todd@CINCOM.UMD.EDU.UUCP (12/18/86)
Jerry is quite right about the dangers of OBSERVE. It is *not* a robust program in any sense. It does, however, work with virtual terminals. It does not work with DECnet pseudo-terminals, nor with PTY pseudo-terminals, though. Another thing to know is that your terminal must be at an equal or higher baud rate than the observed terminal for OBSERVE to work. You can not use it to observe spooled terminals (I've tried, because I wanted to see what was going on with my laser printer). The baud rate and spooled device problems won't crash my system, so they *might not* crash yours (but who knows?). The bottom line (as usual) is: DON'T EXPERIMENT WITH PRIVILEGED CODE ON A SYSTEM WITH OTHER USERS AND/OR NO CURRENT BACKUPS. This is just common sense, though easy to forget. Todd Aven the Softwear Sweatshop ------