[HECnet] TOPS-10 and DECnet Progress Update

[Paul_Koning at Dell.com]

On May 18, 2013, at 1:28 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:

On Sat, 18 May 2013, G. wrote:
...
If you use the CTERM protocol, it will be always slow and sluggish, no matter
how much you'll try to tweak it. Try SET HOST /APP=R and appreciate speed :)


It's MUCH more usable when using RTERM.   Thank you.

Why is CTERM so slow on TOPS-10?

Because CTERM was designed, in essence, as a remote procedure call representation of the VMS terminal driver features.   The ones in TOPS-10 are entirely different -- just consider the way carriage return echoes.   So TOPS-10 is forced to do its terminal I/O through a protocol that doesn't come close to matching what it really wants to see.   I suspect it simply runs things in single character mode, since that's about the only way to guarantee that you get what you want.

Come to think of it, TOPS-10 RTERM mode may well be just that, but it's a very lightweight protocol so it's fast.   It also has the nice benefit that it exists on systems that don't do CTERM -- like RSTS.

	paul