csaron@ucbopal.BERKELEY.EDU (Aron Roberts) (01/01/86)
In late December 1985, Scott Watson, the author of the
shareware Macintosh terminal program, Red Ryder, released
version 7.0 of this program. According to Watson,
"[...] the primary reason for this version was to clean up
all known bugs in previous versions. If it was reported to me,
I fixed it. The VT100 emulation is now 99.9% accurate. Missing
are the double-high and double-wide character sets and the blinking
character attribute. The VT100 "avid" users I've spoken with have
unanimously agreed these shortcomings are insignificant, and the
manner in which I've handled them do not compromise the functionality
of the emulation. The emulation has been validated and verified on
DEC's own demonstration line, which is an excell[e]nt acid-test
for the visual aspects of VT100 emulation."
-- preface to the supplemental documentation
for Red Ryder 7.0
Informal use of the new version of Red Ryder with the vi editor
and other screen-intensive programs appears to validate this
conclusion. Most of the problems that were experienced with
version 6.2's VT100 emulation have been cleared up.
One minor problem remains: Red Ryder's default tab settings
still wreak havoc with vi screens and directory listings.
Selecting "Clear All Tabs" from Red Ryder's "Options" menu (or
using Unix's "stty -tabs" command, as suggested by David Berry
in message 1659 on net.micro.mac) will solve this.
There have been a number of other enhancements to Version 7.0,
including support for Apple Computer's new Hierarchical File
System, and a function which can record a terminal session with
a host and generate a Red Ryder procedure file (for automating
logon sequences and other repetitive actions) based on the user's
keystrokes and mouse movements.
Although Red Ryder is not perfect (it fails to properly redraw
the screen after the active window is overlaid with dialog boxes
or desk accessory windows from the Apple menu, may not properly
utilize the numeric keypad in VT100 mode, and doesn't appear
to support the MacTerminal XMODEM protocol to facilitate convenient
file transfer via "macget" and "macput"), it offers reasonably
faithful VT100 (and VT52/TTY) emulation, and reliable Kermit,
XMODEM, and ASCII file transfer capabilities.
Upgrades to the new version are available from Scott Watson's
The FreeSoft Co. at a cost of $5 for registered owners of
previous versions. Registered owners and persons wishing to
try Red Ryder 7.0 for the first time will also be able to obtain
the program from Macintosh-oriented user group libraries and
bulletin boards around the country. The program file is
approximately 118KB in length; the documentation (MacWrite 4.5
format) is about 28KB. The requested license fee, after a
45-day free trial, is $40 per copy on a single-copy basis. rhc@ptsfa.UUCP (Robert Cohen) (01/01/86)
If anyone has a working terminfo file which allows for insert
in "vi" using RR _without_ the need to use ^L to redraw the
screen and see what you really did. I don't know if this is
a bug with the standard VT100, Versaterm, or MacTerminal
terminfo files, but since it only happens with RR...
Otherwise, I'll just keep using VersaTerm - it seems to work
quite well.
Regards,
--
Robert Cohen
San Francisco, California
{ihnp4,dual,qantel}!ptsfa!rhcmlr0@bunny.UUCP (Martin Resnick) (01/01/86)
> > > > In late December 1985, Scott Watson, the author of the > shareware Macintosh terminal program, Red Ryder, released > version 7.0 of this program. According to Watson, > > "[...] the primary reason for this version was to clean up > all known bugs in previous versions. If it was reported to me, > I fixed it. The VT100 emulation is now 99.9% accurate. Missing > are the double-high and double-wide character sets and the blinking > character attribute. The VT100 "avid" users I've spoken with have > unanimously agreed these shortcomings are insignificant, and the > manner in which I've handled them do not compromise the functionality > of the emulation. The emulation has been validated and verified on > DEC's own demonstration line, which is an excell[e]nt acid-test > for the visual aspects of VT100 emulation." > -- preface to the supplemental documentation > for Red Ryder 7.0 > > Informal use of the new version of Red Ryder with the vi editor > and other screen-intensive programs appears to validate this > conclusion. Most of the problems that were experienced with > version 6.2's VT100 emulation have been cleared up. > > One minor problem remains: Red Ryder's default tab settings > still wreak havoc with vi screens and directory listings. > Selecting "Clear All Tabs" from Red Ryder's "Options" menu (or > using Unix's "stty -tabs" command, as suggested by David Berry > in message 1659 on net.micro.mac) will solve this. > > ... > ... > ... > > The VT100 emulation still does not work properly. The bugs which caused infinite internal looping in VT100 mode have been fixed and RR V7.0 can be used with vi or EDT. The graphics characters still do not work properly and certain combinations of plain and bold text screw up the display. The tabs problem is easy to fix. Use "Clear All Tabs" and then set them on the Tabs Status Bar every eight columns (9, 17, 25, ...). These are the standard tabs on a VT100. These settings will be stored in the "Red's 7.0 Stuff" file. The bogus feature that he added is that if the keyboard mapping is set to map the BS key to DELete, then every received DEL character is treated as if it was a BS. This is totally incorrect. Most terminals ignore DEL when received. Also, one can be misled by the backspace action on the screen especially if the remote ignored the transmitted DEL (e.g. when typing commands to a Hayes modem). Of course, one could use "stty erase ^H" and avoid the problem (also useful for unmodified versions of MacTerminal). The new version of MacTerminal will support MacBinary in addition to its current protocols and will be able to transfer complete files to and from Red Ryder or any other Mac terminal emulator which supports MacBinary. The new disable CRC feature in RR V7.0 does not work. I will post the "RR V7.0 Changes" MacWrite file to net.sources.mac. RR V7.0 is about 118Kb and I am willing to email it (or post it if the demand warrants). I can also post the text only version of changes file to net.micro.mac.
jimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler) (01/05/86)
In article <1067@ptsfa.UUCP> rhc@ptsfa.UUCP (Robert Cohen) writes: >If anyone has a working terminfo file which allows for insert >in "vi" using RR _without_ the need to use ^L to redraw the >screen and see what you really did. I don't know if this is >a bug with the standard VT100, Versaterm, or MacTerminal >terminfo files, but since it only happens with RR... No, it's not a bug with a standard vt100, but all of the programs you mentioned ( MacTerminal, Versaterm) actually support vt102. A vt100 does not have some of the features. I'm afraid that RR7.0 supports vt100 quite faithfully, but doesn't support some of the modes we expect from a 'vt100' emulation. I've been experimenting with it a little, it works with a 'plain vanilla' vt100 termcap, one without any of the insert modes we have become accustomed to expect. If you take all of the vt102 features out of your termcap (ic, im, ie, al, dl, dc, AL, DL) you'll find it works ok. I won't bother, just keep using MacTerminal. -- Jim Budler Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (408) 749-5806 Usenet: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amdcad!jimb Compuserve: 72415,1200 Bogus newsgroup: net.news: Move to end of .newsrc[yn^L]?