High Latency Survival Tactics (Was: Re: Thunderbird stupid about X traffic?)

[Mark E. Mallett]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2007 at 04:13:27PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote:
>   At that point, the hard part is finding a *terminal* that supports a
> local line editing mode.  I think there might be an xterm or rxvt
> option somewhere for this.  Maybe on one of the [CTRL]+click menus?
> (I'm not at an xterm right now.)

Maybe something that supports 3270 mode (or 5250)?  google finds a few
hits, like this one that looks interesting (tho I know absolutely
nothing about this site):

   http://x3270.bgp.nu/


>   Then the hardest part is trying to figure out how to use "ed" to
> edit text files.  Or maybe one of the TECO fans in the group can give
> lessons on that.  ;-)

Oh sure, from one write-only-language thread to another..

But really, there have been some line-oriented editors that were
designed for block mode transmissions even though the actual connections
had evolved to character mode.  One that I used presented one line at a
time.  You would indicate where you wanted to edit the line by sending
'/' characters that skipped over the part you wanted to keep.  Like (not
exactly like, since my memory is fuzzy):

  * this is a line of text from the file
  >i//////////new 

and then you hit return to have the change take effect, i.e., to insert
the word "new" before "line".  It was quite a trip and I only put up
with it for so long before writing a new editor there :)

-mm-    . kj/n