Frank Letts writes:
>
> does anyone 'out there' have experience with the termcaps files
> for devices hung on a DTC?  I am working on porting an existing
> application from a Sun to the 3000, and the device that I need
> to move is na ADDS 4000/260.  It has a large character set that
> the application calls for.  My question is (I guess) where is
> the equivalent termcaps file on the 3000 (/usr/lib/terminfo ?)
> and how safe is it to just move the termcaps from the Sun?

Termcap files only apply to the POSIX shell and other POSIX programs,
particularly "curses" programs.

Termcap files describe physical characteristics (i.e. lines, columns, etc) as
well as functionality characteristics like "Clear screen = ESC h ESC J".
Termcap-aware programs only need to say "Clear screen", and the underlying
software reads the termcap file to determine the character sequence to be
sent to the terminal.  Basically it's a way of doing device-independent
terminal I/O.

Termcap files come in two flavors -- source and compiled.  MPE seems to have
the source files in /usr/lib/terminfo/.  The compiled files are all under
/usr/lib/terminfo/*/, where "*" is the lower-cased first letter of the
terminal name.  The program /bin/tic compiles a source file, and /bin/untic
decompiles a compiled file.

See /usr/lib/terminfo/adds for what is apparently an ADDS source file.  If it
doesn't contain what you need, you can add source from some other Unix termcap
and recompile with tic.
--
Mark Bixby                      E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Coast Community College Dist.   Web: http://www.cccd.edu/~markb/
District Information Services   1370 Adams Ave, Costa Mesa, CA, USA 92626-5429
Technical Support               Voice: +1 714 438-4647
"You can tune a file system, but you can't tune a fish." - tunefs(1M)