[lug] [OT!] Help with rsx/DEC

[rm at fabula.de]

On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 12:57:47PM -0600, Lori Reed wrote:
> 
> Ignore much of my last post, I must be on crack. :)

Shure hope it was fun :)

> VT-100 keyboards were (are?) less sophisticated than I remember. They 
> lack such common niceties as [Page Up]/[Page Down]. Here's a pic:
> 
> http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/vt100-keyboard.html

Heck, i even have a vew of these sittingh arround here. 

> Based on that pic, this seems to be a complete set of key sequences:
> 
> http://www.nw.com/nw/WWW/products/wizcon/vt100.html
> 

Well, that application seems to understand more advanced terms as well.
There seems to be some terminal negotiation going on before login - but
unfortunately _not_ the later ^E term enquiry (afaik DEC used some proprietary
protocol to query the terminals for their capabilities. This is nice since
the protocol can handle very advanced features like printing capab. (much
more sophisticated then termcap) but isn't documented anywhere).
The problem seems to be: from an attached term everything works as expected,
when the same escape sequences are sent over the telnet stream s___t happens.
Someone at sometime must have adapted the telnet server on the PDP11 to map
PC keycodes to terminal escape sequences and this mapping isn't documented
and none of the responsible folks know all the key equivalents (i suggested
trial by error but that box is in production state ... :-)

> BTW, who has a still running PDP-11?

Oh, more than one would guess. I've seen several in spots where custom applications
written decades ago still do their important work and noone dares to touch a 
"running solution". This case isn't my customer but i think i know the installation:
facility mamagement in the chemical industry. I was told that the recently switched
from the old iron to harware PDP11 emulation boards (which means that i migh have
a chance to add a PDP11 to my collection :-)

 Thanks a lot for your input

   RalfD
> 
> Lori
> 
> 
> rm at fabula.de wrote:
> 
> >Hello list,
> >
> >mostly OT (but Linux is involved on the client side):
> >A friend of mine needs to write some code that interacts with
> >a PDP11 runninf RSX via telnet. At some point someone seems to have 
> >adapted the application in such a way that it will react to keyboard
> >input from a (remote) PC keyboard as if it where a VT100 keyboard
> >(so PGUp et al. will do "the right thing"). This only happens when
> >accessed via telnet so it most likely is a "feature" of the telnet
> >application. Unfortunately no one has any clue about the exact mapping
> >of keys. So the big question is: where are such key mappings defined 
> >in RSX? (is there something like termcap/terminfo). My first guess
> >was that the server sends the usual ^e (terminal enquire) but this
> >doesn't happen. 
> >
> >TIA info
> >
> >     Ralf Mattes
> >
> >PS: are the RSX/DEC manuals online? I found some stuff at www.36bit.org
> >and www.bitsavers.org but not to much admin infos.
> 
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