From s_smasch Tue Apr 10 02:56:53 2001
Subject: Re: "ASCII" > 127
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.unix.misc
Followup-To: comp.unix.misc
Message-ID: <3ad25a53%40news.uni-ulm.de>
References: <3AD15ECB.3852ACA3@acm.org> <xUqA6.1192$5R2.48918477@news1.van.metro
net.ca>

  [ general terminal stuff: curious xpost and fup2 to comp.unix.misc ]

  Mason Ip <masonip@attachmate.co_> wrote:
  > James Richard Tyrer wrote...

  >> [ X11 terminalemulators ]

  > You also need to set "stty cs8" for allowing 8-bit character

  You need "-istrip" as well, in case.

  And the default on SunOS4 is actually "cs7 istrip", according
  to system stty(1) executed without arguments.
  (However GNU stty-1.16 on this system doesn't report the real defaults,
   perhaps yet-another-reason to be careful with GNU tools)
  In /etc/gettytab:
     > default:\
     >       :ap:lm=\r\n%h login\72 :sp#9600:
  'ap' apparently means 'any parity', "cs7 istrip".


  Depending on the system/terminal you might even need "-parenb".
  Several shell-FAQs and the "ISO 8859-1 FAQ" [1] mention "-parenb".
  Search engines yield 'serial parity generation' and stty(1) mentions
  'hardware flow control' in other concerns.  So this will be useful with
  real ttys and/or serial connection.  Where else?  Is it possible to
  provoke a pty to pay attention to parenb with correct settings for the
  numerous other affiliated values?


  The bash FAQ says that the alias "pass8" for the combination of the above,
  "cs8 -istrip parenb", is old BSD-style,  and i found it on SunBSD but not
  on Solaris2  (i found it also in GNU stty, though).

  Somewhere [2] i found a hint, that in BSD4.2/4.3 even "-even -odd" was
  necessary :) (even in ptys).  The default "even odd" meant 'mark parity'

  In very old systems, according to [2], many shells/programs didn't support
  eight bit at all, in 4.3BSD because the 8th was used as internal status bit.
  Also, if programs used 'signed char', one might have lost, for example.

  Sven
  --
  [1] "ISO 8859-1 National Character Set FAQ", apparently not maintained
      anymore? search your nearest old mirror.
  [2] <URL:http://irb.cs.tu-berlin.de/usr/INFO/Umlaute> (sorry, german-lang)

From s_smasch Tue Apr 10 16:51:03 2001
Subject: Re: "ASCII" > 127
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc
References: <3AD15ECB.3852ACA3@acm.org> <xUqA6.1192$5R2.48918477@news1.van.metro
net.ca> <3ad25a53@news.uni-ulm.de>

  > Depending on the system/terminal you might even need "-parenb".
  > [...]
  > So this will be useful with real ttys and/or serial connection.

  ...only if the terminal knows eight bit.  I just tried a real VT100,
  only 7bit capable, and it irreversibly locked up after "-parenb" :)
  (And it displays lots of boxes after just "cs8".)

  Sven