[comp.sys.apollo] vt100 bugs for OS 10.2

donaldg@Stardent.COM (Donald Gale) (01/24/91)

We've got 2 vt100 bugs for OS 10.2. These occur on 3000's and 3500's.

1. vt100 will come back with "cannot create vt100 window" as a message.
This message is the same as if you tried to execute vt100 from a 
window in which you have crp'd onto a node. When the node in question
was rebooted, vt100 proceeded to work normally for a day - then the 
same problem reappeared.

2. vt100 will appear to work, but the cursor appears over the $ prompt.
Nothing can be typed into the vt100 window - dm claims that it is read-only.

Has anyone else had similar problems ? Does anyone have a work-around solution ?

Don Gale

donaldg@stardent.com
(508) 287-0100 x 268

system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (System Admin (Mike Peterson)) (01/25/91)

In article <1991Jan23.162913.132@Stardent.COM> donaldg@Stardent.COM (Donald Gale) writes:
>We've got 2 vt100 bugs for OS 10.2. These occur on 3000's and 3500's.
>
>1. vt100 will come back with "cannot create vt100 window" as a message.
>This message is the same as if you tried to execute vt100 from a 
>window in which you have crp'd onto a node. When the node in question
>was rebooted, vt100 proceeded to work normally for a day - then the 
>same problem reappeared.
>
>2. vt100 will appear to work, but the cursor appears over the $ prompt.
>Nothing can be typed into the vt100 window - dm claims that it is read-only.
>
>Has anyone else had similar problems ? Does anyone have a work-around solution ?

1. We have had that problem ever since SR10.2/SR10.2.p and it is still
broken in SR10.3.p. In our case you get 1 shot at vi/more/whatever that
uses vt100/vtserver, then all future commands just hang.

2. Haven't seen this.

The workaround is to rebuild the pty's with mkdev, but this must be done
by root. The way we avoid this problem is to run X Windows, but that
leaves 2 DN580's sitting useless (since last April) since X is sooooooo
slow on those nodes (takes 5 minutes to login).

This should be added to the FAQ, since it looks like it isn't fixed at
SR10.3 either!
-- 
Mike Peterson, System Administrator, U/Toronto Department of Chemistry
E-mail: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca
Tel: (416) 978-7094                  Fax: (416) 978-8775

krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) (01/25/91)

My work around for vt100 bugs has been to kill the copy of /com/vt100,
kill the copy of "vt100_server" (which is automatically started the
first time you run /com/vt100), and then to rebuild the node's 
pseudo-ttys with the command "/etc/mkdev /dev pty". This seems to
the fix for most wedged client/server programs that are not NCS
related.


 -- David Krowitz

krowitz@richter.mit.edu   (18.83.0.109)
krowitz%richter.mit.edu@eddie.mit.edu
krowitz%richter.mit.edu@mitvma.bitnet
(in order of decreasing preference)

wjw@ebr.eb.ele.tue.nl (Willem Jan Withagen) (01/25/91)

In article <1991Jan23.162913.132@Stardent.COM> donaldg@Stardent.COM (Donald Gale) writes:
>We've got 2 vt100 bugs for OS 10.2. These occur on 3000's and 3500's.
>
I've got a few more.

First of all, I think that the vt100 server uses /dev/ttyp9. 
Why: Because when I change the rights of ttyp9 to say root.tty 660
my user start to complain that they can't run rn, can't use vi and more
of these things which use vt100 emulation. leaving them to be root.staff
makes it work. But then things like write don't really work.

Furthermore can this cause corrupt pty's, there's a lot of fixes for it.
But still the best remedy for all is to have cron recrated all pty's
in the morning. :{

Also once set to root.tty they do not stay like that for long. Once
the owner of the tty is set by login and then after the user has logged off
the rights are returned to root.staff :{
But I would like to have the 'std'-unix group tty to be group for all these
type of things.

	Willem Jan Withagen

Eindhoven University of Technology   DomainName:  wjw@eb.ele.tue.nl    
Digital Systems Group, Room EH 10.10 BITNET: ELEBWJ@HEITUE5.BITNET
P.O. 513                             Tel: +31-40-473401
5600 MB Eindhoven                    The Netherlands

troy@plod.cbse.unsw.oz.au (Troy Rollo) (01/28/91)

This problem has existed for quite some time, and is caused, largely, by the
insistance of the vt100 emulator to use the same pty every time - if it gets
mangled, you can't use vt100 anymore.

A dirty fix, is to get a copy of a terminal emulator I wrote in '89, which
was posted to comp.sources.misc (I think), under the title "vt100 emulator"
or something similat, even though it emulates a custom terminal design, rather
than a vt100. This program keeps searching through ptyp0-ptypf for one that
works.

That was a primitive version of the program. I had another, far more advance
version ready for release which was annihilated due to a gross
misunderstanding (and the whole campus knew about it that day!), so you will
probably want to improve ont it (I only use the machines remotely now, so it
has no interest to me).In particular, you will probably want it to search
q0-qf too.

___________________________________________________________
troy@mr_plod.cbme.unsw.oz.au	 
Fascist comments deleted for the duration of the Gulf Crisis