VT100 and bagbiting (actually ASCII debate)

[Geoff Collyer]

Doug Gwyn's comments about the USG terminal driver allowing DC3/DC1
flow control in "RAW" mode need rebutting.  RAW mode (at least in v7)
means eight-bit, uninterpreted I/O, so asking for DC3/DC1 flow control
makes no sense since it implies that characters are being interpreted
and some (DC3 and DC1) are not passed through.

My main objection to DC3/DC1 flow control is that it is a negative
acknowledgement scheme and certain brain-damaged terminals such as the
DEC VT100 contain insufficient buffering to allow them to operate at
high speed, especially when using smooth-scroll (which is too slow in
the VT100).  The problem is worse if the terminal driver attempts to
use silo alarms rather than taking interrupts immediately upon receipt
of incoming characters.