[comp.sys.amiga] The best terminal emulator ever ? Hmmm...

sqrkl@csvax.liv.ac.uk (03/16/88)

In article <3898@cup.portal.com>, prplworm@cup.portal.com writes:
> goint commercial "Real Soon Now": Amic 1.0. I have been using Amic since
> version 0.56 (I'm currently using 0.59e, waiting for a 0.97 to test), and it
> is simply the BEST terminal program for ANY machine! According to the

This is a bit of a grandiose claim !!!!
I'm working on a VT100 terminal emulator for the new Acorn Archimedes machine
that will (I hope) knock the socks off ALL OTHER terminal emulators :
Does/Will Amic 1.0 have the following :

1) An 8 by 10 pixel 256 character set IDENTICAL to a VT100's.
2) True smooth scrolling in both directions (that is new characters come on
   one pixel at a time) - none of this 'smooth scroll 10 pixels then print the
   bottom line' rubbish.
3) The assorted character test and the E-test (the latter is done in 0.04 of
   a second on the Archimedes).
4) Retention of screen info when display is switched between 80 and 132 column
   modes (and before you moan - it CAN be done on a VT100 !!!!).
5) Double width cursor on double-width lines (surprising how many emulators
   don't do this...).
6) Choice of amber, green or mono colour scheme with TRUE bold characters
   (i.e. brighter than normal).

I bet you any money that Amic 1.0 fails on one or more of the above. I know
this seems like nit-picking, but if you're emulating a VT100, why not make it
look and behave as close to the original as you possibly can ?

Final note : I use a PT100 (Plessey VT100-compatible) here and it has the
following bug that might well be present on official DEC VT100's :

Go into LOCAL mode on the terminal.
Create some lines of text (best way is to do the E-test, ESC # 8).
Change the cursor to underscore (ESC [ 2 v).
Change one of the text lines to double-height, double width,
top-half (ESC # 3).

Bingo ! The cursor disappears !!!! This is because double-height lines cause
the cursor to change to 'double-height', which, of course, is unnoticeable if
the cursor is a block (because double-height-block := single-height-block as
far as the shape of the cursor is concerned). If, however, the cursor is an
underline, the top half of a double-height underline cursor is 5 blank lines
(expanded to 10 lines) !!!!

Personally, I don't think I should 'emulate' this bug : I'll make the cursor
'double-height' but I'll use the bottom 5 lines of the cursor definition
rather than the top 5 lines on double-height lines (either top or bottom-half).

Richard K. Lloyd,          ***************************************************
Computer Science Dept.,    * JANET : SQRKL@UK.AC.LIV.CSVAX                   *
Liverpool University,      * UUCP  : {backbone}!mcvax!ukc!mupsy!liv-cs!SQRKL *
Merseyside, England,       * ARPA  : SQRKL%csvax.liv.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk  *
Great (?) Britain.         ***************************************************

"I have VERY strong opinions which are nothing whatsoever to do with the
University of Liverpool, so blame ME if I bitch about useless IBM PC clones,
even more redundant IBM mainframes and the terrible Atari ST..."

zofka@cernvax.UUCP (zofka) (03/18/88)

In article <539@csvax.liv.ac.uk> sqrkl@csvax.liv.ac.uk writes:
>In article <3898@cup.portal.com>, prplworm@cup.portal.com writes:
>> goint commercial "Real Soon Now": Amic 1.0. I have been using Amic since
>> version 0.56 (I'm currently using 0.59e, waiting for a 0.97 to test), and it
>> is simply the BEST terminal program for ANY machine! According to the
>
>This is a bit of a grandiose claim !!!!
>I'm working on a VT100 terminal emulator for the new Acorn Archimedes machine
>that will (I hope) knock the socks off ALL OTHER terminal emulators :

Wonderful... I don't want to create any flame about other machines
but last year, I have seen a Public Domain software on the Atari for
a VT100 Vt52 VT220 tektro4010 ... emulator... It was wonderful.

The emulation was so good (I have a program to test vtxxx) that the
bugs was also emulated (bugs of vt100 of course)

Is amic also so close than reality ???

Milan
zofka@cernvax.uucp

prplworm@cup.portal.com (03/27/88)

Sorry, I misused a term... When I said I thought Amic was the best terminal
program I actually meant to say it was the best COMMUNICATIONS program. I
can't say about the terminal emulation yet, as I do not have version 1.0.
In fact the only emulation in version 0.59e is ANSI, and since it uses the
Amiga's console.device, it is still rather pathetic. What I was talking about
was the ease of use and speed of the program. Whether or not the VT-52/VT-100/
VT-102 meets up with the programmer's claims remains to be seen. I have a
feeling they will meet those claims, though.

Chris L. Hatch
Usenet: prplworm@cup.portal.com
Portal: prplworm
GEnie:  C.HATCH

peter@nuchat.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (03/28/88)

(1) Get thyself a VAX running VMS.
(2) Get thyself a PDP-11 running RSX-11.

(3) Run EDT on the VAX.
(4) Run EDT on the PDP-11.

(5) Run RMD on the PDP-11.
(6) Run all the system monitor programs on the VAX.

(7) Run EVE on the VAX.

If you don't find any glitches, congratulations.

DEC uses all sorts of undocumented side-effects caused by doing things
like leaving off parameters in escape sequences.
-- 
-- a clone of Peter (have you hugged your wolf today) da Silva  `-_-'
-- normally  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter                U
-- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.