of deal.

Yes, but a password only has to be typed once per session, while
presumably, you'd do type-ahead more than once a session.

-MikeP
-- 
Michael A. Petonic				mikep@ism780c.isc.com

	       ``Have a heart... But don't take mine.''