Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: ted@braggvax.arpa
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: 386i DOS windows
Message-ID: <8901051410.AA01187@braggvax.arpa>
Date: 13 Jan 89 00:09:28 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
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Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: Thu, 05 Jan 89 09:10:40 EST
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 98, message 7 of 13

>Can DOS windows be opened via telnet, or even over serial lines?...

Yes.

Unfortunately it is not very useful.  You can start a DOS session in
telnet or however you are logged in outside of Sunview by typing

	dos -w

The catch is that you only get output that goes through the standard DOS
I/O calls, which most applications, and many utilities tend to bypass for
direct screen memory access.  So, you can run something like the MIX
Powerc compiler with no problem, but something like the Turbo C integrated
environment produces a blank screen (probably the command line version
would work, but I haven't tried it).  If you start up an application like
this, and it has an abort sequence that can be sent from an ascii
keyboard, you can exit it, otherwise you are hosed.  (And of course, you
are generally hosed on things like ALT keys even for "well behaved"
programs).

It seems to me that SUN could provide a curses like emulator for remote
DOS programs (which would help with ones that do flashy text menus and
windows, but no graphics per se), but for now, if it's other than plain
vanilla, forget it.

	Ted Nolan
	ted@braggvax.arpa