welch@UMass.BITNET.UUCP (01/15/87)
This is a question for any VAX Wizards out there. From DCL I run a program which spawns/nowait a subprocess. The parent program then exits back to DCL, leaving the subprocess running. From time to time the subprocess will want to change the terminal characteristics. Unfortunately, if the parent process has a pending read on the terminal (if it is sitting at DCL or at some program prompt) the change requested by the subprocess won't take effect until that read is satisfied. Currently, if the parent process is at DCL, I write a continuation character and a return into the parents type-ahead buffer. This kludge doesn't help, though, if the parent is running a program waiting for I/O. At the simplest level the only system service I could imagine that would be of any help is SYS$CANCEL. I can see more gruesome solutions diddling the I/O database - which I fear is what is necessary. Anyone have any clues? Jonathan Welch Bitnet: JHWELCH@AMHERST