Frank Knows his stuff was Re: What is this HP 9000/220?

From: Uncle Roger <sinasohn_at_ricochet.net>
Date: Mon Jan 5 20:12:30 1998

At 11:52 PM 1/2/98 -0800, you wrote:
>some of the configuration tools) that you will be using an HP terminal
>that supports block mode, which (approximately) lets the application
 
Different commands from vt100 block mode of course. Most terminal emulators
*don't* include HP terminal emulation. (I've got Walker Richer & Quinn's
Reflections, so who cares. Though, there was a program back in the late
80's for the Atari ST that featured HP emulation; wish I'd bought a copy then!)

>> What is the shell like?
>
>The MPE command interpreter...well, I can't speak for the MPE/iX CI.
>I haven't used it enough.
 
MPE/iX (newer version for the new CPU models) is pretty much the same as
good old MPE, but with some of the extensions MPEX thought up tacked on.

>Well, you get EDIT/3000, which is a line-oriented editor that is
>suitable for use on all manner of terminals, even the printing ones.
 
Actually, EDIT/3000 isn't suitable for much at all. 8^) Much like MS-DOS's
EDLIN.

>(e.g. Robelle's QEDIT, which lots of 3000 folks swear by).

Some of us actually say our daily prayers to the Robelle Gods.

Probably my favorite aspect of MPE is file equations. You can define a name
and point it to just about anything, adding on a lot of control and options
and stuff. For example, you could say:

File Fred = Barney07.bed.rock;rec=-80,,f,ascii;disc=10000

which would mean that whenever you referenced fred (or *fred sometimes) the
computer would actually use the file Barney07 in the Bed group of the Rock
account (the file structure is a little wierd) and it would have an 80-byte,
fixed length, ASCII (not binary) record and a limit of 10000 records in the
file.

You can also point to printers:

File laser;dev=141,1,3

which would mean that "laser" would refer to the device on port 141, have an
output priority of 1 (very low) and have 3 copies. (Note: I may have my
syntax a little fouled up; that's why I use the online help a lot.)

You can even reference yourself:

File Me=$StdList;rec=-132,,f,ascii;nocctl

which means Me is my stdlist (my screen) which has a 132 byte record
(fixed-length, ascii) and doesn't use carriage control.

Of course, if you're feeling really non-productive, you can do:

File Output = $null

8^)

--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-

Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger_at_sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
Received on Mon Jan 05 1998 - 20:12:30 GMT

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