Annoying keymaps (was Re: Delete key)

[Jay Ashworth]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bill Campbell" <bill at celestial.com>

> ESC was intended at being the beginning of an escape sequence, never
> designed to stand alone. As usual, Microsoft corrupted this decades ago in
> their usual ignorance of communications standards. WordStar displayed
> similar ignorance when it used ctrl-s (XOFF) as cursor control, as did
> Scripsit which I think used ctrl-S to start a search, and the Radio Shack
> Model 12 keyboard had a function key around the numeric keypad that sent
> XOFF. I don't know how many calls I got from customers with new Model 12s
> and 16s complaining that their Xenix keyboards locked up.

You think that's bad...

<saga>
Back in about 1995 or so, a client of mine was having trouble with the
3270 emulator they used to access their franchisor's mainframe -- Wyse
terminals were locking up at random.  Really locked up *hard*; you could
not even get into the setup mode.  Powercycle was the only solution.

We couldn't figure out what the problem was, and ended up either putting
the terminal in monitor mode, or using a PC emulator, to trace the incoming
characters.

Turned out that *the emulator* was sending Ctrl-S characters to the terminal
and Wyse's died the death if you do that.  I believe a Ctrl-Q actually 
unlocked it, but you couldn't get there from there, and they clearly 
implemented the pause function in *way* the wrong part of the code stack.

<punchline>
As it turned out, *Link MC-5s* in Wyse 60 emulation mode *also locked
up in EXACTLY the same way* -- I mean, "can't get into setup", and
everything.

I always wondered if Link (who were not, IIRC, owned by Wyse at the time)
had just stolen the firmware, explaining why they were bug-for-bug 
compatible like that...
</punchline>
</saga>

No, I never had a *software* WY60 emulator lock up that way.

And FTR: it's probably possible to build an ANSI terminal emulator 
these days for about $50 if you push hard; Raspberry Pi are great.

Cheers,
-- jra

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                  Baylink                       jra at baylink.com
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