Hearsay

When I was writing Hearsay I was obsessed with emulating terminals and didn’t try to write a better one – hence the fixed 24 line screens. I guess the number 24 is in the code (bad), but it does have the big scroll back buffer so support for big screens might not be too hard.

As to multiple copies. I feel the way to do it would be that when a copy of Hearsay is run it should cache the value of Hearsay$Path – so you could have two copies with different set ups. I wonder if I actually wrote the code that way – eventually – when later versions appeared.

I got it to compile – converted it to Norcroft make files. It seems to work ok but you know when you put a flat pack together, it looks ok but you have these pieces left. There was a lot of function duplication from XL.Task in HsyRel so I’ve prefered the version in HsyRel. Wart seems to be disabled, though I don’t know the syntax if it did work – I can’t see that you’ve used it in your make files.

*wart w.ckcpro
Internal error: undefined instruction at &0000800A

00008000 : FB000000 : ...û : BLX     &0000800A          ; ARMv5 or later
00008004 : FB000000 : ...û : BLX     &0000800E          ; ARMv5 or later
00008008 : FB000000 : ...û : BLX     &00008012          ; ARMv5 or later
0000800C : EB000652 : R..ë : BL      &0000995C
00008010 : EF000011 : ...ï : SWI     OS_Exit

anyway I’ll see how it goes

This is an interesting article showing how to configure a pair of serial-bluetooth adapters. Once initially configured with AT commands (flash memory I guess), they will pair up by themselves. Wireless serial port communication. I wonder how they would go driving midi devices with multiple hco5’s.
Link wont work with Netsurf but
wget --no-check-certificate 'https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1IGvmI1YzIu4lI--KFslR-YBJjITVc2C5' -O hco5.jpg
Should work.

Colin – wart takes w.ckcpro and turns it into c.ckcpro – I used it in the first place, but I seem to have lost the sources. Unless you change w.ckcpro it is not a problem. Wart is part of Kermit, so if anyone really had to it could be recreated for 32 bit – wart being 26 bit is the problem.

Hearsay predates Tasklib, it should only need a couple of assembler functions from Tasklib (poll and swi), on my build it does not drag in anything else. When 32 bit came in it was easier to use Tasklib than the versions that I originally used with Hearsay.

You have to laugh. All this work on charsets – very comprehensive – and they go and ditch them for Unicode.

All this work on charsets – very comprehensive

Very comprehensive, but also very restricted (trying to fit a lot into a single byte) and/or confusing and/or conflicting.

Here is a chart describing Japanese in its billions of variations:

[readable size version]

And this talks about National Replacement Character Sets (NRCS) on terminals: http://invisible-mirror.net/vttest/vttest-nrcs.html
Hmm, and where might I find ‘é’? by ‘a’ or maybe by ‘z’ or should that be ‘Z’ or sometimes even by ‘^’ – it’s a confusing mess. Oh, and note that some characters used in a language simply don’t exist. Minitel, for instance, had a pretty restricted range of accented characters (all the French ones, but only in lower case): https://www.dafont.com/minitel.font

Then along came something that was a little more complicated, but attempts to try to fix the many conflicting messes.

This isn’t too mention the fact that most home computers of the eighties had their own custom character sets…

• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETSCII
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATASCII
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST_character_set
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEM_character_set
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum_character_set
• http://twilighte.oric.org/twinew/textmode.htm (Oric 1)
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_Roman
• http://beebwiki.mdfs.net/ASCII
• BBC Master (it’s all Greek to me!)

And:

• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext_character_set

Etc etc etc…

Here’s a modified version of Hearsay (Hearsay-2_24_01.zip). Its looking good – like the 132 column mode. Just have to figure out how to configure function keys and mouse clicks do something – I’m not sure what.

removed Hearsay picture

Colin – Chapter 11 in the manual “Macros” – you can attach strings to every key on the keyboard, it sets off with the function keys set up. Page 62 explains what the mouse clicks do in terminals.

Hello,

Every time I plug in my Prolific USB serial device it assigns it a new device name. So connector does not work as it assumes it is SerialUSB? Is this right.

… Ah! but Hearsay works fine so that’s OK.

Every time I plug in my Prolific USB serial device it assigns it a new device name.

Yes that is normal.

So connector does not work as it assumes it is SerialUSB? Is this right.

You need to change the port number in choices. *serialusbdevices will list the SerialUSB devices and if you see SerialUSB2 the port number in Connector is 2.

Hearsay doesn’t have device/port selection in the GUI so I’ve made it autodetect device/port.

Thanks! Works great

… I spoke too soon, Connector crashes when I try an file transfer but the block driver thinks it’s still connected and it all goes horrible after that until a reboot.

Not to worry, Hearsay works fine and the file transfer is much better in that you can slow it down.

Don’t worry too much about me I’m only doing this for fun, connecting to my toy Z80 computer.

I’ve come across an odd interaction with Hearsay and vncserver – I’ve connected via RealVNC on windows and linux and Avalanche on another RISC OS machine and they all show the problem. Connector does not exhibit this problem and there isn’t a problem with Hearsay if I use the machine direct instead of over vnc.

If you type something and press the backspace key to delete a character it deletes the character but if I try to type, nothing happens until I press a key modifier or control character so pressing shift/ctrl/tab/return makes typing normal chars work again. In hearsay I can assign a different character to the key so if I change the BackSpace key to an X pressing backspace outputs an X I can do this as many times as I like and an X is output but I can’t type any other character until I press a modifier key or control key. I can make different keys delete without problem but it doesn’t matter what backspace outputs pressing that key locks other keys on the keyboard.

Hearsay has a module that intercepts key presses and messes about with them. Source will be with Hearsay sources. It is the Hearsay module, which also increases the serial buffer size. I’d guess Ovation Pro would exhibit the same problem.

Hearsay (Hearsay-2_24_01.zip). Its looking good

First check with ‘sudo raspi-config’ and lines 2 to 4 do a full width black screen.
Edit: repeated tries and the missing lines can move, though always around the top section, 1-5 of the menu list.
The first bad char displayed is at the top RH corner of the (line) box.
This is an older version of raspbian, but all the same, something must be up.
Rebooting, turning off utf8 and still get missing lines.
I appreciate the need for better handling of terminals where utf8 can not be turned off, that could even be Android etc as well as windows/Mac.
I noticed a lot of support for serial/bluetooth terminals in Android including the hc-05 device I mentioned earlier, just what can be done with the android files etc would be a bit murkier than linux.

Can you send me a spool file?

Enter sudo raspi-config at the command line but before pressing return menu->file->Open spool save it to ram disc, press return, menu->File->Close spool. Send it to the email address on here.

Is it possible you are just dropping characters?

If you change !Hearsay.Autorun.!Macros with this !macros It sets up f1-f12 and if you are at the linux command prompt crtl-shift-f1 sets up the terminal for 80 col linux mode and ctrl-shift f2 does the same for 132 column mode. If you use the key presses to change mode it will ensure we are looking at the same thing.

If you have any saved macros you may want to save your version of autorun.!Macros.

Just downloaded ArmBBS is there such a thing Serial driver to be able to use Connector/ArmBBS on the same copy of vrpc-dl?

I presume there was no Serial driver for the Emulators.

I’d guess Ovation Pro would exhibit the same problem.

Yes it does. I’ll have a look at the Hearsay module.

It’s the keys with the NONE flag set in HmoduleA5 that are the problem. I don’t have a numeric keypad but PaGEUP/down and home exhibit the problem.

Is it possible you are just dropping characters?

error is not fixed positionly, but going back to original Hearsay and everything is clean as a whistle. I’m using a solid Serial0 connection. I was the considering that the Iyonix not keeping up with the redraw after the extra processing as well as what you may be testing on.
Was going to check for a difference on the Pi, Edit: Had better result with TERM=linux this time, have sent you a set of spool files.
Experiencing raspbian setting inconsistencies so I should upgrade Raspbian to the latest now.

is there such a thing Serial driver to be able to use Connector/ArmBBS on the same copy of vrpc-dl?

ArmBBS has a local login. It’s in the ports window somewhere. Menu? Clicking on the spark? I don’t recall…

Alternatively, pipea driver at one end, and pipeb at the other.

I presume there was no Serial driver for the Emulators.

One could argue that you shouldn’t need a driver for an emulator, that “InternalPC” ought to work. ;-)

One could argue that you shouldn’t need a driver for an emulator

RiscPCEmu has the CDROM presented as /dev/cdrom maybe it could present the serial/USBserial port the same way?
You would have to open it the same way as our devices serial method unless blockdrivers were made. (all speculation)

RiscPCEmu has the CDROM presented as /dev/cdrom

How does that work with a filing system that has no concept of “/dev”? Are you sure it doesn’t read from /dev/cdrom?

maybe it could present the serial/USBserial port the same way?

It’s an emulator. It should present something that looks like the onboard 16550 device, so all those SerialOp thingies work.
It doesn’t matter if the actual serial data is piped to a terminal on another continent via TCP/IP, what matters is what it looks like to the hosted environment. And that is to say, it looks “like a RiscPC” (usually).

The pi4 is exasperating. For some reason today the voltage is reading a bit lower 4.99v – usually about 5.07. When the pi4 drops below 5.0v at the usb port it writes a warning to the serial port every so often mucking everything up. avoid_warnings in config.txt does nothing. I’m only using an RS232 adapter and ethernet – no screen, no usb. hmmm…