Doing simple things with AIX PS/2

[John Garnett]

In article <1359 at fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov> sherman at fcs260c2.UUCP () writes:
>
>I am in a small group of mathematicians who are trying to upgrade
>from DOS to unix by putting AIX (v 1.1) on PS/2's (Model 80's and 70's).
>
>Problem:  We can't seem to do some very basic things that even our dumb
>DOS machines can do.
>
>1) Terminal emulation: When we telnet or rlogin as a vt100 to a non-AIX
>machine (eg SUN or VMS VAX) vi doesn't work properly.  For example, when
>you type ^U the top line changes but not the rest of the screen; when you
>delete a line, it is not deleted from the screen; etc.  Terminal emulation
>to AIX machines is ok.

AIX full screen programs such as Vi and the Devices command rely on the
terminfo database (stored in /usr/lib/terminfo) to determine the escape
sequences necessary to control a particular type of terminal.  Some other
vendors' versions of UNIX* use a similar database known as termcap that
is stored in /etc/termcap.  The problem you are experiencing is most likely
occurring because the SUN's and VAXen that you are logging into probably do not
have terminfo or termcap entries for the ibm8512, ibm8513, or ibm8514 
that you are using on your AIX PS/2.  The possible solutions include:
1) adding support for the PS/2 console to the SUN or VAXen's termcap
or terminfo files.  2) use the -e vt100 option of AIX telnet to 
cause telnet to emulate a vt100 terminal (almost every UNIX* machine will
have a terminfo or termcap entry for the vt100).  Once you login to the
remote machine, make sure your TERM environment variable is set correctly.
Under /bin/sh, use "TERM=vt100;export TERM"; under /bin/csh use
"setenv TERM vt100" to set the terminal type.  Use the env command
to verify the terminal type.

*UNIX is a trademark of AT&T.


>
>2) Scientific word processing: AIX comes with troff, but drivers
>only for IBM Graphics Printers.  We have an HP Laserjet and Epson LQ-800's.
>We also want to do LaTeX.  I can do troff (using Textware) or 
>plain TeX (using PCTeX) under DOS Merge, but this seems crazy, and 
>anyway LaTeX kills the DOS process instantly.
>
IBM recently published a blue softbound book that contains short
descriptions of numerous products offered by other vendors.  The
book is entitled "AIX Catalog" (pretty mundane, huh?).  I'm not
sure of the order number but I think the book was published 
within the last few months.  Also, the cover sports a picture of
a spherical object containing numerous small rectangular mirrors.

>We plan to try AIX Access for DOS Users
>so that they can use the AIX machines as print servers and the PC-LAN
>software can be junked. Does anyone have experience with this?

AADU offers a printserving feature that is essentially transparent.
Once the AADU connection has been made (and the AIX disk appears
as drive E: or whatever on the DOS machine) you merely have to
type "printer E: LPT1" to cause all DOS print jobs (including
print-screens) to be forwarded to the AIX printer.
>
>We hope AIX becomes very popular so that lots of 3rd party software
>gets written for it...

Me too.
-- 
+------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| John Garnett                       |      Base 1.9                     |
| garnett at rpp386.cactus.org          |                                   |
| {bigtex|texbell}!rpp386!garnett    |      "It's almost binary"         |