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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!gatech!news.byu.edu!ux1!fcom.cc.utah.edu!park.uvcc.edu!ns.novell.com!gateway.novell.com!thisbe.Eng.Sandy.Novell.COM!terry From: terry@thisbe.Eng.Sandy.Novell.COM (Terry Lambert) Subject: Re: AT&T Long Distance Boycott (was: BNR2SS, Mach, and The Lawsuit) Message-ID: <1992Sep8.164622.21761@gateway.novell.com> Sender: news@gateway.novell.com (NetNews) Nntp-Posting-Host: thisbe.eng.sandy.novell.com Organization: Novell NPD -- Sandy, UT References: <1992Sep07.101851.2123@kithrup.COM> <QA2J6LM@taronga.com> <1992Sep08.085437.419@kithrup.COM> Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 16:46:22 GMT Lines: 95 In article <1992Sep08.085437.419@kithrup.COM> sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) writes: >In article <QA2J6LM@taronga.com> peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >>Sorry, if you have to provide your own termcap you're back where you started: > >Sorry, if you have to provide your own main() your language is useless. > >Sorry, if you have to provide your own fp-to-base-37 routines your language >is useless. > >Sorry, if you have to provide your own custom IO routines, your language is >useless. > >Etc. > >The termcap library is *SMALL*. It's better if it's on every system, but >it's small enough that it can be provided as part of your application and >not be terribly visible. Emacs does that, or did at one point (although >emacs is not something I like using as an example). What about the termcap file itself? Lat time I checked, the one on my ELC was 133K. The one on icarus (a SPARCServer 2) is *much* larger. This is probably a nit, since everyone knows that most Digital Supplied utilities won't work with anything but VT series terminals anyway. Besides, VMS has it's own termcap-incompatable terminal specification language that it's editors ignore. One standard I think is important for most applications that are moderately screen oriented is an ISO Curses library. VMS Curses is not ISO compliant (ie: it has a different idea of default touching of windows and stacking write-through). Of course you could always #ifdef your code to use SMG services after you rewrite it's expectations. VMS doesn't support the concept of SUID/SGID necessary from most things, like score files in games. Instead, you have to install the image with priveledges (ie: I can't make an SUID "terry" program; only an SUID SYSTEM with some priveledges). The total lack of a CBREAK mode disallows single character I/O, unless you are willing to call SYS$QIO() directly. Raw mode requires a QIO with IO$_SENSEMODE/IO$_SETMODE. Try porting "robots" (I don't have to; I have an implementation in VAX COBOL) and see what POSIX buys you. Try the following: o Open a file created with a text editor (this will insure it is a variable length record file with implied carriage return carriage control). o Read a line up to and including the EOL. o save the tell() value. o lseek() to the tell location. o Suprise! You're back at the start of the file! The seek pointer is a record rather than a byte offset, and the pointer (in nonconformance with POSIX) isn't advanced after the EOL is faked up at the record end, like it should be, but you are required to actually read the firt character of the next "record". o For extra points (now that you realise that you have to keep a record pointer and an offset-into-record pointer) write a disk-based interpreter (BASIC or tch or bash, etc.). Hint: ungetc(getc()) before an ftell() will tie you to standard I/O, but will advance the pointer as required). POSIX "compliance" is a check-off for government contracts, since the government is not allowed to say "UNIX" and make it stick any more (you should know this; you were with SCO during the bidding for the AFCAC 451 and Desktop III contracts that caused it to adopt SVR3). >3. As for mail, tell you what, Peter: why don't you come up with a mail >system (reader, sender, interface, system-to-system interface, file format, >filesystem layout, etc.) that can work on all systems, and then I'll add the >code to t?rn to support that. MMDF (Multi-Memorandum Distribution Facility) ... OK, it stinks, but it's what you asked for. Look, POSIX buys you a lot of things (including the ability to deny that the MS-DOS file system is POSIX compliant when mounted read-write but is when it's mounted read only. }8-)). It doesn't buy you a compatability platform for most applications, especially modern ones (like xterm). Even games take a lot of work, and they're not "real" (I spent about 12 hours getting cbzone to run under VMS). Peter's right; POSIX is a step along the road, but it isn't a platform (*or a system*). Terry Lambert terry_lambert@gateway.novell.com terry@icarus.weber.edu --- Disclaimer: Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.