Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!ohstpy!jones
From: JONES@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu (Bob Jones [VAX-Man] Home: (614)447-0214)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.vms
Subject: Re: emacs on the VAX???
Message-ID: 
Date: 18 Jul 89 02:34:10 GMT
References:    
Lines: 50

In article , jv@mh.nl (Johan Vromans) writes:
> In article  JONES@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu (Bob Jones [VAX-Man] Home: (614)447-0214) writes:
>> The only documented difference between termcap TERMTABLE.EXE is that
>> TERMTABLE.EXE does not support "padding" and termcap does.
> 
> The last time I tried TERMTABLE.EXE I could not describe a terminal
> which used zero-based cursor addressing (e.g. HOME = move 0 0 instead
> of 1 1). I then gave up forever.
> 
> Anyway, if your terminal type is in termcap (lots of them are already
> there!), just $DEFINE EMACS_TERM "whatever_your_terminal_is" and run
> emacs. If it's not in there, it is often esy to add it.
> 
    I now understand that perhaps termcap is much better to use than termtable.
exe. My problem, which may be solved soon, is that we don't have emacs on the
VAX here. It is clear to me that emacs uses its own terminal definitions and
doesn't rely on termtable.exe or SMG. This is good.

    Here at OHSTPY, the termtable.exe is set up mostly for DEC terminals.
When I started wrestling with termtable so that it would understand an old
ADM5 terminal, I went to termcap in UNIX and translated the few very limited
entries into the format used by termtable. I was only partially successful.
I could not get the video attributes to work properly [eg:  G is a toggle
for light [invisible?] and normal attributes] and so I "gave up" and just
left that entry out. Oh well. It does seem that DEC wants VMS people to use 
[and buy] only DEC terminals - this is unlike UNIX.

    I am new to the NEWS network [and computers in general]. I must apologize
for the grammar mistakes in my previous posting. I pressed ^Z and then
"proof read" the entry and saw the mistakes. :-)

    Let me comment on the zero-based cursor addressing. The ADM terminal
used a similar addressing? To move the cursor to the upper left hand corner
we need to send =    where there are two blanks after the equal sign.
To move it to the row=1, col=2; the sequence is =!"  recall ! is char(33)
and " is char(34). the termcap entry is cm=\E=%+ %+  where a space follows
each plus sign. The corresponding TERMTABLE.TXT entry is:

            set_cursor_abs = "$=(%1+31)(%2+31)"

It took me a long time to get this right! This is really getting off the
subject. Oh well.

========================================================================== 
JONES@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu (Bob Jones [VAX-Man] Home: (614)447-0214)

   Bob Jones
   POBox 3194
   Columbus, OH 43210                                                    
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