[2900] in testers
Re: moira scrolling
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David K Krikorian)
Wed Jun 5 17:58:20 1996
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 17:58:07 -0400
From: David K Krikorian <dkk@MIT.EDU>
To: dot@MIT.EDU
Cc: testers@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <199606051831.OAA21334@mad-scientist.MIT.EDU.MIT.EDU> (message
from Craig Fields on Wed, 5 Jun 1996 14:31:32 -0400)
Dot, does this problem occur with an unencrypted rlogin? If not, then
my hypothesis, below, is incorrect.
My first impression is that it's a terminfo problem. When the curses
library (which the moira clients use in tty mode) needs to scroll, it
starts using specific terminal features. Curses optimizes the writing
of what may be a slow terminal across what may be a slow modem link by
telling the terminal to do hardware scrolling, by not writing over
characters that should have not changed (e.g. spaces), etc. These
optimizations use the less-standard features of terminals, and rely on
the program knowing the size of its terminal.
If the terminal type on the Sun ($TERM) is set wrong, if the terminfo
database on the Sun contains the wrong terminal-capability description
for $TERM, or if the terminal emulator (xterm?) on the SGI doesn't do
proper terminal emulation (of the type of terminal it claims to be),
then the "curses" optimizations will fail. Your evidence indicates a
slight mismatch.
If the problem can be reproduced using an xterm (assuming that's what
you used on the SGI) on a decstation and running moira on the Sun,
then it's likely a Sun terminfo problem. If, on the other hand, the
problem can be reproduced by using the SGI as before but running moira
on a decstation, then it's probably a problem with the SGI xterm (or
whatever terminal emulator you're using).
--
David Krikorian <dkk@mit.edu>, radio: KA1NAP, groups: APO LSC SIPB,
employment: MIT/IS/Service/ASO (Athena Server Operations)
