Msg: 5330 *Conference*

08-16-94 00:33:34

From: COMET _

To : ANDREW DILLER

Subj: REPLY TO MSG #5322 (SPEEDY DISPLAY)

Yep, that's the only emulator program I've seen for the m100.  I believe it
works faster than 300 baud, but the screen gets buffered and not displayed
until it's built.  There was a patch to the original VT100 emulation code to
add ANSI-emulation; I don't think ADM emulation, per se, was added.
     In regards to 9600 baud being a Unix standard for direct-connect
terminals... it depends.  It depends on which Unix computer you are using, and
typically the speed defaults are configurable.  I know VAXen running VMS are
configurable this way, and Unix has been around a fairly long time, back when
hardcopy terminals were commonplace--I don't believe there's a documented
official Unix default, but I understand that it's probably a de facto setting
nowadays.  But I wouldn't pin this common setting on the OS!
     Since the 8 lines by 40 character screeen couldn't really be made to
display 80 characters and 24 lines using human-readible glyphs, having the
Model 100 provide a viewport onto a virtual VT100 display seems to make sense.
Writing an assembly-language program would allow the m100 to not have to send
so many XON/XOFF sequences.  The entire screen can be painted in about .2
seconds, I think.  :-) You might want to use a larger buffer size than
standard--I think Mo Budlong may have done something along this line.
     If you write up such a machine-language program, with aMODEM support and
all, for an option ROM, I'm sure that Rick Hanson here would happily market it.
I'd thought of doing such a project myself, but I'm not [yet
] experienced enough (IMHO) in m100 assembly routines and programming to
undertake this project.  :-)