[comp.emacs] Core dump on Pyramid

dko@calmasd.GE.COM (Dan O'Neill) (03/23/88)

On terminals, whose physical connection is to a DEC LAT box and then to
our Pyramid system, GNU Emacs will not start up.  However, emacs runs
correctly over any other type of connection.

Emacs is started in a normal fashion and the LAT returns several 
control-G's, followed by the question "Auto-save (y or n)?", and
finally the question "Core dump (yes or no)?".

We have been able to determine that the control-G's are being sent out
by the LAT to the terminal as an indication of "data overrun" or
"buffer full".

This is not a flow control problem with the terminal that
(set-input-mode xx xx) will handle, but rather something to do with
cbreak vs. raw mode.

I am stuck.  If any of you can give me some pointers as to where to
look or how to locate the section in Emacs which is responsible for
terminal initialization I will be most grateful.

One final note, the version of Unipress Emacs we have on the Pyramid
does not experience this problem.  We are unable to switch over to GNU
Emacs until we can run it over the DEC LAT boxes.

-- 
Dan O'Neill			dko@calmasd.GE.COM
GE Calma R&D			...!sdcsvax!calmasd!dko

dko@calmasd.GE.COM (Dan O'Neill) (03/25/88)

In a previous message I described a problem in running a unix version
of GNU Emacs over a DEC LAT box to a tty.  The DEC LAT box would
complain about something, send out a stream of ^G's and thus force GNU
Emacs to core dump.  This is not a problem for VMS versions of GNU Emacs.

As it turns out, this was a hardware configuration problem.  The
solution is to set the parameters on the LAT box connected to the unix
box (in our case a Pyramid machine) as follows:

		old setting		correct setting

Character size:	   7 bits		   8 bits
Parity:		   Even			   None


The LAT will now transfer all of the data between the terminal and the
host.

-- 
Dan O'Neill			dko@calmasd.GE.COM
GE Calma R&D			...!sdcsvax!calmasd!dko

jimc@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Jim Cathey) (03/29/88)

In article <2698@calmasd.GE.COM> dko@calmasd.UUCP (Dan O'Neill) writes:
>In a previous message I described a problem in running a unix version
>of GNU Emacs over a DEC LAT box to a tty.  The DEC LAT box would
>complain about something, send out a stream of ^G's and thus force GNU
>Emacs to core dump.  This is not a problem for VMS versions of GNU Emacs.
>
>As it turns out, this was a hardware configuration problem.  The
>solution is to set the parameters on the LAT box connected to the unix
>box (in our case a Pyramid machine) as follows:
>
>		old setting		correct setting
>
>Character size:	   7 bits		   8 bits
>Parity:		   Even			   None
>
>
>The LAT will now transfer all of the data between the terminal and the
>host.

Possibly it wasn't sending ^G at all.  One of our 18.48 builds on a
SYSV style system was messed up in that meta-DEL generated a ^G
(according to emacs).  What was happening was that VINTR and VQUIT were
set to 0xFF, which caused a SIGINT and/or SIGQUIT to be sent on m-DEL.
SIGINT/SIGQUIT are interpreted as ^G (abort) by emacs, so perhaps you
were having something similar happen (parity widgets being interpreted
as meta-whatevers), or other sources of SIGQUITs.  The SVID I've seen
recommends that you set VINTR to 0xFF or other 'illegal' character when
you don't want SIGINT rather than providing a real 'off' mechanism.
Humpph, illegal indeed!  

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