dudevoir@bernoulli.Stanford.EDU (Glen P. Dudevoir) (07/12/89)
I have tried out both versions 0.75 and 0.8 of Zterm and have found some problems in the vt100 emulation. Neither version will handle editing in vi or gnuemacs. 0.75 scrolls the entire screen after a cr in the command line (bottom line of terminal) and then fails to redraw the screen so the cursor positioning is not correct. In version 0.8 moving the cursor to the left in the editors causes the characters that it is passing over to be erased from the screen, but not from the file being edited. Has anyone else had problems of this nature or am I doing something wrong? I am using the standard vt100 termcap entry on our sun unix systems. One other note: I have had some problems transferring files using the zmodem protocol at 19200. I consistently get errors of the type ZRPOS 0 . At 9600 everything goes well. Disclaimer: I think this is a very nice product. The inclusion of the zmodem protocol is a big step forward in shareware. I hope these minor problems can be corrected. If so I'll be convinced to send in my registration. Glen dudevoir@bernoulli.stanford.edu
dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) (07/14/89)
In article <23@bernoulli.stanford.edu> dudevoir@bernoulli.stanford.edu (Glen P. Dudevoir) writes: > I have tried out both versions 0.75 and 0.8 of Zterm and have found > some problems in the vt100 emulation. Neither version will handle > editing in vi or gnuemacs. 0.75 scrolls the entire screen after > a cr in the command line (bottom line of terminal) and then fails > to redraw the screen so the cursor positioning is not correct. > In version 0.8 moving the cursor to the left in the editors causes the > characters that it is passing over to be erased from the screen, but > not from the file being edited. > > Has anyone else had problems of this nature or am I doing something > wrong? I am using the standard vt100 termcap entry on our sun unix > systems. I had the same problems with 0.7 and 0.75, and kept my copy of MacKermit handy for doing GNUmacs editing on our Sun. These scrolling-problems were eliminated in 0.8. The problem with "destructive backspace" in 0.8 is a little glitch that David Alverson inadvertently introduced when cleaning up the VT100 emulation code. It was called to his attention very shortly after 0.8 was shipped out. He didn't want to do an 0.81 release so soon after 0.8, and so he posted (on MacCincy, at least) a procedure for patching the 0.8 application to eliminate the destructive backspace. With this patch in place, ZTerm 0.8 works very nicely under GNU Emacs with the standard VT100 termcap entry. I now use ZTerm 0.8 as my standard term'ulator, both for BBS access and for logging into my Sun server and workstation at work. I don't have the patch-information available here at work; I'll post it tomorrow if I can remember to dig it off of my Mac at home. If you want to call MacCincy you can probably find it in the ZTerm message area. > One other note: I have had some problems transferring files using the > zmodem protocol at 19200. I consistently get errors of the type > ZRPOS 0 . At 9600 everything goes well. Hmmm. My experiments with a USR Courier HST modem seem to indicate that 19200-bps connections between the modem and my Sun 3/60 are not reliable. The Sun appears to drop characters on the floor if they arrive at high speeds from the modem. I suspect that the Sun's serial port isn't fast enough to keep up with sustained input bursts at 19200. This sort of occasional character-loss would raise merry hell with ZMODEM handshaking. I have my Mac II talking to an HST modem at 19200. ZTerm 0.8 seems to have no problem receiving data from the modem at a burst rate of 19200 bits/sec; the sustained data rate is limited by the Sun->HST link, which is running at 9600 bps. The Sun 3/60 has no problem accepting ZMODEM handshakes or uploads at 9600 bits/sec. You might try downloads at 19200 with the undocumented "-w 2000" option of "sz". This specifies a "receiver window" of 2000 characters. sz will send 500-byte packets, will ask for an acknowledgement after each packet, and will use a sliding window of 3 packets. This _might_ eliminate data-overrun problems. It may also slow down the transfer more than you like. I find that a straight 9600-bps streaming download is very reliable indeed, and fast enough for my purposes. > Disclaimer: I think this is a very nice product. The inclusion of > the zmodem protocol is a big step forward in shareware. I hope > these minor problems can be corrected. If so I'll be convinced > to send in my registration. The former problem can be patched. I suspect that the latter problem is not ZTerm's fault. -- Dave Platt FIDONET: Dave Platt on 1:204/444 VOICE: (415) 493-8805 UUCP: ...!{ames,sun,uunet}!coherent!dplatt DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com INTERNET: coherent!dplatt@ames.arpa, ...@uunet.uu.net USNAIL: Coherent Thought Inc. 3350 West Bayshore #205 Palo Alto CA 94303
rudolph@m.cs.uiuc.edu (07/14/89)
/* Written 12:37 pm Jul 13, 1989 by dplatt@coherent.com in m.cs.uiuc.edu:comp.sys.mac */ In article <23@bernoulli.stanford.edu> dudevoir@bernoulli.stanford.edu (Glen P. Dudevoir) writes: > I have tried out both versions 0.75 and 0.8 of Zterm and have found > some problems in the vt100 emulation. Neither version will handle > editing in vi or gnuemacs. 0.75 scrolls the entire screen after > a cr in the command line (bottom line of terminal) and then fails > to redraw the screen so the cursor positioning is not correct. > In version 0.8 moving the cursor to the left in the editors causes the > characters that it is passing over to be erased from the screen, but > not from the file being edited. > I had the same problems with 0.7 and 0.75, and kept my copy of MacKermit handy for doing GNUmacs editing on our Sun. These scrolling-problems were eliminated in 0.8. /* End of text from m.cs.uiuc.edu:comp.sys.mac */ I still found 0.8 completely unusable for vi.
dudevoir@bernoulli.Stanford.EDU (Glen P. Dudevoir) (07/15/89)
I thought I would post a summary of the responses to my previous posting because some of them have been via email. In article <23@bernoulli.stanford.edu> dudevoir@bernoulli.stanford.edu (Glen P. Dudevoir) writes: >I have tried out both versions 0.75 and 0.8 of Zterm and have found >some problems in the vt100 emulation. Neither version will handle >editing in vi or gnuemacs. 0.75 scrolls the entire screen after >a cr in the command line (bottom line of terminal) and then fails >to redraw the screen so the cursor positioning is not correct. After posting this I realized that this problem also affects 0.8. Stephen Robinson (robinson%prism@gatech.edu) replies: I found that I had to increase the zterm window size to 25x81 (keeping the shell's crt length at 23 or 24) to get rid of the scroll/fail to redraw problem. >In version 0.8 moving the cursor to the left in the editors causes the >characters that it is passing over to be erased from the screen, but >not from the file being edited. Dave Platt posted the patch to 0.8 that fixes this problem. I would also like to point out that the ZTerm 0.8 in the info-mac archive at SUMEX seems to already have this patch applied. >One other note: I have had some problems transferring files using the >zmodem protocol at 19200. I consistently get errors of the type >ZRPOS 0 . At 9600 everything goes well. Dave Platt replies: My experiments with a USR Courier HST modem seem to indicate that 19200-bps connections between the modem and my Sun 3/60 are not reliable. The Sun appears to drop characters on the floor if they arrive at high speeds from the modem. I suspect that the Sun's serial port isn't fast enough to keep up with sustained input bursts at 19200. This sort of occasional character-loss would raise merry hell with ZMODEM handshaking. I had similar problems connecting the HST to our Sun 3/260's ALM-2 serial-port expander board... the ALM-2 ports simply aren't fast enough to keep up with sustained input at 19200 bits/sec. The only Sun serial ports that I've found to work reliably at this speed are the two CPU-board ports on the 3/260 server. I have not had enough time to finish checking this out yet and admit a lack of knowledge on how these protocols are working exactly, but I have not noticed any problems before in using the sun 3/60 serial ports at 19200, most notably using mac xmodem transfers with Versaterm. In fact, I have even gotten mac xmodem to work at 38400 from versaterm, but I can't remember if I ever tried uploading at this speed or download (sun to mac) only. Again, I like ZTerm and think zmodem has a whole lot to offer that mac xmodem doesn't. I am not trying to knock this program, just get the best performance possible from it. Glen dudevoir@bernoulli.stanford.edu
es2j+@andrew.cmu.edu (Edward John Sabol) (07/17/89)
I've used Zterm quite a bit using "vi". The solution to the scrolling problem while using "vi" or other unix programs that rely on vt100 is quite simple. Select "Terminal..." from the Settings menu. Then turn off the feature "Auto Line Feed". Save the setting that you use for your unix connections and you are set. This feature was added in version 0.75 for this reason. The problem has to do with the slight differences between ansi.sys and vt100. Zterm author Dave Alverson did sort of a hybrid between the two. After being bugged by many unix users on the EchoMac conference, he added the feature to turn off auto line feeds. After using the patch for Zterm 0.8 to get rid of the destructive backspace, you'll have no problems using "vi" in Zterm. Edward J. Sabol Internet: es2j+@andrew.cmu.edu
fjo@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (frank.j.owen) (07/18/89)
From article <23@bernoulli.stanford.edu>, by dudevoir@bernoulli.Stanford.EDU (Glen P. Dudevoir): > I have tried out both versions 0.75 and 0.8 of Zterm and have found > some problems in the vt100 emulation. Neither version will handle > editing in vi or gnuemacs. 0.75 scrolls the entire screen after > a cr in the command line (bottom line of terminal) and then fails > to redraw the screen so the cursor positioning is not correct. > In version 0.8 moving the cursor to the left in the editors causes the > characters that it is passing over to be erased from the screen, but I have had similiar problems. I have had fewer problems with version 0.75. There is an option in one of the dialogues (I think from the menu item "Terminal..." ) that let's you turn OFF auto-linefeed. With this option disabled, I have been able to use vi quite well. 0.8 has the problems you state, and becomes unusable. It's too bad, because 0.8 has some features that I could use. -- Frank Owen (fjo@ttrdf) 312-982-2182 AT&T Bell Laboratories 5555 Touhy Ave., Skokie, IL 60077 PATH: ...!att!ttrdf!fjo