Linux-Hams archive - November 1997: Re: Prompt in Linux-node ?

Re: Prompt in Linux-node ?

Duvall, Michael J. (knofurlw.nnbzavfjwh@kepler-eng.com)
Mon, 3 Nov 1997 10:27:12 -0500


Tomi.Manninen said
>I've had at least one other complaint about node not having a prompt
>earlier and that too was (if my memory serves) from someone in the
central
>european area used to things like Flexnet nodes and TheNetNodes. But I
>believe the rest of the world (us Finns included) are more used to the
old
>TheNet/BPQ style. I think it's simple, clean, nice and elegant. And with
>the "empty line prompt" the are no ambiguities about when a command is
>terminated.

Well I guess I will be the first complaint from the USA. I never knew
that there was a blank line prompt but it sure clears up some things. The
blank line days back to the first days of packet radio when people used
dumb terminals with blinking cursors. On the dumb terminals the text
always started at the bottom of the screen and scrolled up. A blank line
was a simple and elegant solution for the hardware available at the time.
Now days people use computers that display a window and the text starts
from the TOP OF A BLANK SCREEN and moves down. Any blank lines that are
printed get lost in all the other blank lines on the screen. There are no
blinking cursors to make it obvious that a blank line was printed. No one
ever connects to enough nodes to fill up the screen and make it scroll
up. You can argue about weather it is ugly but it is dated. Tomi even
said so himself when he said "the old
TheNet/BPQ style." I think a short one char prompt would be useful for a
node. Something like a "]" or "}" would be nice.

What would be real nice user interface would be a window app that you
could pop up listing the nodes. You would click on a node and a icon
would change to indicate the the link is established. When you click on a
BBS you get the BBS interface.

Mike Duvall
ac4zq