Updated 31 December 1999

The Z88 and Multiuser Systems

BACKGROUND

Using the Z88 as a terminal to a multiuser system running UNIX or VAX VMS or a BBS (Bulletin Board System) often poses problems related to screen height, terminal emulation and file transfer protocols.

SCREEN HEIGHT

Two messages posted by Victor Roberts, on Phil Wheeler's Z88 Support BBS in Torrance California, regarding setting up SUN/UNIX and VAX/VMS systems for the 8 line screen height Z88 VT52 Terminal.

Using the EMACS Editor with a Z88 Terminal
Emacs-VAX/VMS Setup for Z88 Remote Terminal

The above fix is not applicable for later UNIX versions which stores terminal options in a compiled format. Below is a very short description involving extracting existing options, changing environment variables and compiling new modified options.

UNIX System V Release 4.0 setup for Z88 VT52 Terminal

For more information:

man term

man terminfo

man infocmp

man tic

A.P. Lawrence-Termcap and Terminfo

DynaComm and the UNIX termcap / terminfo

Good News
The complicated methods above seems unnessesary. Just enter the commands

setenv TERM vt52
stty rows 8

If linefeeds doesn't work properly, try the command

stty ocrnl

The above fixes should make many full screen oriented programs work properly with the Z88.
I am currently investigating the mysteries of termcap and terminfo to produce entries better suited to the Z88. Tabs and margins are not handeled the same in the Z88 VT52 Terminal program as in the real VT52.

I have tested the 'more' and 'man' commands which break up scrolling output as expected.

LYNX
The web browser lynx works reasonably well. Top line shows the html title and current screen). Second line is empty then comes three lines of the page content. The bottom two lines are menu texts and status information.
Navigation is by spacebar to show next page, arrow down/up to move cursor to the next/previous link, arrow right to follow/go to the current link and arrow left to go to the previous page.
It is also possible to send email from lynx by using the G)o command and for the promted URL enter 'mailto:address@domain.topdomain'.

PICO
The text editor pico works well. The top line displays status and the bottom two lines shows commands.

PINE
The mail program pine doesn't work so well. Only one row of the message seems to be displayed. The others are used for static headers, commands and status information.

TIN
The newsreader tin doesn't work at all. All displayed rows are static inforation.

To make these programs work better with the Z88 we need a terminal emulator program on the Z88 that maintains a virtual screen of 24 rows (or selectable) Which 8 we want to see should be selectable.

ZTerm by Wordmongers and Vision by Ranger Computers have some of this functionality.

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