Thursday  March 23,1978  FQ+7D.3H.39M.38S.  LISP 1513  --HIC, GLS, JONL--

Changes that affect ITS NEWIO only:
[1] New SCROLL option for TTY's
[2] New STATUS option: OSPEED
[3] Change in CURSORPOSable terminal definition
[4] New symbols with AUTOLOAD property: CREATE-JOB, LEDIT

Changes that affect all NEWIO's:
[a] New function: LENGTHF

Changes that affect all LISP's:
[A] New functions: *READCH, *TYI, *READ

General announcement:
[!] TOPS-10 NEWIO is here!

Changes of interest only to LISP internals pathologists:
[@] DBGMSK now has %PIATY off

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Changes that affect ITS NEWIO only:
[1] There is now a new OPEN option for TTY's.  If SCROLL mode is specified in
    the option list, or if it has been set in the TTY status variable, LISP
    will handle the scrolling correctly.  Before this option, scrolling could
    lose on MOREing.  If the terminal is not in scroll mode, ITS will be
    informed of the fact that scrolling is requested so that normal output will
    cause the display to scroll.

[2] New STATUS option: OSPEED.
    (STATUS OSPEED <TTY-file-object>) returns the speed in BAUD of the TTY
    open on <TTY-file-object>.  To obtain the speed of the controlling
    terminal, (STATUS OSPEED TYO) may be used.

[3] There has been a slight change in the definition of a terminal to which
    LISP will output ITS display (control-P) codes.  If the %TOMVB (move
    back) bit is set, LISP will treat the terminal as a display.  Previously,
    the %TOMVU (move up) bit was checked, and would cause misfunction on
    GLASS TTY's.  We are contemplating making LISP smarter about terminal
    types so that the value returned from CURSORPOS (T for succesful operation,
    NIL for failure) will actually reflect whether the operation was
    performed on the terminal.  Comments about the display handling scheme
    are solicited.

[4] CREATE-JOB has autoload property of COM:HUMBLE FASL
    LEDIT has autoload property of COM:LEDIT FASL

Changes that affect all NEWIO's:
[a] A new function has been added which returns the length of an input file.
    (LENGTHF <input-file-object>) returns the length of the input file open
    on <input-file-object>.

Changes that affect all LISP's:
[A] *READCH, *READ, *TYI are new functions added mainly for the benefit of the
    compiler.  They are SUBRs of zero arguments and function the same as
    their counterparts (READCH, READ, TYI) with no arguments given.

General announcement:
[!] TOPS-10 NEWIO is now alive.  It has been running on some DECsystem-20's
    under the TOPS-10 simulator and has run fine on standalone TOPS-10's.
    Unfourtunatly, it has not had widespread distribution.  Any TOPS-10 site
    interested in obtaining a copy of NEWIO should send a note to BUG-LISP
    and we will try to accomodate you.  We need it to be used in the field if
    we are to have any hopes of making it solid.

Changes of interest only to LISP internals pathologists:
[@] Of interest to LISP internals pathologists is the fact that DBGMSK
    now has the %PIATY bit off.  If you are debugging a LISP in which the
    program enables TTY-RETURN interrupts, you would lose badly.  Now,
    setting IMASK and .MASK to DBGMSK will turn off TTY-RETURN interrupts and
    allow simpler debugging.