Communications Programs

[Tom Neff]

In article <281 at opel.uu.net> johnk at opel.UUCP (John Kennedy) writes:
>All the [TERM] "server" mode is is a script that does a ctty command on the
>DOS machine and waits for input.  Hell, I could have done that,
>and then driven the DOS machine with shell scripts from the UNIX host.
>
>Spend and learn.

Without wishing to defend the TERM product per se, let me point out that
there *is* one advantage to keeping the DOS task resident while you feed
it commands, as opposed to repeatedly loading VP/ix from the UNIX prompt
via shell scripts, and that is that you defeat the ungodly slow loading
time of VP/ix.  It has so *much* stuff to set up that you are much
better off staying in DOS for as long as you can once it's loaded.

I used to use DOS-platformed versions of a couple of Intel language
tools for my production system, with UNIX scripts controlling
everything.  Grooooaannn.  I eventually modified the scripts to build
the biggest damn .BAT file they could, to try and cram many operations
into one DOS load, and that improved things a bit.  (I never thought of
the "DOS server" idea, not bad!)  Fortunately UNIX platformed versions
of my tools came out recently and I can breathe easier.
-- 
 1955-1975: 36 Elvis movies.  |  Tom Neff
 1975-1989: nothing.          |  tneff at bfmny0.UU.NET