mclure@sri-unix (08/18/82)
#N:sri-unix:1000018:000:378 sri-unix!mclure Aug 18 12:31:00 1982 My major complaint about notes involves usage at less than 9600 baud. Repainting index pages and notes-before-responses that I have already seen, slows it down intolerably at 1200 baud. It seems to me that something like Rand's empty() system call would be very good for notes to use so that it would accept and execute commands while text is being output. Comments? Stuart
malcolm (08/19/82)
#R:sri-unix:1000018:pur-ee:13000010:000:906 pur-ee!malcolm Aug 18 23:36:00 1982 The problem is even worse at 300 baud over dialup. There are two things that I do to make notes tolerable over dialup. The cleanest is to use the flush-output (^O) of the Berkeley TTY driver. I also keep a bowl ov cereal in hand and read notes during breakfast. Between the two it isn't too bad. One approach that I would like to see pursued is for someone to write an interface that looks like the simple-minded Beta news approach. Having only three commands (ynq) would make it a lot easier for a lot of our users. Most of the Profs here haven't even figured out Berkeley Mail, let alone something as involved as notes. The beta news interface also has the advantage that it makes very efficent use of the bandwidth when being used over dialup. After people figure out that they really do want to keep up with the news then they can put the effort in to learn the nice interface. Malcolm
ber (08/19/82)
#R:sri-unix:1000018:harpo:18500014:000:220 harpo!ber Aug 19 14:55:00 1982 I'd be very interested in a mechanism that would enable me to abort a display with a command (that goes on to the next display). This is how PLATO works and is very reasonable at 1200 baud. Is nfprint useful? brian
dennis (08/19/82)
The way that PLATO does 'go to next display' stuff is that a screen clear not only clears the screen, it also flushes any waiting output. This is largely responsible for the usability of the PLATO menu-driven system. A flush-output system call is easily done; I've installed it on several systems. I would think that such a capability could easily be built into termcap and/or terminfo (if we ever get that!) to provide fast stepping through ANY menu-driven system.
tpkq (09/02/82)
#R:sri-unix:1000018:physics:19400001:000:188 physics!tpkq Sep 1 23:56:00 1982 Why not have notes look at the terminal's baud rate (the way /usr/ucb/vi does) and decide on an appropriate interface ( i.e. window size, whether to show index pages, etc.)? Tim Kerwin
mclure@sri-unix (09/09/82)
#R:sri-unix:1000018:sri-unix:1000020:000:1396 sri-unix!mclure Sep 8 18:12:00 1982 For systems running UCB kernels with FIONREAD ioctl support, a few lines of code in prtind.c and dsply.c will greatly alleviate the problem of using notes at slower baud rates. The form of ioctl below determines whether there is input waiting. We do it after each note/response & index line is displayed. If input is waiting, we skip any further output. Unfortunately Notes is always in echo mode so this can cause the display to get slightly garbled sometimes (no big deal since it could get garbled before the change too). Notes also blanks between the index-drawing and note/response-drawing operations, so it's only a nuisance. The solution is to hack Notes so that it is in no-echo mode during these times and echos input at the proper points. We haven't done this yet but it is next on the list. Stuart *** Diff of old prtind.c and new prtind.c 1a2 > #include <sys/ioctl.h> 24a26 > long retval; 86a89,92 > if (ioctl(0,FIONREAD,&retval)) /* If this call fails */ > ; /* Assume no input waiting */ > else if (retval) > return; /* Otherwise, he typed */ *** Diff of old dsply.c and new dsply.c 1a2 > #include <sys/ioctl.h> 234a236 > long retval = 0; 257a260,263 > if (ioctl(0,FIONREAD,&retval)) /* If this call fails */ > ; /* Assume no input waiting */ > else if (retval) > goto exisho; /* Otherwise, he typed */ 287a294 > exisho:
kiessig (09/21/82)
#R:sri-unix:1000018:fortune:8300001:000:367 fortune!kiessig Aug 19 13:15:00 1982 I agree notes is unusable at anything less than 9600, and that there should be a 'msgs-like' interface ([ynq]) to make it more usable. However, my largest complaint is that I don't see a way to tell notes that I DON'T want to see anything associated with a particular notesfile (like the news !item facility). Has this been addressed by anyone yet? Rick Kiessig