Re: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun

Quoting "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed(a)reedmedia.net>: I don't think sh ever did line editing, unless sh is a link to bash or ksh. I first saw this in csh around 1978, ed-style. David Korn added EMACS editing to ksh in the early 80s, and Alan Hewitt wrote a mini-vi version which Korn also included. Once I had access to vi in the shell, I switched from csh to ksh and never went back. HERE IS was intended for two teletypes connected to each other via modem. There was a short ID string hardcoded somehow into the teletype - I think the limit was 8 or 16 characters, and if not null, typically was a short ID of whose teletype it was (e.g. the organization name or site in the org.) If you press HERE IS, it was as if you had typed those characters. More interesting was that if one side of the link sent the ASCII ENQ (enquiry, control E) character, the other side would respond with its HERE IS string. You were supposed to type a message offline onto paper tape (editing with the "back space" button on the tape punch, which rewound the tape reel one character so the most recent char was ready to be punched again) and then type RUB OUT, which obliterated the typo.) Then you would put the tape in the reader, dial the number of another teletype, and press Start on the tape reader. Your tape would read and be transmitted to the other side. Sort of a primitive email system, it was widely used by news media. There was even a "Telex" network of these things - the Wikipedia entry for Telex has some background and a few vintage photos. I think if you put an ENQ at the beginning of your tape, the other side would identify itself, so you were sure it went to the right place. Of course, the tape kept reading, so you'd better have several NULL characters after the ENQ. I never tried this, my ASR33 days were spent dialing up computers, not other teletypes. I actually bought one of these things as a college sophomore so I could access the computer center from my dorm room! UNIX didn't use HERE IS. Mary Ann