joee@orca.UUCP (Joe Eckardt) (04/13/84)
Please do NOT use ANSI codes for text enhancments! There ARE terminals that die an untimely death when they receive some of those codes. My CT-8500 is, unfortunately, one of them. I know there are others but don't know them by model. (At very best a burst of ANSI codes generally leaves the screen locked in inverse video, or all underlined, or turns off the cursor. More often it also locks up the keyboard.) There NOTHING worse than getting a letter bomb which leaves your terminal in such a state that the power must be cycled to unlock things. This is particularly annoying when you are on a dialup and cycling the power also drops the line requiring you to redial in. PLEASE refrain from inbedding ANSI codes! Thanks. Joe Eckardt Tektronix Wilsonville, Oregon UUCP: ...!tektronix!tekecs!joee (ignore return address) CSNET: tekecs!joee @ tektronix ARPA: tekecs!joee.tektronix @ rand-relay
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (04/15/84)
In fact, the netnews software currently strips all control characters (except for safe ones like return, newline, and tab) out of all news that passes through it. The reason for this is that someone once posted a message that had the HP 2621 underline command in it. On HP terminals, it underlined the text beautifully when displayed by readnews. On a Concept 100, it locked the keyboard. I think (but am not sure) that you can underline things using backspaces or carriage returns and _ characters, and have them pass through unmolested. If the reader is using the "more" program to display news (which is often the default), more may display it underlined. I would suggest experimentation before trying this, things like which method you use to underline and whether the text or the underlines come first probably matter, especially if the reader does NOT use more.
jdi@psuvax.UUCP (John D. Irwin) (04/15/84)
A ^[[ sequence causes Teleray 1061's to die a horrible death. This causes
interesting problems on VMS, for example.
--
Spoken: John D. Irwin
AT&T: 814-237-5068
Bitnet: jdi@psuvax1.BITNET
Csnet: jdi@penn-state.CSNET
Uucp: {akgua, allegra, cornell, princeton, ihnp4, burdvax}!psuvax!jdirpw3@fortune.UUCP (04/16/84)
#R:orca:-77500:fortune:3500018:000:1280
fortune!rpw3 Apr 15 22:14:00 1984
<<More no-no control char flames>>
Unfortunately, the news software used here does NOT strip the control
characters out of messages when it passes them on (just when it
displays them maybe?)! When it passes news to the pseudo-host 'notes',
the "letter bombs" [well named, Mark] are still ticking.
In particular, stuff gatewayed from some ARPA sites tends to have
garbage in the subject line, like <DEL>'s and <FF>'s and <VT>'s.
Form feeds clear the screen, on my terminal. (Real "cute" at 9600 baud
to get a joke with a form feed after the "Question:" part... ya' have
to play Karnac for real!)
The last message I saw where somebody tried to "highlight" a word, they
did it in BOTH the title and the text, it threw my terminal into a funny
blink mode. The really annoying problem is that until enough new notes get
posted to that group to push his header off the index page, every time
I finish with that notesfile, 'notes' is going to show me the index
page with the bomb in it, and I'm going to have to (1) go to the next
news group, (2) escape to the shell, (3) run a fixit program ("tset"). Ugh!
Rob Warnock
UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax!amd70,hpda,harpo,sri-unix,allegra}!fortune!rpw3
DDD: (415)595-8444
USPS: Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphin Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist) (04/16/84)
Some versions of inews will strip out backspaces. This problem was fixed in release 2.10, but it may still be better to use carriage returns for overstriking. Incidentally, inews only strips nonprinting characters out of article bodies but not out of the headers. I would not reccomend attempting to underline text in an article title since as far as I know no news reading program supports it. Kenneth Almquist
msc@qubix.UUCP (Mark Callow) (04/16/84)
Perhaps we should make the news reading software translate the ANSI standard
sequences into the appropriate termcap strings etc.
--
From the Tardis of Mark Callow
msc@qubix.UUCP, decwrl!qubix!msc@Berkeley.ARPA
...{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!qubix!msc, ...{ittvax,amd70}!qubix!msc
"I'm a citizen of the Universe, and a gentleman to boot."jdb@mordor.UUCP (04/17/84)
Please, if you MUST underline your text (using underscores with backspaces or carriage returns), enter the underscores first, then back up and enter the text. Not everyone uses "more" to read news, and it is really frustrating to encounter missing words in an article because the CRT erased the text when it backspaced and wrote the underscores. (Remember V6 nroff?) It seems to be an informal convention that emphasis is denoted with *asterisks* or ALL CAPITAL LETTERS rather than with terminal-dependent sequences. I suggest that we continue doing things this way. -- John Bruner (S-1 Project, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) MILNET: jdb@mordor.ARPA [jdb@s1-c] (415) 422-0758 UUCP: ...!ucbvax!dual!mordor!jdb ...!decvax!decwrl!mordor!jdb
ron@brl-vgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (04/17/84)
Network Hacking Group R. Natalie
Request for Comments: 999 BRL
November, 1981
LETTER BOMB TRANSFER PROTOCOL
1. INTRODUCTION
The objective of Letter Bomb Transfer Protocol (LBTP) is to transfer
simple opinions of disgruntled network users reliably and efficiently.
LBTP is independant of any particular transmission or mail processing
subsystem and requires only a moderately reliable mail transfer system.
An important LBTP is its capability to relay these opinions across
transport service environments. LBTP provides a non-verbal, easily
understood response to any number of situations such as mail systems
who return non-decipherable error messages.
2. LBTP Model:
\
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grt@hocda.UUCP (G.TOMASEVICH) (04/17/84)
I hope nobody posts anything that has a Blit control packet in it. :-)