21 Dec
2021
21 Dec
'21
3 a.m.
Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
That /NOTYPE_AHEAD would disable logins in VMS is a bit
surprising.
In my eyes, that's very unintuitive. /NOINTERACTIVE seems much more
sensible (yay for RSTS/E).
When a terminal has no associated process and it receives unsolicited
input, it forks into routine UNSOL in module TTYSUB. UNSOL notifies
the job controller of the occurrance by sending a message to the job
cntroller's permanet mailbox. This message contains the device name
and precipitates the creation of a login process. There are various
other actions based upon the type of terminal and other attributes of
the device that may occur prior to the actions of the job controller
but without TYPE_AHEAD, none of this occurs.
Sounds like VMS also have /NOINTERACTIVE...?
VMS has no /NOINTERACTIVE. Interactive is a process right assigned
to a process that is instantiated via an unsolicited interrupt on a
terminal device.
In RSX, /NOTYPE_AHEAD just means you don't have any
typeahead. If you
try typing something when nothing is reading, the characters are just
thrown away. But if a read is in progress, things works just as normal.
I thought this was a question concerning VMS.
--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG
I speak to machines with the voice of humanity.
21 Dec
21 Dec
3:30 a.m.
It's never too late to learn something about RSX.? ?
Seriously, all DEC operating systems are fair game here as they
influenced and many times took ideas from each other.
Sometimes when I'm trying to understand something in Tops-20, knowing
what VMS, RSX, RSTS and/or Tops-10 did really helps. /Really/ helps.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 12/20/21 9:00 PM, Brian Schenkenberger, VAXman- wrote:
I thought this was a question concerning VMS.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Johnny Billquist<bqt at softjar.se> writes:
> In RSX, /NOTYPE_AHEAD just means you don't have any typeahead. If you
> try typing something when nothing is reading, the characters are just
> thrown away. But if a read is in progress, things works just as normal.
4:44 a.m.
On Dec 20, 2021, at 6:00 PM, Brian Schenkenberger,
VAXman- <system at TMESIS.COM> wrote:
/NOINTERACTIVE is not listed in the HELP SET TERM text, but SET TERM TTAn:
/PERM/NOINTERACTIVE is accepted as a command where I tried it in v5.5 and v7.3, and it
changes the first characteristic shown by SHOW TERM from "Interactive" to
"Passall". /shrug
Thank you for your explanation of how a login prompt gets triggered. That was neat.
It's quite different from the way that happens in unix-like OSes.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
https://www.nf6x.net/
Sounds like VMS also have /NOINTERACTIVE...?
VMS has no /NOINTERACTIVE. Interactive is a process right assigned
to a process that is instantiated via an unsolicited interrupt on a
terminal device. 
3:14 p.m.
On 2021-12-21 03:00, Brian Schenkenberger, VAXman- wrote:
I did see someone else who claimed it existed, but wasn't documented. I
haven't checked at all myself.
Well, I commented on Paul, who wrote what RSTS/E did, so it was already
reflecting on more than VMS. But yes, it's a topic drift.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
Like I said - I do find it a bit unintuitive that all of this processing
is so tied to the type ahead attribute.
That /NOTYPE_AHEAD would disable logins in VMS is
a bit surprising.
In my eyes, that's very unintuitive. /NOINTERACTIVE seems much more
sensible (yay for RSTS/E).
When a terminal has no associated process and it receives unsolicited
input, it forks into routine UNSOL in module TTYSUB. UNSOL notifies
the job controller of the occurrance by sending a message to the job
cntroller's permanet mailbox. This message contains the device name
and precipitates the creation of a login process. There are various
other actions based upon the type of terminal and other attributes of
the device that may occur prior to the actions of the job controller
but without TYPE_AHEAD, none of this occurs. Sounds like
VMS also have /NOINTERACTIVE...?
VMS has no /NOINTERACTIVE. Interactive is a process right assigned
to a process that is instantiated via an unsolicited interrupt on a
terminal device. In RSX,
/NOTYPE_AHEAD just means you don't have any typeahead. If you
try typing something when nothing is reading, the characters are just
thrown away. But if a read is in progress, things works just as normal.
I thought this was a question concerning VMS.
6:04 p.m.
Have you ever gotten the impression that terminal support sometimes just
'happens' instead of being planned?? The amount of parameters and
options that you can set on a line for Tops-10, Tops-20 and Unix, often
with a number of ways of doing what appears to be the same thing, is
truly bewildering.
Aside from the names to do the job, I don't think VMS is any worse or
much better than anything else.? There are plenty of parameters in
Tops-10 that require about the same amount of explanation (TTY SLAVE and
TTY GAG come to mind).
For Tops-20, it is less intuitive; the only way to do this is at system
start up.? Otherwise there are no interactive surfaces to do the
configuration, meaning SETSPD has no offset in its entry vector for
parsing from the terminal (which I find remarkable).? I /think/// the
following line in SYSTEM:7-1-CONFIG.CMD would suffice:
TERMINAL /XX/ [/- YY/] IGNORE-SYSTEM-MESSAGES IGNORE-USER-MESSAGES
NOBELL SPEED /zz/
Notes:
1. NOBELL is key to prevent some kinds of gubbish from interfering with
the application or protocol
2. Ditto ignoring system and user blat
3. The terminal should still be assigned as a _^C_ will cause a job
creation
4. REMOTE is probably not indicated unless the device handles DSR (or
carrier)
5. SPEED can be split between input and output, but is limited to 9,600
baud on a DH or DZ
The application doing the device assign could set all of these itself,
but would need capabilities to do some of them (I forget which).? You
could then use NCP to set the rest of the LINE parameters, hopefully.?
Since Tops-20 NCP can't assign a line, what you could do is have the job
that starts the NCP issue an ASSIGN command beforehand (/after/ SETSPD
and /before/ any logins are allowed).
Kind of baroque, I'd have to say.? I'd also say that VMS, RSX and VMS
user interface is probably more straightforward, in this regard (absent
the goofy naming)
Tops-20 appears like it might have had some hooks doing these kinds of
things for application terminals, but I don't see any vestigial or
otherwise unfinished code for the conditional, so I don't know what they
might have done.? Intriguing...
On 12/21/21 9:14 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Like I said - I do find it a bit unintuitive that all
of this
processing is so tied to the type ahead attribute.
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