Cursorpos on XX Losing

[Mark L. Miller <MILLER at MIT-AI>]

    Date: 8 September 1980 23:48-EDT
    From: Kent M. Pitman <KMP at MIT-MC>

    Maclisp on XX does not assume your terminal to be printing. It simply does
    not support the multiplicity of different possible terminal types. The
    Twenex operating system in its current form does not support a virtual terminal
    display protocol, and as such will not support CURSORPOS. The only alternative,
    that taken by Teco and other programs, is for Maclisp to understand how to
    CURSORPOS on whatever type terminal you have. No one has been willing to spend
    the time coding this up, so you pretty much lose. -kmp

We now have MacLisp cursorpos support for C100's, H19's (I think),
Teleray's, and VT100's.  It is really still too crufty to distribute, but
with a little patience you can probably get that from us (TI) or from Jonl
as soon as wee send him a tape (order of weeks or less till someone finds
time to clean it up but it basically works).  In fact we have some nice
window-like hacks for the C100's, ala ATLO/LISPM/etc.

Meanwhile, how about working on a generalized JSYS function, or ALLFILES,
which we haven't gotten to yet?  Regards, Mark