How to force wraparound at col. 80

[der Mouse]

In article <4814 at netnews.upenn.edu>, spolsky at eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Joel Spolsky) writes:
> Does anybody know how to convince Unix (Sun 3/260) how to
> automatically send a carriage return after 80 columns of output?

> We're using the Symbolics terminal emulator which SHOULD be emulating
> a VT-100, unfortunately, the emulation is flawed because it allows
> lines longer than 80 columns without wrapping.

If it's really emulating a VT100, this can be changed.  A real VT100
likes to hammers on the right margin with long lines, but can be set to
wrap.  Unfortunately, it's a rather peculiar sort of wrap ("peculiar"
meaning "not many others do it this way").  The implicit CR/LF is
delayed by a character; it acts as though there were a phantom column
the cursor enters, and trying to print a character in this column
causes the cursor to wrap and then print the character.  (I'm not sure
what happens if the terminal gets a cursor motion sequence when the
cursor is in the phantom column.)  Our VT100 manuals seem to have
disappeared, so I can't give the escape sequence.

(Pet peeve: lots of "vt100 emulators" aren't.  It's depressing how many
of them don't do the right thing with ESC [ 4 ; r, for example.)

> The program we're using on the Sun (Sunlink 3270) assumes that the
> terminal will wrap at column 80, which it doesn't, so nothing comes
> out formatted correctly.

If the Sun program is written correctly, you should be able to create a
termcap description for a VT100-like terminal which doesn't wrap and
then set your terminal type to that before running this program.  If
the thing is so braindamaged it always assumes a VT100, I'd complain to
its vendor.

If none of the above turn out to be any help, you could do as someone
else suggested and find a terminal emulator which uses a pseudo-tty to
make things work properly.  There's probably such a thing in the
sources archives; I'm not sure.

					der Mouse

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