MAP@LCS.MIT.EDU (Michael A. Patton) (07/18/89)
I once worked with a system that had the properties you mention. It was VERY nice for standard simple type-in style interactions. It worked both on fancy (IMLAC) displays and on simple glass ttys. This was back in 1973! You do need to have special hooks, as you mention, and a much more elaborate interface for screen oriented applications. It is my impression, however, that the whole area of interaction is moving away from the style that benefits from such an interface. If anybody is interested in doing it anyway, I would be glad to try and describe how the 1973 system worked, both from the users stand point and the internals. There were several interesting bits, including an I-Beam like cursor that seperated (into a "]" and a "[") when there was unread type-ahead. The rubout case that you describe was actully handled by virtue of the fact that the terminals had keys for "Rubout" and "Delete" which were conventionalized to the two different interpretations and mapped to the same thing in the case where the input wasn't typed ahead.
swoodhead@SUN.COM (Simon Woodhead) (07/18/89)
Please reply direct to Bob Smart at the address below, or to the comp.windows.x newsgroup / xpert mailing list. ----- Begin Included Message ----- From acsnet@sunaus Fri Jul 14 23:53:11 1989 Path: sunaus!metro!basser!munnari.oz.au!murtoa.cs.mu.oz.au!ditmela!smart Newsgroups: comp.windows.x Subject: echoing in terminal windows Reply-To: smart@ditmela.oz.au (Robert Smart) Organization: C.S.I.R.O. Division of Information Technology, Melbourne. Lines: 24 I mostly prefer the VMS echoing style: characters are not echoed until some program reads the characters. So your terminal session looks the same whether you typeahead or not. However sometimes it is useful to see your typeahead. It seems that terminal windows provide an opportunity for the best of both worlds. I would like to see typeahead appear in its own little window extension at the bottom of the screen [in a moderately raw form with carriage returns appearing as ^M, etc]. As the characters are read they would be echoed on the main part of the terminal emulation and disappear from the typeahead section. This would allow some subtleties that are missing at the moment: for example if you type a rub-out char does it get added to the typeahead, or delete the last character typed- ahead? With the proposed scheme it could do either depending on whether the main or typeahead window is active [as a result of mouse movements, etc]. Any comments. Presumably this needs a new terminal driver to interface intelligently to the window system. Bob Smart <uunet!munnari!ditmelb!smart> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ----- End Included Message -----