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Author Message
25 new of 219 responses total.
keesan
response 159 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 03:46 UTC 2005

I get a kernel panic when I tell it there is more memory than actual, or to
put root on some nonexistent device.  Did you do something equally clever?
janc
response 160 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 03:58 UTC 2005

I installed a slightly newer version of backtalk and fronttalk.  Backtalk has
suffered quite a few internal reorganizations aimed it making various things
I want to do in the future easier to do.  There's always a risk of introducing
new bugs when I do this, but that's life.  The major bug fix in Backtalk is
to the date parsing.  "read since" type commands should work much better.

Fronttalk has had more noticable changes.  First, it now has command line
editting (via a package known to Unix geeks as "readline") similar to what
you see in tcsh and other modern shells.  That means you can use the arrow
key to move back into the command you are typing and edit it, or use the up
arrow key to move back in the command history and reissue previous commands.

The "read since" command was working badly.  It should now work much better.
The date syntax understood by Backtalk isn't exactly the same as Picospan or
Yapp - it actually accepts a much wider range of date syntaxes.  Doing
"help date" in Fronttalk will tell you more than any sane person wants to
know about Fronttalk date formats.  Backtalk now implements the Picospan
"date" and "cdate" commands, but they are pretty useless, so don't worry
about it.

Control-Z generally should work better now in Fronttalk - things should
work smoothly when you suspend/restart the program.  Actually, part of this
was a BSD portability fix in Gate, so it may fix sometime problems for
Picospan users too.

I would encourage regular users of "bbs" (Picospan) to try out Fronttalk.
You run Fronttalk with the "ft" command.  The plan is that Fronttalk will
eventually replace Picospan on Grex.  Trying it out now to make sure it
behaves well for you would be wise.
janc
response 161 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 03:59 UTC 2005

Re 159:  No, this is probably an OpenBSD bug.  There is a theory that it is
due to using soft updates, a feature that may not be fully mature in OpenBSD
version 3.5.  We don't actually know what caused the last crash though. 
Things are being tried.
twenex
response 162 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 12:07 UTC 2005

A kernel panic is the UNIX version of a Windows "Blue Screen of Death" -
except that the last time it happened every day was probably in 1971 or so.
For the record, Windows isn't the worst - IBM's ill-fated TimeSharing System,
TSS, took over 10 minutes to boot up, but mean time to failure was less than
that. D'Oh!
keesan
response 163 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 13:55 UTC 2005

I am trying out fronttalk now and when I hit the left arrow I get [D and a
beep.  Am I supposed to be able to back up?  The up arrow give me [A and a
beep.  I have an 84-key keyboard and am using linux.  Down arrow [B.  Right
arrow [C.  Backspace works as expected.  
mooncat
response 164 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 14:57 UTC 2005

Not sure if this is just me or not, but instead of seeing apostrophes 
in responses I keep seeing:  '

In case it matters, I'm using Internet Explorer.
slynne
response 165 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 15:12 UTC 2005

I am seeing the same thing. I am also using backtalk with IE browser. 
slynne
response 166 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 15:13 UTC 2005

Oops wrong item. 
mooncat
response 167 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 16:34 UTC 2005

(Yeah, I noticed that too. ;) )
remmers
response 168 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 16:44 UTC 2005

Re #164, #165: Can you point to some specific items where the '
problem occurs?
janc
response 169 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 16:48 UTC 2005

resp:163 (keesan):

  I would guess that your termcaps are set wrong.  Do your arrow keys work
  in anything else?

resp:164: (mooncat)

  IE doesn't do ' ?  Yuck.  I guess I should take that out.
janc
response 170 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 16:50 UTC 2005

Backtalk changes lots of symbols into responses into other things, like <
becomes &lt; and & becomes &amp;.  The browsers change them back.  The new
backtalk also changes ' into &apos;.  Evidently IE does not change it back.
janc
response 171 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 17:14 UTC 2005

OK, I've fixed Backtalk to turn quotes into &#39; which IE apparantly does
understand.
remmers
response 172 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 17:18 UTC 2005

Right - I suspected it was IE lameness.  Seems to me I had a problem once
with IE not recognizing '&apos;' despite every other modern browser doing
so.
janc
response 173 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 17:19 UTC 2005

To state the obvious, IE is not a modern browser.
remmers
response 174 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 17:20 UTC 2005

Yeah - scratch the word 'other' from my response #172.
keesan
response 175 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 18:05 UTC 2005

My left arrow acts the same on my 101-key keyboard - BOTH left arrows.
Terminal type is vt100.  I am telnetted from linux.  Perhaps I should choose
linux instead.
tod
response 176 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 18:15 UTC 2005

Have you tried vt52 or vt102 or vt220?
jep
response 177 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 18:33 UTC 2005

The problem with the &apos; characters is fixed.  Thanks, Jan!  
Unfortunately I am limited to IE at work.  As IE was one of the first 
browsers with the capability to display XML, I am surprised it doesn't 
handle the &apos; character entity.  I wonder why it doesn't?
mooncat
response 178 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 19:33 UTC 2005

All better now! Thanks!!
keesan
response 179 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 19:49 UTC 2005

I think VT320 is the same as VT200 or VT102 with more features.  
naftee
response 180 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 19:53 UTC 2005

re 173 How so ?
janc
response 181 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 26 20:39 UTC 2005

Sindi:  In the old days "vt100" refered to an actual terminal you could put
on your desk rather than a protocol.  People would use these extremely dumb
computers to connect to servers, and what codes were sent to the server when
they hit and arrow key were different depending on what make and model of
terminal you had.  A DEC VT100 would send different codes than an IBM 3101
(I miss my trusty IBM 3101 - that thing could really hold a desk down).

Whatever software you use to connect to Grex (or under Unix, the terminal
window it runs in) pretends to be one or another of these fine old historical
monsters.  Usually either VT100 if the programmers were lazy, or a much
extended version of VT100 called ANSI if they were more ambitious.  So the
codes sent depend on the software on your computer, not on the actual keyboard
you are using.  You mention Linux.  Are you running xwindows?  If so, you
probably want 'xterm'.  If not, I guess probably 'ansi'.

However, I could be wrong about this.  Maybe your TERM setting is fine.  If
the arrow keys work for you in lynx, it is probably right.

Fronttalk doesn't actually do any of this logic itself.  It uses a library
module called "readline" that is also used by many of the shells on Grex, like
tcsh.  It would be very odd if your arrow keys worked in any of those, but
not in Fronttalk.

One thing just barely worth checking:  Type "display readline" in fronttalk.
It should say that readline is turned on and mention "Gnu" (since we are using
the Gnu readline library).
remmers
response 182 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 27 01:53 UTC 2005

Re #177:  Microsoft decided to stop all development on IE a few years ago.
I guess they figured IE was so well entrenched as the leading browser that
they could rest on their laurels.  Unfortunately that left their support
for XML and CSS in an incomplete state.  Meanwhile, web standards have
been evolving and other browsers (Mozilla, Firefox, Opera) have been
keeping up, but not IE.  Web designers are not pleased with IE these
days.
keesan
response 183 of 219: Mark Unseen   Jan 27 13:37 UTC 2005

I have typed 'tset ansi' (which gave me the usual login messages for some
reason) and then ft and will now test arrow keys.  I still get [D.  My
terminal setting on my linux computer is 'linux'.  Then I choose vt100 at grex
(I also tried linux here with no better results).  Where do I type display
readline, at line start in fronttalk?
display readline
I just typed it and got nothing back.  I am not using X.  
Lynx and links work (offline anyway) as expected here.
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