From: l3q90@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Warnica) Subject: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: 16 Dec 1997 16:01:28 GMT Organization: University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canada Lines: 11 Message-ID: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: sol-alt1.unb.ca Aproved: sure! X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!torn!garnet.nbnet.nb.ca!news.unb.ca!sol!l3q90 Talking about HCF in another thread, I pointe out EOU from the Jargon File, and these were brought to my attention. Ive always wondered what they are (well, all the control charactors, realy - only some are obvious / used) and I happen to be at a kbd logged in, and reading afc :) So, what are all these things - and what were there origional uses? -- Jeff Warnica jeff.warnica@unb.ca l3q90@unb.ca warnica@unb.ca From the University Of New Brunswickas really crappy NFSd fortune file: Elevators smell different to midgets ###### From: Marco S Hyman Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: 16 Dec 1997 11:31:03 -0800 Organization: S.N.A.F.U. (www.snafu.org) Lines: 30 Message-ID: References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: dumbcat.codewright.com X-Trace: 882300663 12271 (none) 206.86.0.12 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.2 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news1.best.com!nntp2.ba.best.com!not-for-mail l3q90@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Warnica) writes: > So, what are all these things - and what were there origional uses? ITU-T (nee CCITT) recomendation V.3 International Alphabet No. 5 (1972) says: IS - Information Separators Control characters that are used to separate and qualify data logically. There are four such characters. They may be used either in hierarchical order or non-hierarchically; in the latter case their specific meanings depend on their applications. When they are used hierarchically, the ascending sequence is: US, RS, GS, FS In this case data normally delimited by a particular separator cannot be split by a higher order separator but will be considered as delimted by any higher order separator. ANSI X3.4-1977 "code for information interchange" says: These information separators may be used with data in optional fasion, except that their hierarchical relationship shall be: FS as the most inclusive, then GS, then RS, and US as the least inclusive. (The content and length of a file, group, record, or unit are not specified.) // marc ###### From: Marco S Hyman Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: 16 Dec 1997 11:31:03 -0800 Organization: S.N.A.F.U. (www.snafu.org) Lines: 30 Message-ID: References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: dumbcat.codewright.com X-Trace: 882300663 12271 (none) 206.86.0.12 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.2 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news1.best.com!nntp2.ba.best.com!not-for-mail l3q90@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Warnica) writes: > So, what are all these things - and what were there origional uses? ITU-T (nee CCITT) recomendation V.3 International Alphabet No. 5 (1972) says: IS - Information Separators Control characters that are used to separate and qualify data logically. There are four such characters. They may be used either in hierarchical order or non-hierarchically; in the latter case their specific meanings depend on their applications. When they are used hierarchically, the ascending sequence is: US, RS, GS, FS In this case data normally delimited by a particular separator cannot be split by a higher order separator but will be considered as delimted by any higher order separator. ANSI X3.4-1977 "code for information interchange" says: These information separators may be used with data in optional fasion, except that their hierarchical relationship shall be: FS as the most inclusive, then GS, then RS, and US as the least inclusive. (The content and length of a file, group, record, or unit are not specified.) // marc ###### From: J. Chris Hausler Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Tue, 16 DEC 97 16:19:59 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lines: 15 Message-ID: References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.93.4.2 X-To: Warnica Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!4.1.16.34!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.delphi.com!news Warnica writes: >Talking about HCF in another thread, I pointe out EOU from the Jargon >File, and these were brought to my attention. Ive always wondered what >they are (well, all the control charactors, realy - only some are obvious >/ used) and I happen to be at a kbd logged in, and reading afc :) > >So, what are all these things - and what were there origional uses? FS, GS and RS are, I believe, Field Separator, Group Separator and Record Separator. As to actual uses, a now sort of obsolete OS that I still occasionally use, QNX 2, used RS for just that! If you dida hex dump of a text file, each line of text was terminated with an RS character code. Chris ###### From: nickb@primenet.com (Nick S Bensema) Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: 17 Dec 1997 22:28:00 -0700 Organization: PrImE NuT (602)864-1005 <--- <--- <--- Lines: 70 Message-ID: <67ac90$32o@nntp02.primenet.com> References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> <6769jq$nf2$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> X-Posted-By: nickb@206.165.6.202 (nickb) X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 2349 croutons, 58 futons, SIX HECTARES! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test58 (13 May 97) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!globalcenter0!news.primenet.com!not-for-mail In article <6769jq$nf2$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu>, ,,, wrote: >From article <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca>, by l3q90@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Warnica): >> >> So, what are all these things - and what were there origional uses? > >I've attached an old posting of mine on the original ASCII control >characters: I've encountered many of these in real life. > SOH 01 ^A start of heading -- imagine a heading containing, for > example, the address of the recipient. You could have > relay logic that scans for SOH, then enables the print > mechanism if the following character matches this > station's address. In early documentation, this was > called start of message. Mailbox files in unix use a series of ^A's to delimit messages today. > EOT 04 ^D end of transmission -- relay logic could decode this > and, if there is a tape in the tape reader, it could > begin transmitting its own message. This is recognized as EOF on my terminal. > ENQ 05 ^E enquire -- on receiving this, local relay logic would > generate a response. In early documentation, this was > called WRU or who are you. Teletypes had programmable > response sequences that were encoded on a music box > mechanism, and it was up to the customer to break > plastic fingers off the drum to code how it responded > to an ENQ. On old TBBS systems, this character would be sent after the name prompt. On cheap Commodore 64 terminal programs, the cursor would turn white at this point. By the way, many Commodore 64 terminal programs not only recognized the bell (^G), but they made a huge gong sound for the ^V (SYN). > ACK 06 ^F acknowledge -- one possible response to ENQ. In early > documentation, this was called RU or are you. Used in XMODEM. Same with NAK and CAN, probably a few others. > SO 0E ^N shift out -- if you've got a two-color ribbon, shift to > the alternate color, usually red. There are obvious > extensions of this to alternate character sets. > > SI 0F ^O shift in -- undo whatever SO does. For mysterious reasons > that have no apparent connection to old or modern ASCII > standards, DEC liked to use control O as a break character > to suppress teletype output. ^N and ^O shifted in and out of the red ribbon on my friend's old plotter for the Vic-20. Most Commodore printers, I believe, use this to make text wider. > CAN 18 ^X cancel -- take that back, what I just sent you is a > mistake, ignore it. On BBSes, this was used to erase lines of text, rather than ^U. Sometimes you could use either one. -- Nick Bensema 98-KUPD Red Card #710563 UIN: 2135445 ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Prepare ship for ludicruos speed! http://www.climatefacts.org/ - Everyone but the bad boys have to behave. ###### From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: 18 Dec 1997 06:35:45 GMT Organization: Plethora Internet Lines: 27 Message-ID: <67ag81$2u4$1@darla.visi.com> References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> <6769jq$nf2$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <67ac90$32o@nntp02.primenet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: herd.plethora.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 18 Dec 1997 00:35:45 CST X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test60 (5 October 1997) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!ais.net!visi.com!not-for-mail In article <67ac90$32o@nntp02.primenet.com>, Nick S Bensema wrote: >> SOH 01 ^A start of heading -- imagine a heading containing, for >> example, the address of the recipient. You could have >> relay logic that scans for SOH, then enables the print >> mechanism if the following character matches this >> station's address. In early documentation, this was >> called start of message. >Mailbox files in unix use a series of ^A's to delimit messages today. No. MMDF mailboxes use ^A^A^A^A. No one else does. I've actually run into these when doing data conversion, of the form "we have this tape, can you find out what the record format is"? The big secret: /usr/games/factor, which I can use to get a quick guess at what blocksizes are likely. That, and ^A/^B, sprinkled liberally. -s -- seebs@plethora.net -- I am not speaking for my employer. Copyright '97 All rights reserved. This was not sent by my cat. C and Unix wizard - send mail for help, or send money for a consultation. Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! Plethora . Net ###### From: haynes@cats.ucsc.edu (Jim Haynes) Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: 18 Dec 1997 22:04:11 GMT Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz Lines: 3 Message-ID: <67c6kr$cl2@darkstar.ucsc.edu> References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> <6769jq$nf2$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: hobbes.ucsc.edu Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!agate!news.ucsc.edu!haynes Also on some of the Teletypes (33 and 35) when used with Bell System modems receipt of ctrl-D (EOT) would cause the modem to go on-hook. Obviously that 'feature' was removed by the time ctrl-D came to be commonly used in Unix. ###### From: gberigan@cse.unl.edu (Greg Berigan) Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 22:53:10 -0700 Organization: http://cse.unl.edu/~gberigan/ Lines: 50 Message-ID: References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> <6769jq$nf2$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <67ac90$32o@nntp02.primenet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: abeln730a.unl.edu X-Newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.3.5 User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/2.3.5 X-Face: ZFtFvHS5S$A1psPzniMqb^/rZ:p6ekB-VFrEmh|`fm1ot%B?wIRZ$@_f2wXz7 z>JhMT= Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-sea-19.sprintlink.net!news-in-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!206.139.252.9!feed.newsreader.com!newsfeed.inetnebr.com!crcnews.unl.edu!gberigan nickb@primenet.com (Nick S Bensema) wrote: >,,, wrote: >>l3q90@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Warnica) wrote: >>> So, what are all these things - and what were there origional uses? >> I've attached an old posting of mine on the original ASCII control >> characters: >> >> SO 0E ^N shift out -- if you've got a two-color ribbon, shift to >> the alternate color, usually red. There are obvious >> extensions of this to alternate character sets. >> >> SI 0F ^O shift in -- undo whatever SO does. For mysterious reasons >> that have no apparent connection to old or modern ASCII >> standards, DEC liked to use control O as a break character >> to suppress teletype output. > ^N and ^O shifted in and out of the red ribbon on my friend's old plotter > for the Vic-20. Most Commodore printers, I believe, use this to make > text wider. On the program ProTERM for Apple II computers, ^O was used to turn on inverse text. ^N restored it to normal text. ProTERM Special Emulation still lives in the Mac version of ProTERM. This behavior of ^O and ^N was also implemented in the 80 column firmware for all IIs. VT-100 would use ^N to switch to an alternate character set for lowercase letters and some symbols and ^O would restore it. You wouldn't want to read a message designed for viewing by ProTERM with a VT-100 nor vice versa (if the VT-100 file used the alternate character set for line drawing characters). PTSE was mainly used for drawing ASCII art using Apple II MouseText characters, enabled with ^P (firmware enabled it with ESC SI, disabled with CAN SO -- heh, didn't realize that before). Of course, for these you had to have an enhanced //e (65c02 processor and updated character ROMs and CD and EF ROMs) or newer. Apple IIgs had different MouseText characters for letters F and G (inverse carriage return symbol and racing stripes for window bars in IIgs, combined to form a running human figure in the //e, don't know about the //c or //c+). -- _-<#)-=# http://cse.unl.edu/~gberigan/War-of-the-Worlds/ ___/___ _-~_--<###) Due to widespread abuse, I no longer read any messages <~c>' __--< from users who employ munged addresses in their headers. \_--=____#) "We've upped our standards, so up yours." -- Pat Paulsen '88 ###### From: The Bakers Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 23:18:01 -0500 Organization: Monmouth Internet Lines: 11 Message-ID: <3499F579.BDC6FE9E@monmouth.com> References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> <6769jq$nf2$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <67c6kr$cl2@darkstar.ucsc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: fh-ppp20.monmouth.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; U) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!nntp.news.xara.net!xara.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newspeer.monmouth.com!news.monmouth.com!not-for-mail Tom Watson wrote: > ObFolklore: Have you ever used a computer by dialing a TWX number?? Yes, the Western Union Infomaster system. (I think this is what you were looking for :-) M. Baker mbaker@monmouth.com ###### Date: 19 Dec 97 11:22:05 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> <6769jq$nf2$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <67c6kr$cl2@darkstar.ucsc.edu> Message-ID: <544.292T280T6823221@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 14 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.244.247.7 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!xfer.kren.nm.kr!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-sea-19.sprintlink.net!news-in-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.105 In article <67c6kr$cl2@darkstar.ucsc.edu> haynes@cats.ucsc.edu (Jim Haynes) writes: >Also on some of the Teletypes (33 and 35) when used with Bell System >modems receipt of ctrl-D (EOT) would cause the modem to go on-hook. >Obviously that 'feature' was removed by the time ctrl-D came to be >commonly used in Unix. Most of the time, when I type control-D while I'm dialed into a Unix system, it disconnects. I guess the feature is redundant. :-) -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### From: tsw@cagent.com (Tom Watson) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 11:39:17 -0800 Organization: CagEnt, Inc. Lines: 33 Message-ID: References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> <6769jq$nf2$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <67c6kr$cl2@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <3499F579.BDC6FE9E@monmouth.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: alfred.cagent.com Cache-Post-Path: alfred.cagent.com!unknown@cypher.cagent.com Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newshub1.home.com!news.home.com!news.rdc1.sfba.home.net!cypher.cagent.com!user In article <3499F579.BDC6FE9E@monmouth.com>, The Bakers wrote: > Tom Watson wrote: > > > ObFolklore: Have you ever used a computer by dialing a TWX number?? > > Yes, the Western Union Infomaster system. (I think this is what you were looking > for :-) > Nope. I (in my wonderful youth) used both Tymshare & GE on a TWX terminal and called TWX numbers. I think this pre-dates infomaster by quite a few years. That was when AT&T had a Bell System, and TWX service was handled by AT&T. The 'problem' was that you couldn't make a 'call' from a TWX line to a 'DDD' line, as they were different systems. They did have area codes (always dialed) that were (at the time, not now) distinct. They used 910, 810, 710 for west, midwest, east parts of the country, 610 for Canada, and 510 for 'rural' areas. These were 'recovered' and used as normal area codes (510 is now Oakland CA). I still remember the TWX number for Tymshare (the #1 940 in Palo Alto), but since it is probably a real number somewhere, I don't think that publishing it would be in the best interest of anyone. ObTrivia: The GE system used the answerback as part of its 'security'. -- tsw@cagent.com (Home: tsw@johana.com) Please forward spam to: annagram@hr.house.gov (my Congressman), I do. ###### From: Boris Gjenero Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 12:34:14 -0500 Organization: The First Frontier Lines: 19 Message-ID: <349AB015.1DDD6248@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> References: <67dvq0$mul@top.mitre.org> <67e4l6$rp6$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: 20256@206.48.124.121 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; Linux 2.0.31 i486) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!cancer.vividnet.com!recycled.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!Supernews60!supernews.com!Supernews69!not-for-mail > Sadly, now that hardly anybody uses dumb terminals, and we're allmost > all using bitmapped display hardware, we still can't overprint. It's not > a matter of being technically difficult, but rather, the 20 year reign > of dumb terminal (or dumb graphics adapter on a PC) technology has killed > the habit! > Doug Jones > jones@cs.uiowa.edu xterm in Tek mode will happily overprint. However, I don't have a decent termcap entry for that, so I never use it. Besides, I am not even sure that termcap is flexible enough to support it or even that the terminal is flexible enough. Isn't the terminal actually a storage CRT? (once "drawn", pixels are on until the screen is cleared.) -- | Boris Gjenero | | Home page: http://www.undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca/~bgjenero/ | | "Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to | | depend greatly on our own point of view." - Obi-Wan Kenobi, ROTJ | ###### From: jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Date: 19 Dec 1997 14:19:44 GMT Organization: The MITRE Corporation Lines: 71 Message-ID: <67dvq0$mul@top.mitre.org> References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> <6769jq$nf2$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <67c6kr$cl2@darkstar.ucsc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: mwunix.mitre.org Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!world!blanket.mitre.org!news.mitre.org!mwunix!jcmorris tsw@cagent.com (Tom Watson) writes: >In article <67c6kr$cl2@darkstar.ucsc.edu>, haynes@cats.ucsc.edu (Jim >Haynes) wrote: >> Also on some of the Teletypes (33 and 35) when used with Bell System modems >> receipt of ctrl-D (EOT) would cause the modem to go on-hook. Obviously that >> 'feature' was removed by the time ctrl-D came to be commonly used in Unix. >Not necessarly true. >This "feature" only applied to a control-D processed by the printing >mechanisim. If it never got there, it didn't disconnect. [...] >Model 37 (150 bps) terminals were the first to use both upper and lower >case letters (a full 96 character ASCII set), and according to the >documentation were commonly used as terminals for Unix (probably even >today, somewhere). If they were connected thru modems (probably using >Bell 103's) at Bell Labs, which I can only assume was done, the standard >"stunt box" disconnected them upon receipt of a control-D. I had only occasional contact with the TTY37 (I do recall drooling over it when it was first introduced) but I did have a lot of logged time with the TTY 33/35...and I think you're probably thinking of the Data Set 109, not 103. The standard TeleType configured with an RS232 interface didn't have any mechanism that I recall that would allow you to deassert the DTR line (which would cause an attached modem to go on-hook), but if you ordered it with the integrated Data Set 109 the stunt box could send an on-hook order to the modem. (I no longer have my TTY schematic books; I think my memory is correct but I won't offer any double-your-money-back warranty...) The easiest way to identify TTY33 units with an integral Data Set 109 was to look at the panel to the right of the printer/keyboard: if it had a dial (or TouchTone button pad) and illuminated push buttons at the bottom a 109 was installed; if there was a 3-position rotary switch on the right side of the front panel, there was no modem installed (or at least not one from WECo). >Early timesharing systems (of the 1960's) were both "full duplex" >(Tymshare) and "half duplex" (GE, SBC). One learned the >ddiiffffeerreennccee very quickly and knew where the 'full/half' switch >was located. One also learned the very quickly when the switch should have been set to HDX but was still in the FDX position...a wonderful way to thoroughly confuse a new secretary. ObTriviaContest: under what conditions might a user at a TTY terminal expect to receive a line looking something like the following (with representing a carriage return character): XXXXXXXXOOOOOOOO******** and what technological advancement in terminal design made it impossible to use this line for its intended purpose? >ObFolklore: Have you ever used a computer by dialing a TWX number?? No, but if you wanted to do so you would have had an interesting time unless you had the right modem. TWX and normal (DDD) communications used opposite mark/space tones; the Data Set 103A1 (used with TWX nodes) used 1070/2025 Hz (originate/answer) for mark and 1270/2225 for space; the 103A2 (for normal dialup usage) used the 1270/2225 for mark and 1070/2025 for space. The 103A2 specs became the industry standard for computer dialup access for speeds up to 150 baud (and later 300 as well). Joe Morris ###### From: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Date: 19 Dec 1997 15:31:52 GMT Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Lines: 15 Message-ID: <67e418$o75@freenet-news.carleton.ca> References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> <6769jq$nf2$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <67c6kr$cl2@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <67dvq0$mul@top.mitre.org> Reply-To: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet3.carleton.ca X-Given-Sender: ab528@freenet3.carleton.ca (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!atl-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!europa.clark.net!209.130.129.134!node2.frontiernet.net!node17.frontiernet.net!xcski.com!freenet-news.carleton.ca!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!ab528 Joe Morris (jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org) writes: > > ObTriviaContest: under what conditions might a user at a TTY terminal > expect to receive a line looking something like the following (with > representing a carriage return character): > > XXXXXXXXOOOOOOOO******** > Hardcopy password protect. > and what technological advancement in terminal design made it impossible > to use this line for its intended purpose? Glass. ###### From: jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (,,,) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Date: 19 Dec 1997 15:42:30 GMT Organization: The University of Iowa Lines: 31 Message-ID: <67e4l6$rp6$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> References: <67dvq0$mul@top.mitre.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!atl-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!131.103.1.114!news1.chicago.iagnet.net!news2.chicago.iagnet.net!iagnet.net!128.255.56.80!news.uiowa.edu!not-for-mail From article <67dvq0$mul@top.mitre.org>, by jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris): > > ObTriviaContest: under what conditions might a user at a TTY terminal > expect to receive a line looking something like the following (with > representing a carriage return character): > > XXXXXXXXOOOOOOOO******** > > and what technological advancement in terminal design made it impossible > to use this line for its intended purpose? Printing this caused X, O and * to overprint in each of 8 places, making any additional overprinting illegible. You'd output this gack first before allowing users to type passwords, and this made it safe to carelessly discard the printout of the password. On half-duplex systems, this was the only way to protect passwords. On full-duplex systems, you simply didn't bother to echo the password, or you echoed nulls (to make the print mechanism rattle giving feedback) or you echoed X's, to give more solid feedback. Dumb terminals (glass teletypes) can't overprint. Sadly, now that hardly anybody uses dumb terminals, and we're allmost all using bitmapped display hardware, we still can't overprint. It's not a matter of being technically difficult, but rather, the 20 year reign of dumb terminal (or dumb graphics adapter on a PC) technology has killed the habit! Doug Jones jones@cs.uiowa.edu ###### From: l3q90@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Warnica) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Date: 20 Dec 1997 17:17:56 GMT Organization: University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canada Lines: 22 Message-ID: <67guk4$5c7@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> <6769jq$nf2$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <67ac90$32o@nntp02.primenet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: sol-alt1.unb.ca Aproved: yes X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!streamer1.cleveland.iagnet.net!iagnet.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!205.252.116.205!howland.erols.net!torn!garnet.nbnet.nb.ca!news.unb.ca!sol!l3q90 : On old TBBS systems, this character would be sent after the name prompt. : On cheap Commodore 64 terminal programs, the cursor would turn white at : this point. : By the way, many Commodore 64 terminal programs not only recognized the : bell (^G), but they made a huge gong sound for the ^V (SYN). I loved the gong sound, and to this day long for it in the real world. Commodore users definitly had the best (hobby) communication stuff. With the (possible) exception of Renegade, C= BBS's prgs killed IBM things. Image BBS is better than even Wildcat. But then agian, hanging a modem off a PC generaly dosent kill the stock PS :) -- Jeff Warnica jeff.warnica@unb.ca l3q90@unb.ca warnica@unb.ca From the University Of New Brunswickas really crappy NFSd fortune file: "If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920) ###### From: martini@heaven7.snafu.de (Martin Ibert) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 11:21:53 GMT Organization: The Seventh Heaven, Berlin, Germany Lines: 18 Message-ID: <34a09e31.132915904@news.sky.bln.sub.org> References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> <67c6kr$cl2@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <544.292T280T6823221@sky.bus.com> <67fl48$15b@izalco.d-and-d.com> <67jh9o$raa$1@sherrill.kiva.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: arezzo.sky.bln.sub.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-dc-3.sprintlink.net!news-dc-1.sprintlink.net!news-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!newsfeed.nacamar.de!blackbush.xlink.net!connemara.xlink.net!unlisys!news.snafu.de!desert!firenze.sky.bln.sub.org!news On 21 Dec 1997 11:48:56 -0500, greg@sherrill.kiva.net (Gregory Travis) wrote: >^D is only the EOF marker (unless reset to another character) for the >tty data stream. A ^D in a file, over a socket, etc. will not cause >read(2) to return EOF. Only when the file descriptor passed to read(2) >is a tty and only when that tty is in cooked mode will a ^D get >translated to an EOF. Not even that is entirely true. The story is somewhat more complex. If you type ^D, everything typed on the line so far is transmitted. If you type some characters, then ^D, the characters will be transmitted to the shell. If you did not type anything on the current line, ^D will immediately transmit just that - nothing. read() will return 0, and that, finally, is interpreted as an end-of-file condition. -- Please visit http://www.snafu.de/~martini/ for contact information! ------------------------------------------------------------------- |Blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed!| ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: mccauley@netcom.com (John Scott McCauley Jr) Subject: Re: Old ASCII - FS GS RS etc? Message-ID: Organization: Netcom References: <6768ko$mev@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca> <67c6kr$cl2@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <544.292T280T6823221@sky.bus.com> <67fl48$15b@izalco.d-and-d.com> Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 17:32:28 GMT Lines: 16 Sender: mccauley@netcom10.netcom.com Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!wilbur.ohww.norman.ok.us!newsfeed.kornet.nm.kr!howland.erols.net!ix.netcom.com!mccauley In article <67fl48$15b@izalco.d-and-d.com>, DoN. Nichols wrote: >In article <544.292T280T6823221@sky.bus.com>, > > It disconnects if you're in your login shell -- because you just >told it to. '^-D' is the generic EOF marker on any data stream, including >that from the terminal to the shell. Some shells, such as tcsh, which I'm >currently using, allow you to use '^D' to exit from all the deeper layers, >but protects you from ending your login session without explicitly typing >'exit'. This protection may be configured to be present or not. The option >to set is "ignoreeof". > Try typing 25 or so ^D's in a row to a tcsh with ignoreeof set. Scott