where to do line editing?

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <12216 at ncoast.UUCP> allbery at ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
>How about the AT&T 630?  (Doesn't the V8/V9 "sam" editor download parts of
>itself to the 630?)

Yes, in normal use "sam" starts up its terminal part (which handles
bitmap display, mouse, and keyboard interaction) as a process running
in the terminal, which for a Blit, 5620, or 630 means downloaded code.
(The 630 has the ability to restart from its cache after the first
download.)  The Blit family of terminals frequently uses such a
technique, putting the terminal-specific interactive part in the
terminal and running a terminal-independent protocol to communicate
with the host part.  There are typesetter previewer, drawing tools,
statistical data viewers, and lots more applications using this
technique.  A non-downloaded window ("layer") in a Blit descendant
typically runs a "dumb CRT" emulator, with built-in mouse-driven
cross-window local text editing.  (On the 5620, you need to have
replaced the firmware terminal emulation by downloading Rob Pike's
"mux" or Dave Prosser's "myx" in order to obtain local text editing.)

By the way, Rob recently announced that a more recent version of
"sam" (than in the "dmd-pgmg" package, which also contains "myx") is
going to be made available any day now through the AT&T UNIX System
ToolChest.  The current version has terminal parts for SunTools,
X-Windows, and the Blit descendants; the host part, while not fully
portable, runs on Crays, VAXes, Goulds, Alliants, SGI Irises, Suns,
3Bs, et al.  Based on usual pricing, "sam" will probably cost only a
couple of hundred dollars for unlimited site-wide use (source code
provided).  If you want to find out more before ordering, beyond
whatever write-up the ToolChest provides, read "The Text Editor sam"
in Software--Practice and Experience, Vol. 17(11), 813-845 (November
1987).  Rob also gave a brief overview in a posting to
comp.unix.questions dated July 14, 1988.

"sam" is said to be the main editor in use by the Bell Labs computer
science research staff, and it has been adopted by several of us at
BRL.