*BSD News Article 17224


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From: adam@veda.is (Adam David)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: vi trashes com port
Summary: serial port login works fine until vi starts
Message-ID: <C8pvMB.n4@veda.is>
Date: 16 Jun 93 13:46:42 GMT
Organization: Veda Systems, Iceland
Lines: 21

Aargh!!
I am using a serial port login to a 386bsd 0.1.2.3 host, it works okay
but if I use vi, the serial port becomes unuseable. Characters typed at
the terminal appear to have delayed effect as if buffered, then there is
a continuous stream of garbage being spewed out of the serial port which
seems to be mostly repeating characters, usually the same as the last
character typed before it went haywire. If I kill the vi process and
all parent processes in the current session (by logging in from another
terminal) the garbage eventually stops and a new login prompt appears.
If it is not remedied soon enough the console and all virtual terminals
(syscons 2) lock up, and it is not possible to log in over ethernet.
It seems like there is still some cron activity going on, but I am not
sure about it.

Is this a known bug or some incredible weirdness? What should I do about it?
oh, btw... The serial port is set to 8 bits, and vi probably sets it to
7 bits. It still doesn't make any sense that garbage floods from the port
as fast as the line is set for.

--
adam@veda.is