dibble@cs.rochester.edu (Peter C. Dibble) (02/25/88)
I'm looking for advice from experienced AT&T 630 users. I want to use one in the following environment: * Medium heavy use with BSD on a Sun at 2400B. * Light use with a 3B1 (locally connected). * Very heavy use with OS-9/68k. * Very light use with OS-9/6809. Is the firmware in the terminal good enough that I will be able to use a reasonable subset of its power without attaching it to a Unix machine. I wouldn't expect 14 windows, but can I have one per host? Can I download fonts (is there enough control on the glyph sizes that I can write a DVI previewer)? Can I do graphics? Is the windows documentation good enough that I will be able to write an OS-9 file manager to support them? Is the firmware documentation in general complete enough that I'll be able to generate code for it without the AT&T tools (I'll be doing it from OS-9). Is there any hint of an X windows cartridge for the terminal? If I get the terminal and write a file manager for it does anyone want a copy? Thank you, Peter Dibble dibble@rochester rochester!dibble
gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (06/29/88)
In article <10925@sol.ARPA> dibble@cs.rochester.edu (Peter C. Dibble) writes: >Does anyone have an idea where I can get enough information about the >630's operating system to write code for it? I bought the Software >Development Guide and found nothing in there but fluff about C programming >and utilities. I don't even know how to _invoke_ the operating system yet! >I imagine that I could learn enough from the source package but I would >rather do this without using secret stuff. I'd like to be able to >give OS-9 support for the terminal away when I'm done with it. Unfortunately there really is no substitute for the software development system source code. For one thing, it defines all the entry points to the terminal's firmware. For another, you need a LOT of support software to fully exploit the terminal. I'm rather familiar with the terminal and its software, but I wouldn't even dream of trying to construct the support software from scratch. The protocol "understood" by layers-based terminals while operating in non-layers mode is described in their manuals. Basically, they have a magic ANS X3.64 escape sequence to initiate code downloading for standalone applications, or the built-in layersys "layers operating system". AT&T UNIX System V Release 3 "wtinit" is supposed to be useful for this, but actually you need more than that to operate in layers mode (also, I'm not sure that all versions of "wtinit" work right with a 630). The host "layers" program takes care of kicking the terminal into layers mode and providing shell processes on the host when windows are created, among other similar functions. Once started, layersys (actually I think it's called "mpxterm" now) communicates with the host multiplexor via AT&T's "xt" packet protocol, which is described in SVR3 manuals. However, it is really hard to produce a working version of "layers" just from the documentation, and it is almost impossible to build downloadable applications to run as processes in the terminal without using the 630 software development source code from AT&T. I don't think the support code is very expensive, though, and sublicensing is probably quite inexpensive. I haven't checked recently; maybe someone who has could tell us what it costs. P.S. I forgot to mention in an earlier note that there are vendors other than AT&T and Pyramid from whom you can obtain 630 host support. Usually you have to specifically ask for it, as it is an add-on product. Alliant is one such vendor. Also, Keith Muller's port for 4.3BSD is advertised as working correctly on several implementations of 4.3BSD as well as on SunOS (where a bug in the pty handler may have to be fixed first). I think the latter is obtainable directly from AT&T Teletype; perhaps someone there would please enlighten us.