Flash@UMASS.BITNET.UUCP (03/09/87)
For a while now, I have playing around with this idea. Since now I am too busy with the Atari Dealership I started up, I decided to pass on the idea, and see if anyone out there wants to tackle it. A desktop accessory terminal program. This would be an accessory like VT52, only working INSIDE of GEM, and not with TOS. It would work inside a GEM window, and allow the user to re-size the window to any size. Problems I see with this: Being a GEM program, emulation will be gone, but for the purposes that it would be used for, ASCII emulation would be fine. Slow Scrolling. Well, since it is NOT a main terminal program, 300 baud would not be that bad. I can then jump to FLASH or UNITERM when I need speed. With Blitter, this could be pushed to a steady 1200 baud. What to do when desk accessory is DE-selected, but still on the desktop? Well, IF closed, it should just send a CTRL-S, and when opened a CTRL-Q. Or, it could use a RS-232 buffer, like VT52. Or, (This is where I get clowdy...) it could keep on scrolling, working in the background like several desktop accessories...(thunder) The main use for this, is that I could have a notepad, calculator and even a game...(reversi?) on the desktop, while on the modem to my mainframe... Biggest use, would be so I can use Word Writer ST, while keeping an eye on a small terminal window, to see if I get any mail, or what is happening. If thunder can work in the background, why not a simple terminal? I started work on this in Personal Pascal, but the lack of support for scrolling made it a serious problem. And now that I am too busy, I cannot dig in, and take the time to figure out how to do it by means of gemdos calls. So, I leave this open to any of you to try to figure out, it could turn out to be rather interesting. May I note, the Mac has had this for a while, and rather usefull, I admit. Rick Flashman Flash@UMASS.BITNET 1040 N. Pleasant St. #381 Flash%UMASS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU Amherst, MA 01002 R-FLASHMAN on GENIE (413) 549-0173 "Only after the traveler has stopped to reflect has his real journey begun." - from T. Serstevens
K538915@CZHRZU1A.BITNET.UUCP (03/11/87)
I'm in the process of porting some of the UniTerm code to YAT (:-)), a terminal
desk accessory, but I can't promise any date it will be finished...*...
BTW Personal Pascal doesn't support scrolling any worse than any other
language: you've got the choice between using the Blit calls (VDI) or coding
the routines in Pascal (that might be hard) or Assembler (easy).
Simon
K538915@CZHRZU1A.BITNET
* or that it will work at all!