Argument prompting

[Robert W. Kerns <RWK at SCRC-TENEX>]

    Date: Friday, 19 March 1982, 18:11-EST
    From: Howard I. Cannon <HIC at SCRC-TENEX>
    This new argument feature SUCKS.  It is too sensitive (namely, even if I
    type Control-U Control-N very fast, it still flashes and distracts me)
    and it doesn't work (go into the mini-buffer and type Control-U).

    If you aren't going to take it out, make it so I can turn it off in my
    init file please.
Try it in 204.38.  It is now under the control of *ARGUMENT-PROMPT-DELAY*,
which controls the delay during which it looks for typeahead.  It can also
be set to NIL, in which case typeahead does not suppress prompting.  In any
case, prompting always occurs with multi-digit arguments (C-1 C-5, or C-U C-U)
on the theory that prompting becomes exponentially more important then.

I initialized *ARGUMENT-PROMPT-DELAY* to 20 (1/3 second).  This seems to
be slow enough that it never prompts for me.  I think it should be fairly
short for the sake of new users and naive users.  If you think it's too
short (or like it some other way) send me mail and it can be changed in
the next system.  In the meantime, set it in your init.