RT11 KED editing with xterm

[Neal G.]

Is there a recommended termcap file for xterm which makes it compatible with RT11 KED ? Raspian's lxTerminal and remote ssh sessions using MocaTerm, TeraTerm, rxvt, and xterm all fail. Though the document text appears in KED, scrolling scrambles the text and there seems no way to get to the command-input prompt. Surprisingly, if I ssh to a remote VAX/VMS system its EDT full screen editor, similar to RT11 KED, works properly in xterm.
Suggestions?

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2020-01-01 17:41, Neal G. wrote:
> Is there a recommended termcap file for xterm which makes it compatible with RT11 KED ? Raspian's lxTerminal and remote ssh sessions using MocaTerm, TeraTerm, rxvt, and xterm all fail. Though the document text appears in KED, scrolling scrambles the text and there seems no way to get to the command-input prompt. Surprisingly, if I ssh to a remote VAX/VMS system its EDT full screen editor, similar to RT11 KED, works properly in xterm.
> Suggestions?

termcap is not the answer.
termcap describes to the operating system how your terminal behaves. It
does not change the terminal behavior.
If you had something like termcap for RT-11, then it would be the answer.

xterm is more or less compatible with the VT100. For that reason, it
usually works fine with something like EDT on VMS, since it will
identify your xterm as a sort of VT100.

However, are you sure that KED understands a VT100 in the first place,
and that KED actually think you have one?

Maybe KED tries to play VT52 with you?

Apart from this, it's really hard to tell what your problems are from
your description.

Johnny

--
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|| on a psychedelic trip
email: b...@softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

[Neal G.]

On Wednesday, January 1, 2020 at 11:12:24 AM UTC-6, Johnny Billquist wrote:

termcap is not the answer.
termcap describes to the operating system how your terminal behaves. It
does not change the terminal behavior.

Curious. I've seen a description of configuring xterm as an IBM-xxxx terminal for use with a CDC Cyber simulation using termcap file; but perhaps I misread that.

Apart from this, it's really hard to tell what your problems are from
your description.

I've attach a small video clip of what I experience using MobaTerm. While creating the clip I retried xterm and found it to work correctly, mostly, I just need a way to define a usable key as the KED "Gold" key and determine the mapping of the other keypad keys.

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2020-01-01 21:11, Neal G. wrote:
>
>
> On Wednesday, January 1, 2020 at 11:12:24 AM UTC-6, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>
>
> termcap is not the answer.
> termcap describes to the operating system how your terminal behaves. It
> does not change the terminal behavior.
>
>
> Curious. I've seen a description of configuring xterm as an IBM-xxxx
> terminal for use with a CDC Cyber simulation using termcap file; but
> perhaps I misread that.

You must definitely have misread or misunderstood something there.
The closest would be if you had a program that connected to the CDC,
which then is using termcap to display on your local terminal whatever
the CDC is outputting, and which then would use termcap in order to
display it correctly for any kind of local terminal you use.
So not changing how xterm behaves, but changing how the output from such
a program would be converted to fit into whatever terminal you have,
which then could be an xterm.

But xterm itself does not use termcap, or is even aware of it. All xterm
behavior is controlled by switches on the command line when starting, or
through X resources, which you control using xrdb, or for some things,
though menues available inside xterm.

> Apart from this, it's really hard to tell what your problems are from
> your description.
>
>
> I've attach a small video clip of what I experience using MobaTerm.
> While creating the clip I retried xterm and found it to work correctly,
> mostly, I just need a way to define a usable key as the KED "Gold" key
> and determine the mapping of the other keypad keys.

I'll peek at it later. No time at this moment, but I wanted to comment
some more on the termcap issue. If things are still a bit unclear, I'm
happy to explain it in more detail later as well.

[Anton Lavrentiev]

Hmm ... Looks like you're using non-standard 24x80 terminal size that the editor expects (so that it can control the redraws properly). Try reducing the window size to the "standard" values.

Or it can also be the "screen's" artifact (if you're using the PiDP-11 console, via screen).  Then you can try instructing screen to set the terminal window size properly.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/pidp-11/mOqKQ8tchG4/KP-nKG80AgAJ

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[Johnny Billquist]

Yes. Definitely looks like a problem with a non-standard screen size.

Change to 24x80 and things will probably work fine.

Johnny

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[Will Senn]

On Wednesday, January 1, 2020 at 10:41:13 AM UTC-6, Neal G. wrote:

Is there a recommended termcap file for xterm which makes it compatible with RT11 KED ? Raspian's lxTerminal and remote ssh sessions using MocaTerm, TeraTerm, rxvt, and xterm all fail. Though the document text appears in KED, scrolling scrambles the text and there seems no way to get to the command-input prompt. Surprisingly, if I ssh to a remote VAX/VMS system its EDT full screen editor, similar to RT11 KED, works properly in xterm.
Suggestions?

Hi Neal,

I have some vague recollection of messing with my xterm and KED, my notes on it are here (scroll to bottom of note to get to KED stuff):

https://decuser.blogspot.com/2015/12/tutorial-setting-up-rt-11-v53-on-simh.html

YMMV.

[Neal G.]

On Wednesday, January 1, 2020 at 5:43:02 PM UTC-6, Johnny Billquist wrote:

Yes. Definitely looks like a problem with a non-standard screen size.

Change to 24x80 and things will probably work fine.

Spot on ... yes, the terminal size caused the display problem. When scrolling to the end of the document, KED just outputs the next line and _assumes_ the terminal will automatically scroll the display. It seems a very weird assumption to make; but I suppose it was reasonable, back in the day.

- Neal G.

[Neal G.]

On Wednesday, January 1, 2020 at 11:06:09 PM UTC-6, Will Senn wrote:

I have some vague recollection of messing with my xterm and KED, my notes on it are here (scroll to bottom of note to get to KED stuff):

 

Thanks. Yes, as that blog post describes a revised .Xresources to provide a key for KED's [Gold] and [Command] keys will help.

Coincidentally, I found a table at the end of the KED Users Guide that lists the various escapes for [Gold], [Command], and other KED functions.

- Neal G.

[Neil Higgins]

From an earlier post: An xterm-based script that allows me to use KED successfully:

https://10441337952982417240.googlegroups.com/attach/e0e2482fca7be/vtxxx-term.sh?part=0.1&vt=ANaJVrG91LcpwVmAeYodZUwxLaPeeFfXDx4TvKX07v-0fjcLnA3RMZ8LsbXswHfanhSM7CYSHxjCZhXZpXbypwW6jyMVULX_8n03vbRJUKakhUqQKm0ylWw

[Johnny Billquist]

Absolutely nothing weird about that assumption.
A VT100 have 24 lines. It cannot change.
The only possibly exception is if you have a VT100 without AVO, and run
it at 132 columns. Then it will only have 12 lines, because there wasn't
enough memory for more. That, and more attribute memory and additional
attributes is what the AVO option added.

So, VT100 -> 24x80. That's pretty much guaranteed. I wouldn't be
surprised if KED even explicitly switches to 80 columns.

The fact that various "VT100"-compatible terminals exist today, but
which can vary in size, is just another example of them not truly being
VT100-compatible. :-)

Johnny

[Will Senn]

I give up, where'd you find the KED Users Guide?

Will

[Mark Matlock]

On Jan 3, 2020, at 9:18 AM, Will Senn <will...@gmail.com> wrote:

I give up, where'd you find the KED Users Guide?

Will:

Will,

   I’m not sure where I found it but I have a .pdf copy of the KED manual. 

I also have the actual paper manual  so I might have scanned it? At any rate I put a copy of it at:

http://rsx11m.com/KED.pdf

You can use wget (note capitalization is important after the last / ) or your favorite browser to fetch a copy of it.

Best,

Mark

[Paul Birkel]

Google for:

 

AA-H853C-TC_PDP-11_Keypad_Editor_Users_Guide_Aug91.pdf

AA-H853A-TC_PDP-11_Keypad_Editor_Users_Guide_Mar80.pdf

AV-H854B-TC_RT-11_Keypad_Editor_Reference_Card_1989.pdf

[Neal G.]

On Friday, January 3, 2020 at 9:18:27 AM UTC-6, Will Senn wrote:

I give up, where'd you find the KED Users Guide?

Will

Someone suggested Google ... but as there's no gaurentee Google or any search engine will return useful results, here are the docs I was referring to,

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/rt11/v5.6_Aug91/AA-H853C-TC_PDP-11_Keypad_Editor_Users_Guide_Aug91.pdf
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/rt11/v5.6_Aug91/AV-H854B-TC_RT-11_Keypad_Editor_Reference_Card_1989.pdf

That "rt11/v5.6_Aug91" folder has a number of other useful RT11 documentation as well.

- Neal G.

[Will Senn]

Sent from my iPhone

Awesome, thx.

[Will Senn]

Nice. I didn’t realize it was ‘keypad editor’ :)

Sent from my iPhone

[dic...@invisible-island.net]

On Thursday, January 2, 2020 at 6:48:37 PM UTC-5, Neil Higgins wrote:

From an earlier post: An xterm-based script that allows me to use KED successfully:

https://10441337952982417240.googlegroups.com/attach/e0e2482fca7be/vtxxx-term.sh?part=0.1&vt=ANaJVrG91LcpwVmAeYodZUwxLaPeeFfXDx4TvKX07v-0fjcLnA3RMZ8LsbXswHfanhSM7CYSHxjCZhXZpXbypwW6jyMVULX_8n03vbRJUKakhUqQKm0ylWw

fwiw, the part of the script which uses the translations resource is unnecessary, since xterm provides the VT220 definitions via the keyboardType resource,

which sets/or unsets the sunKeyboard resource.  The translations interfere with changing definitions between normal and application mode.

[Neal G.]

Actually, some translations are necessary. I had initially tried the VT220 keyboardType and the sunKeyboard option; and found neither sufficient. Only a portion of the key sequences which KED expects seem to function. The script Neil created (with a few tweaks to deal with fonts) works well and provides the necessary additional key sequences.

- Neal G.

[Neal G.]

On Thursday, January 2, 2020 at 5:48:37 PM UTC-6, Neil Higgins wrote:

From an earlier post: An xterm-based script that allows me to use KED successfully:

https://10441337952982417240.googlegroups.com/attach/e0e2482fca7be/vtxxx-term.sh?part=0.1&vt=ANaJVrG91LcpwVmAeYodZUwxLaPeeFfXDx4TvKX07v-0fjcLnA3RMZ8LsbXswHfanhSM7CYSHxjCZhXZpXbypwW6jyMVULX_8n03vbRJUKakhUqQKm0ylWw

Thanks, this works well.

- Neal G.

[Neil Higgins]

All power to the original creator.

[Will Senn]

Neal,

Well, I finally got around to checking out what you were talking about in the manual. Sheesh, I wish I'd seen that back when I was figuring this stuff out for the first time. The table starting at 10-2 through 10-4 gives all of the escape codes for the important keys and how to enter them using escape-bracket, escape-escape, or gold-key... Hopefully, I'll remember this conversation the next time I run the editor :).

Thanks,

Will

GPG Fingerprint: 68F4 B3BD 1730 555A 4462  7D45 3EAA 5B6D A982 BAAF

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2020-01-04 04:34, Neal G. wrote:
>
>
> On Friday, January 3, 2020 at 8:17:17 PM UTC-6,
> dic...@invisible-island.net wrote:
>
> fwiw, the part of the script which uses the translations resource is
> unnecessary, since xterm provides the VT220 definitions via the
> keyboardType

> <https://invisible-island.net/xterm/manpage/xterm.html#Application-Resources:keyboardType>

> resource,
> which sets/or unsets the sunKeyboard

> <https://invisible-island.net/xterm/manpage/xterm.html#Application-Resources:sunKeyboard>

> resource.  The translations interfere with changing definitions

> between /normal/ and /application/ mode.

>
>
> Actually, some translations are necessary. I had initially tried the

> VT220 keyboardType and the subKeyboard option; and found neither
> insufficient. Only a portion of the key sequences which KED expects seem

> to function. The script Neil created (with a few tweaks to deal with
> fonts) works well and provides the necessary additional key sequences.

I don't know exactly what your problems are, but I know that I can run
xterm with any modifications, and it sends all the escape codes for the
different keys that a VT100 would send, so I'm very confident it would
work out of the box with KED as well.

But it do require that you set various options correctly when starting
xterm. But any translation resources are actually not required.

[Neil Higgins]

Well, until someone can work out what the correct options are, at least we have something that works. I’m sure the next post in this topic will contain the necessary information.

[dic...@invisible-island.net]

On Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 7:50:41 AM UTC-5, Neil Higgins wrote:

Well, until someone can work out what the correct options are, at least we have something that works. I’m sure the next post in this topic will contain the necessary information.

For ad hoc testing of various DEC models, I use this script:

#!/bin/sh -x
# $Id: vt100,v 1.3 2010/08/29 18:32:41 tom Exp $
program=xterm
test -n "$XTERM_PROG"  && program="$XTERM_PROG"
NAME=`basename $0`
LEVEL=`echo $NAME|sed -e 's/^vt//'`
PATH=.:$PATH $program -tn $NAME -fn 9x15 -ti $LEVEL -xrm "*sunKeyboard:true" "$@"

and apply it to different versions with a symbolic link:

-r-xr-xr-x 1 tom  users 261 Aug 29  2010 /users/tom/bin/vt100
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    5 Aug 12  2012 /users/tom/bin/vt101 -> vt100
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    5 Aug 12  2012 /users/tom/bin/vt102 -> vt100
lrwxrwxrwx 1 tom  users   5 Jan 24  2016 /users/tom/bin/vt125 -> vt100
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    5 Aug 12  2012 /users/tom/bin/vt220 -> vt100
lrwxrwxrwx 1 tom  users   5 Jul  4  2013 /users/tom/bin/vt240 -> vt100
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    5 Aug 12  2012 /users/tom/bin/vt320 -> vt100
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    5 Aug 12  2012 /users/tom/bin/vt330 -> vt100
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    5 Aug 12  2012 /users/tom/bin/vt340 -> vt100
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    5 Aug 12  2012 /users/tom/bin/vt420 -> vt100
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    5 Aug 12  2012 /users/tom/bin/vt510 -> vt100
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    5 Aug 12  2012 /users/tom/bin/vt52 -> vt100
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    5 Aug 12  2012 /users/tom/bin/vt520 -> vt100
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    5 Aug 12  2012 /users/tom/bin/vt525 -> vt100

So aside from the sunKeyboard setting, I'm not aware of any differences,

aside from the quirks that arise from trying to map DEC's keypad onto a PC keyboard.

I see a few lines in the script which differ from xterm's behavior:

                <Key>Pause:     string(0x1b)    string("Om") \n \

xterm does this with keypad-+

                <Key>Num_Lock:  string(0x1b)    string("OP") \n \

It's been a while since I looked at NumLock, but at the time it was hardcoded

(and unavailable to use by xterm).  So I mapped PF1 through PF4 to F1 to F4

as described in the FAQ "Why doesn't my keypad work"

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2020-01-04 13:50, Neil Higgins wrote:
> Well, until someone can work out what the correct options are, at least we have something that works. I’m sure the next post in this topic will contain the necessary information.

Well, I can say for me, I have the following x resources defined:

*.vt100.decTerminalID: 220
*.vt100.c132: true
*.vt100.saveLines: 1000
*.ptyInitialErase: true
*.backarrowKeyIsErase: true
*.backarrowKey: false
*.sunKeyboard: true
*.rightScrollBar: true
xterm.vt100.activeIcon: false
xterm.vt100.multiScroll: true
rsx.utmpInhibit: true
rsx.title: RSX terminal
rsx.vt100.loginShell: false
rsx.vt100.scrollBar: true
rsx.sunKeyboard: true

And then I start xterm with:
unsetenv LC_CTYPE
unsetenv LANG
xterm +sf +sp -aw -ut -132 -ti vt220 -sb -sl 500 -name rsx &


And, as I said, with this I get keys working just as on a proper VT100.
Note, though, that it's the F1-F4 which becomes the VT100 PF1-PF4.
Numeric keypad also works right, but obviously do depend on what
keyboard you do have.

[Neil Higgins]

Thank you, Johnny. N

[Hank_wv7u]

I'm sorry to bring up this topic again, since it seems to be solved for most people. It was for me too until recently. I'm using xterm on linux and I don't think I never needed any scripts or translations to make F1-F4 work as the PF1-PF4 keys.

Now I have the problem that F1 is not interpreted as a function, but instead displayed or echoed by RT11/KED as "$OP". In the same xterm session outside RT11, but at the simh command line  displays "Wuff  ----- Wuff!". Outside simh, at the Raspberry Pi shell, nothing is displayed, which I think suggests that xterm is sending the correct ^[OP sequence.

I've tried setting tti and tto in simh to the various values (7b, 7p, 8b) to suppress non-printing characters, but it didn't change anything. I don't remember it being hard to get working initially, but I've spent days trying to find whatever it is that's making it not work now. Any ideas for troubleshooting this?

Thanks

Hank

On Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 4:14:03 PM UTC-7 1955...@gmail.com wrote:

Thank you, Johnny. N

[Neal G.]

In KED, try manual entry of the sequence to open the KED command prompt: [esc]OP[esc]Ow

No characters should appear while typing, until the end of the sequence and then "Command: " appears at top of screen.

If this is the behavior you see; then the problem is with the mapping of the keyboard in xterm.

if instead, characters appear while typing the sequence, then the keyboard mapping might be correct; the problem is more likely with communication settings, or perhaps RT11 or SimH configuration.

Not a big help, but it might give a clue as to which direction to investigate further.

- Neal G.

[Hank_wv7u]

In KED, or at the RT11 prompt, each keypress appears as they are pressed. Escape appears as "$", O as "O",  P as "P", etc. The same result as pressing F1. At a raspberry pi prompt, no characters appear until the third character after [esc]. In another OS running in simh, like 211BSD, the behavior is the same as with just the raspberry pi, in other words, outside RT11 F1 or the manually entered sequence seems to be interpreted as a proper escaped code and not just a series of characters.

Since it doesn't take very long, I did a complete reinstall from scratch with another SD card to see if maybe I tweaked a setting that broke this, but it's still behaving the same.

Some other things I've tried, all with the same result:

Assigning the simh console to a remote telnet port

SSHing to the RPi with xterm on a variety of different linux computers in case I changed an xterm setting in the one I usually use

Using a keyboard and HDMI monitor plugged directly into the RPi

Any more ideas?

Thanks

Hank

[August Treubig]

The “wuff wuff” is comming from screen, not simh or RT11.

Aug

Sent from my iPad

On Oct 16, 2020, at 8:59 PM, Hank_wv7u <ha...@wv7u.com> wrote:



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[Jon Brase]

I know that on the PDP-10 operating systems, [esc] was by convention represented by $ (which makes following instructions for those systems a pain, because you're used to "$" in instructions being a literal "$", not [esc]). It appears that RT11 is using the same convention, in which case $OP is exactly the ^[OP sequence you're looking for, but the software doesn't seem to be handling it.

I've not played around a whole bunch with RT-11, a bit to try out the Lunar Lander game, but not much more. I've generally found that on most OSes that run on hardware emulated by SIMH, the default condition at login is for the OS to assume that the terminal is something other than a vt100. The default is often an LA120 or other hardcopy terminal (and, indeed, my understanding is that even once video terminals were well established, it was still general practice to use a hardcopy terminal for the system console for years afterward). Aside from that, even if the system is aware of the terminal type, I've found that a telnet session to a simh serial port will generally send different characters/sequences for, e.g, backspace, than will be sent by screen or mate-terminal to stdin of a simh process.

On Wednesday, October 14, 2020 at 8:44:41 PM UTC-5, Hank_wv7u wrote:

[Neal G.]

Hank,

Is it possible that you're not actually running KED, but running the line editor EDIT instead?
To be certain type this at the RT11 prompt:
R KED
the KED version will be displayed and an asterisk prompt. Key in a filename and press enter.
Now try the function keys.
If they work then you know the issue is inadvertently starting the wrong editor.

I tried the reverse on my system; specifically starting the line editor by typing:
R EDIT
I encounter the behavior you describe, $OP appears when PF1 is pressed.

- Neal G.

[steve...@gmail.com]

RT-11 has a SET EDIT x command. Use HELP SET EDIT to see what the options are, but one is SET EDIT KED. SHOW EDIT might also show you what your default editor is set to right now.

[Hank_wv7u]

Thank you everyone for your comments. Steve and Neal, yes it is KED that I'm running, V01.27. I've been learning EDIT and TECO since I haven't been able to use KED, how it uses escape differently, and the behavior Neal is also seeing.

Neal has shown me what I was doing wrong and I feel really stupid. I'm new at this so I didn't understand that KED shows $OP at the asterisk prompt without a file open, but not when a file is being edited. To exit KED without creating or opening a file, it just takes a ctrl-c, not the PF1-command-EXIT/QUIT sequence.

Sorry to bother you, but I really appreciate the help and hope this discussion might help someone else.

Thanks

Hank

[Neal G.]

No problem. Learning how these old systems are structured, how they operate and some of the quirks of using them is part of the fun.

- Neal G.