Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!hplabs!hpfcso!hpfelg!koren
From: koren@hpfelg.HP.COM (Steve Koren)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Anybody know how to do this stuff?
Message-ID: <13920036@hpfelg.HP.COM>
Date: 7 Jan 90 19:31:28 GMT
References: <13920020@hpfelg.HP.COM>
Organization: HP Elec. Design Div. -FtCollins
Lines: 34

>   Does Sksh use ConMan? One of the conman devices (used to be cnd:, but
> I think 1.3c calls it cnn:) does non-blocking type-ahead. Lots of VMS 

No, right now it simply uses the AmigaDos console device and sends ANSI
codes to it.  Does ConMan support ANSI control codes?

I'd prefer to obtain the desired non-blocking behavior with the AmigaDos
console device.  I'm trying to keep SKsh as independent as possible of
non-AmigaDos software.  I already depend on ARP for binary execution (since
there was no reliable way to accomplish this in AmigaDos), so even now
SKsh cannot be used on a stock Amiga until the user finds ARP.
There has been alot of confusion from people who have a really old arp
and try to use SKsh.  If 1.4 brings a way to execute external binaries
reliably, I will remove the ARP dependency from SKsh.  There is nothing
wrong with ARP, but using it means that 1) SKsh will break if ARP goes
away or breaks, 2) SKsh will break if user's have an old version of ARP,
and 3) users must know how where to get ARP.

> users asked for this, and I really like it. Does the real ksh do this?

Yes, the real ksh does this (at least on some systems).  I like it too.

> the console is ready to read. However if the program throws the console
> into raw mode you lose what you typed. 

Right now, SKsh does put the console in raw mode sometimes.  It has to
in order to accomplish the command line editing functions.

So, does anyone know how to accomplish non-blocking input with the
normal AmigaDos console device?

  thanks,

     - steve