layers hangs terminal

[Ed Horch]

wjc at ho5cad.ATT.COM (Bill Carpenter) writes:
>In article <676 at msa3b.UUCP> kevin at msa3b.UUCP (Kevin P. Kleinfelter) writes:
>>	2) How can I tell (in a shell script) if layers is active on my tty?
>
>The host software includes a command "ismpx" for just this purpose.

Clarification:  The exit status of ismpx is as you'd expect: 0 if yes,
1 if no.  The "yes" and "no" outputs are sent to standard error, not
standard output.  Here is an example of the shell script I wrap aound 
my 630 executables:

	ismpx 2>/dev/null && exec dmdld whatever.m $*
	echo $0: Must be in layers environment >&2
	exit 1

The executable itself is "whatever.m".  In most cases the shell script 
[$0] is named "whatever", in keeping with the way things like cip are
distributed and installed.

Editorial question:  When are AT&T going to take this beauty and make
it into a full workstation?  All it needs is an Ethernet/Starlan/etc.
interface, more memory and CPU, some simple networking firmware, and a
slightly more intelligent operating system.  Is anything like that in
the works?

-Ed