Number: 672

Date: 11-Apr-84 18':48':46

Submitter: masinter.PA

Source: Masinter (for Stanford & others)

Subject: Want remote dialin, chat server, etc. capabilities from dumb terminals

Assigned To: 

Attn: vanMelle,Lisp, JonL

Status: Wish

In/By: 

Problem Type: Design - UI

Impact: Annoying

Difficulty: Hard

Frequency: Everytime

Priority: Perhaps

System: Operating System

Subsystem: Generic File Operations

Machine: 

Disk: 

Lisp Version: 

Source Files: 

Microcode Version: 

Memory Size: 

File Server: 

Server Software Version: 

Disposition: 

Description: '
This AR covers a number of similar tasks which should be done in parallel to avoid duplication. The general idea is to be able to talk to Interlisp-D from a remote terminal. There are as many instances of remote terminals as there of CHATs going out': RS232, Ttyport, Chat, NS Telnet, and eventually TCP/IP telnet. This job is done in a couple of different steps':'
'
a) make sure that Interlisp-D can still run with window package either turned off or not loaded. This means making sure that all of the places that assume windows in fact have conditional code that tests if the window system is on. '
Secondly, need some way of changing the keyboard stream from {KEY} to one of the other bisync streams. It probably means rewriting the low level keyboard driver to go thru the stream interface. The next hard problem is making sure that the process that is running the keyboard stream gets frequent cycles, partly because even if there is some low level buffering going on, there needs to be immediate attention to interrupt characters (so the user can control runaway processes).'
'
Finally, we need some kind of access protection login mechanism, and a way of limiting the use of the machine (e.g., making everybody login, and if you are logged in, then you can''t log in from over the net.)'
'
Finally, and much harder, is allowing some kind of distributed terminal controller select one out of a number of machines and give the pretense of a timesharing service from a bank of networked Interlisp-D machines. This is hrder because there is no way of booting the machine over the network, and the personal machine doesn''t have the crash recovery properties that you need for remote access of unattended machines to '
work.'
'
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'
Date': 13 Apr 84 00':48 PST'
From': JonL.pa'
...'
AR 672': -- I should probably be Attn''d on this one -- RS232EXEC does do remote dial-in through the RS232 port, but doesn''t do any smart-terminal drivers.'
'
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Date': 18 Apr 84 19':09 PST'
From': Burton.pa'
Subject': Re': AR#672 want remote dialin, chat server, etc. capabilities from dumb terminals'
In-reply-to': masinter.PA''s message of 11 Apr 84 18':51':55 PST (Wednesday)'
To': masinter.PA'
cc': LispCore^.PA, LispSupport.PA'
'
The "right" way to test if window world is on is (WINDOWWORLD).'
'
richard'
'


Workaround: 

Test Case: 

Edit-By: Sannella.PA

Edit-Date: 19-Apr-84 15':30':48