Character echo at read time

[Barry Margolin]

In article <371 at polyof.UUCP>, john at polyof.UUCP ( John Buck ) writes:
> The other thing we did (for people who can't stand mixed input/output), is
> to add an option to the tty line disc to not perform any output (ttwrite)
> type calls to the terminal, if a line is in the middle of being typed.
> (pos > 0).  As soon as you hit a RETURN, the output that may have backed-up
> is flushed.

Multics has had an option like this since about 1973; it is called
"polite" mode.  However, it would not block the output forever -- if
you start typing a line and then stop typing for something like 30
seconds, it will flush the pending output.

It also has a "replay" mode to go with this.  If you have polite mode
off, or if the timeout I described above occurs, this mode causes the
interrupted line to be re-echoed.

Barry Margolin
Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar at think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar