[Info-vax] VMS terminal support

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2012-08-01 15:49, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> On 2012-08-01 13:22:55 +0000, Johnny Billquist said:
>
>> On 2012-08-01 14:53, John E. Malmberg wrote:
>>> On 8/1/2012 5:18 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>>>
>>>> My point was that there is no response "seven bit". And believe me,
>>>> I've
>>>> read the manuals backwards and forwards plenty of times.
>>>> I was curious on how people expected VMS to be able to set eightbit,
>>>> based on the information in DA1. Maybe something clever that I had
>>>> missed, but based on your responses, as well as the fact that VMS do
>>>> not
>>>> set eightbit even if I have all the capabilities set correctly when I
>>>> test seems to prove that VMS does indeed not do this, as it can't.
>>>
>>> VMS only seems to be able designed to detect a specific set of VT series
>>> terminals that were sold by them or the company that now sells them.  In
>>> some cases it can get the geometry of the terminal, in others it can
>>> not.
>>
>> Well, yes and no. VMS does not detect specific terminals, but only
>> uses the somewhat generic responses from the DA1 escape sequence
>> response. Geometry is basically guessed (well, pretty much assumed) to
>> be 24x80, since almost all text terminals have that geometry.
>
> Because it's a fracking mess.  Duh.
>
> Keep picking at the scab, and you might eventually learn why most folks
> decided to hate on serial comms.
>
> It was a reasonable compromise, err, choice, (many) years ago, but
> outside of a JTAG-type application, it's now a legacy connection.
>
> And for good reason.
>
> Someday, the kids will staring at those giant clunky serial adapters in
> some museum case, with no idea what a mess serial comms was.

Nah. I have absolutely no problem with serial communication, or old 
fashioned terminals. But it all boils down to how much you knowledge you 
want to absorb. Lots of people mess with it, without understand it 
properly, and at that point I can understand all the confusion, errors 
and perceived mess.
But it's really not that problematic.

But I respect that not everyone cares to dig into it. Just like some 
people really do not want to do assembly language.

Me, I can't wrap my head around user interfaces. Whenever I try to do 
that stuff, it comes out horrible. Even I can see *that*. But I just 
can't seem to understand how to make something useful.

	Johnny