Very smart terminaks

[Bill.Stewart.4K435.x0705]

> > ...  Local command-line editing and
> > history would be obvious features to build into Blit software--so
> > obvious that I'll bet somebody out there already has.  Any takers?
> You are behind the times; Rob Pike (co-inventor of the Blit) talked
> about this at the Salt Lake City Usenix.
> 				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> 				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry

If all you want to edit is command-lines and history, get ksh!
It works just as well on dumb  terminals as smart ones, and you can
do editing with vi-style or emacs-style commands.  If you like
(boring) csh-style history, there's also an equivalent for that,
but the one-line-screen-editor approach to history and command
editing is a lot classier.  What's nice to be
able to do from an intelligent terminal is grab *anything* off the
screen, edit it a bit, and send it back to the system.  (Actually,
my long-since-replaced HP2621 could do that; the ENTER key was great
for snarfing up output from programs that died, ed-ing it into a
file, and printing it out.  The arrow keys were too brain-damaged to
use with the host, but they were great for local editing.)
			Bill
-- 
## Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcs