mogul.Shasta@Sumex-Aim@sri-unix (09/02/82)
From: Jeff Mogul <mogul.Shasta@Sumex-Aim> Date: Monday, 30 Aug 1982 11:52-PDT We once had a 4025 and managed to get vi to run (although not without suffering for it.) The secret seems to be: NEVER use the <return> key. So, we "programmed" the <PT> key (extreme right of keyboard) to send "+" (which is equivalent to <return> in command mode) and used the <linefeed> key as much as possible in insert-mode. It's a good idea to hit ctrl/L as often as possible (like when you start and when the screen changes a lot), since the cursor is often placed on the wrong line; usually, repainting the screen from scratch will work right. It turns out that the 4025 will work a LOT better under Gosling's Emacs; one of our programmers spent a good deal of time writing a special driver, which is now part of the standard distribution. Not perfect, but better than vi (because it has knowledge of the terminal's bizarre behaviour.) Fortunately, we only had one 4025 and I haven't seen it in months.
mark (09/08/82)
The 4025 has lots of interesting "features", but any recent termcap for it handles all of them but one. The crlf problem is solved by setting nl=^F^J where ^F doesn't do anything except prevent the "I hit CR on my keyboard and the computer responds with linefeed" sequence that causes the linefeed to be ignored. Gosling's 4025 driver goes to great pains for the 4025, but only because his TrmTERM is inadequate for dealing with braindamaged terminals. The one problem this doesn't fix it the full duplex problem - your keystrokes get interspersed with the commands from the computer. This problem is much more severe at lower baud rates, so I encourage you to run your 4025 at 9600 baud - it won't be bad at all.