[comp.windows.ms] Attention! - Windows Comm. Program

peter@cbnewsc.att.com (peter.pavlovcik) (08/30/90)

>Anybody thinking of buying a commercial package would be well advised to
>wait for a few weeks and get by with what you are currently using.  I am
>currently beta-testing a Windows communication package, Wincomm, which
>is about ready for release and, at least for my needs, blows away all
>the other packages I've used.  It has an extremely powerful macro
>language which allows creation of menu bars, full feature dialog boxes,

But can it display 24 lines by 80 columns on a VGA without going into
a full screen mode? If it does, I'll buy it on the spot, but I bet
it doesn't.

Here is my tale of woe & intrigue. All I need is a dumb async
terminal emulator that can show 24 lines by 80 columns of fixed font
in a window smaller (maybe just a bit) than a full-screen. According
to my calculations, this is theoretically possible (5x10 or 7x12 pixel
character cells for example).

MS Window Terminal does not do this, so I looked around. I was assured
by Dynacomm rep that their emulator can do this. So I shelled a
fortune for it, and guess what? It tries to emulate a smaller font
by BitBlt-ing large font character to smaller size -- one character
at a time! Which 1) makes the characters unreadable and 2) makes the whole
thing run abominably slow. I can't believe that they actually
get away with selling this junkware for a small fortune. After that
experience, I gave up on terminal emulators, since I had a dumb terminal
sitting there anyway for Codeview. Now that 3.0 cvw can't use it, I had
to replace the dumb terminal with b/w monitor, but I need a dumb terminal
emulator. Anybody knows of one? I am willing to pay (again) mucho bucks.
But this time I want a demo disk first!!

				Peter Pavlovcik, att!iexist!peter

gg2@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Guy Gallo) (08/30/90)

Peter, 
Crosstalk for Windows allows you to select smaller screen fonts (that
are not drawn one character at a time) and therefore display a 24x80
screen in a substantially reduced window.

leoh@hardy.hdw.csd.harris.com (Leo Hinds) (08/31/90)

In article <1990Aug29.192338.25085@cbnewsc.att.com> peter@cbnewsc.att.com (peter.pavlovcik) writes:

>But can it display 24 lines by 80 columns on a VGA without going into
>a full screen mode? If it does, I'll buy it on the spot, but I bet
>it doesn't.

I am currently using WinQvt4.3 (off of cica.cica.indiana.edu) and as we speak, 
the window occupies (while in 80x24) 1/2 of the screen's vertical space, & 3/4 
of the horizontal space, all this while in LARGE mode.  In the small mode, the 
space used is 1/3 vertical & 1/2 horizontal, but the text is barely readable.  

I should point out that I am not using the correct screen font as I have not 
yet registered the program (I have only used it ~1.5hrs).

The program is Shareware ($50) and appears to work


leoh@hdw.csd.harris.com         	Leo Hinds       	(305)973-5229
Gfx ... gfx ... :-) whfg orpnhfr V "ebg"grq zl fvtangher svyr lbh guvax V nz n
creireg ?!!!!!!? ... znlor arkg gvzr

peter@cbnewsc.att.com (peter.pavlovcik) (09/01/90)

In article <846@travis.csd.harris.com>, leoh@hardy.hdw.csd.harris.com (Leo Hinds) writes:
> I am currently using WinQvt4.3 (off of cica.cica.indiana.edu) and as we speak, 
> the window occupies (while in 80x24) 1/2 of the screen's vertical space, & 3/4 
> of the horizontal space, all this while in LARGE mode.  In the small mode, the 
...
> 
> The program is Shareware ($50) and appears to work

Not for me it doesn't. When accessing a unix machine and trying to run
emacs (Montgomery's), I get a number of "black boxes" scattered across
the screen, although the screen looks OK overall.
I played with it for a while, but could not make it work. The standard
Win3.0 terminal emulator DOES NOT DO THIS (at the same speed) and
works just fine. Except, of course, takes up the whole screen.
Also wn100k emulator works just fine, but again, it only uses
a large courier font. So the problem seems to be in WinQVT.

In case someone thinks of a possible fix, here are a few facts:
1) no characters appear to be lost or mangled,
2) in every case, the boxes seem to "overwrite" only whitespaces,
3) symptoms are independent of speed (110 baud and 9600 baud) and
   of whether flow control is on or off,
4) comm parameters are 8bits + 1 stop, no parity
5) TERM=vt100 both on the host and in the WinQVT,
6) there seems to be some relationship between the terminal control
   characters and the black boxes -- there is always whole bunch
   of them at the beginning of the file and around tabs.

So I'm still looking for a 24x80 dumb terminal emulator,
			Peter Pavlovcik, att!iexist!peter

leoh@hardy.hdw.csd.harris.com (Leo Hinds) (09/06/90)

In article <1990Aug31.184035.9324@cbnewsc.att.com> peter@cbnewsc.att.com (peter.pavlovcik) writes:

>Not for me it doesn't. When accessing a unix machine and trying to run
>emacs (Montgomery's), I get a number of "black boxes" scattered across

I tried it (right now) with GNUemacs ... no problem ...

>5) TERM=vt100 both on the host and in the WinQVT,

I am using it as a VT200 ... 

>6) there seems to be some relationship between the terminal control
>   characters and the black boxes -- there is always whole bunch
>   of them at the beginning of the file and around tabs.

possibly in your termcap/terminfo for the VT100 ?



leoh@hdw.csd.harris.com         	Leo Hinds       	(305)973-5229
Gfx ... gfx ... :-) whfg orpnhfr V "ebg"grq zl fvtangher svyr lbh guvax V nz n
creireg ?!!!!!!? ... znlor arkg gvzr