dan@ihlpf.UUCP (06/15/83)
#R:n44a:-16500:ihlpf:23200005: 0:603
ihlpf!jdu Jun 15 8: 6:00 1983
If you buy a PDT-11 BEWARE of the magical curly brace.
Some people here had one, (no tape drive, no floppy version)
and it had the annoying characteristic of going into a download
mode when it saw a { or a } (I don't remember which) typed
at the keyboard on a full duplex line.
The symptom the user sees is that the terminal stops working.
It is waiting for the end of the downloaded program which
never comes.
This made it VERY DIFFICULT to use it to write C programs.
Other than that, it was OK. Nobody tried to use it as a processor
after I got here, so I can't comment on how well that would work.MCMANIS%usc-eclc@sri-unix.UUCP (06/17/83)
From: Chuck McManis <MCMANIS@usc-eclc>
Is this at all related to DEC's problem that all of their editors
seem to think '}' is some sort of terminator? We have RSX-3.2 and
can't write programs in C for the DECus C compiler. The kludge
going now is to use [, and ] then run the source through a filter
program to convert them to {, and }.
--Chuck
-------ron%brl-bmd@sri-unix.UUCP (06/17/83)
From: Ron Natalie <ron@brl-bmd>
This probably relates back to certain teletypes who had an ALT MODE
key rather than an ESCAPE key. And it sent a { rather than a ^[.matt%ucla-locus@sri-unix.UUCP (06/18/83)
From: Matthew J. Weinstein <matt@ucla-locus> Well, the } used to be defined as ALT MODE, and was used interchangeably with ESCAPE in many DEC systems. Some systems permit you to turn this off, however... - Matt
minow@decvax.UUCP (06/20/83)
Chuck McManis (chuck@usc-eclc) noted that "dec editors assume '}' is a terminator" and consequently he must use a filter when writing programs for Decus C. In the 2+ years that Decus C has been distributed, this is the first I have heard of this problem (but I use it on vms, rsts, and rt11). I would suggest that Chuck (and anyone else with this problem) check the terminal setup modes and/or the terminal software. Based on my experience with rsts/e, I would guess that, if you set the terminal to upper-and-lower-case mode, the brace will be seen as a graphic character, not as altmode. Martin Minow decvax!minow