Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer,comp.terminals,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Sources for terminal emulations?
Summary: a terminal emulator in Turbo Pascal exists
Expires: 14 Jan 1991 22:23:24 GMT
References: <1991Dec05.042845.22250@merk.com>
Sender: shuford@cs.utk.edu
Followup-To: comp.terminals
Distribution: world
Organization: University of Tennessee, Knoxville--Dept. of Computer Science
Keywords: VT100, emulation, Tektronix, Pascal, Kermit, Queens

In article <1991Dec05.042845.22250@merk.com>,
   brennan@merk.com (Rich Brennan) writes:
>
> I'm trying to do an embedded terminal emulator (VT100 minimally), and I've
> come down to the following options:
>
>	1) Fix and then use a buggy emulation such as supplied in the DOS
>	   library from "Essential Software".
>
>	2) Take MS-Kermit's emulation, if permitted by Columbia.
>
>	3) Use xterm's emulation.
>
>
> Option 2...means wading through a pile of 8086 assembler...but...
> it won't be an IBM PC I'm working on....

The terminal emulation built into the MS-Kermit program (by Joe
Doupnik of Utah State University) has top-notch performance, although
I'd not want to re-invent the protocol from reading the code, either.

It may be of interest to you that, in Columbia University's archives,
there exists another program of interest, called QK-Kermit.  This also
runs on IBM-PC-type hardware, and it performs emulation of a DEC VT100
with Tektronix 4010 graphics.  And QK-Kermit was written in Turbo
Pascal 4.0, so the algorithms may be more clearly visible for those
who are working toward a different target machine.

On "watsun.cc.columbia.edu", QK-Kermit is located in the "kermit/c"
directory (not "kermit/a", where Doupnik's program resides); all the
files relating to it have the prefix "qk3".

QK-Kermit was written and contributed by

    Victor Lee
    Department of Computing and Communications
    Dupuis Hall
    Queen's University
    Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6 (Canada).

He {used to have}/{may still have} this e-mail address:

    VIC@QUCDN.BITNET

At the time he submitted the program to Columbia, he was also, for a
small remuneration, distributing printed copies of the documentation
and/or floppy disks containing the program.  I suggest you ask Mr.
Lee what his policy is about having his code adapted into other works.

Once you have written your emulation, you should test it with one of
the test files also maintained on "watsun":  ~kermit/a/msvibm.vt

I might add in passing that the control sequences used by the VT100
and all VTx00 character-cell terminals after it are derived from the
the ANSI standard "X3.64 -- Additional Controls for Use with the
American National Standard for Information Interchange".

A file containing a summary of X3.64 is available from my
video-terminal information collection.

If you really want to understand all the codes, you'll still need to
read the full standard, but perhaps this will help you get started.