Input Line Editing In the Kernel

[Joe Bob Willie]

[ In a previous article Doug Alan expounded on the virtues of kernel support
  for input line editting and virtual terminal output. ]

this is possible where the number of terminals which are supported is
limited to some subset.  a unix system may have any number of different
terminals with their different methods of handling features connected.

the only microcomputer operating system i've seen which had a virtual
screen was the p-system.  it handled screen updates by homing and
redrawing the entire screen.  ibm's (and others) large machine operating
systems can afford to redraw the screen since terminal i/o is so damned
fast (for non-serial devices, such as coax).

for the typical unix system with it's hudge-podge of devices and slow
serial i/o, i don't believe virtual terminal support really belongs
in the kernel.

- john.
-- 
 John "Evil USENET User" F. Haugh II          HECI Exploration Co, Inc., Dallas
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