vt100 function keys

[Ceesjan van Hattum]

Hi,
I have some program which i can only access from a non-graphical terminal.
The program checks what TERM i'm using (vt100) and loads its own vt100vid.bin and vt100key.bin
In the ascii-UI it tells me:
^F1=Help ^F4=Done etcetera, but i cannot find the keycombination to press.

pressing ctrl-F1 or esc-F1 does not work, but i found the following:
ctrl-h = backspace
enter = tab
tab = enter
ctrl-b = tab
ctrl-h = backspace
ctrl-x = delete
esc-e = clear line
esc-r = refresh screen
But the function-keys ???
Anybody any idea ?
ps. no matter hpux 10 or 11.

Regards,
Ceesjan

[Marco Santerre]

Hi Ceesjam

I think you will find your answer here :

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x41eaed6464a6d611abdb0090277a778c,00.html

[H.Merijn Brand (procura · Accepted solution]

Shouldn't that be read as Ctrl-F 1 (meaning Control with F, release all, the key '1')

Enjoy, have FUN! H.Merijn

[Bill Hassell]

It's important to note that vt100 has NO programmable function keys (f1-f8, etc). The link given above will show you:

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal/dec.html

where you can read just how dumb the vt100 was (it's been more than two decades since the vt100 was manufactured). The problem is that almost no one remembers what a vt100 might be, so that a prgram that says it is a vt100 emulation is often a poor imitation of the real thing.

To have programmable softkeys, you need an emulator that actually has them in the emulation (ie, a good vt220 emulation). Since the vt100 and vt220 do have enough smarts to answerback to some queries, standard HP-UX utilities such as ttytype will set TERM correctly (and is done automatically when you login via /etc/profile or your local .profile. Manually changing or forcing a TERM value will always cause problems unless the terminal is so dumb, it cannot respond to any query.

Now if your program uses the Curses library, you won't have to do anything because the program will use Curses to provide the proper escape sequences for your terminal. To see all the codes recognized (and supported by Curses) for a given terminal model:

untic vt100
or
untic vt220

But if your program has hardcoded sequences inside the program, then you'll have to find an emulator that matches what the program expects. Since the program is loading it's own video and keyboard codes, then you'll have to see if the program has a less-dumb emulation that it supports (like vt220).

[Ceesjan van Hattum]

Procura, you are the hero of today!
Who would have thought that live 'can' be simple.
You do not want to know how many hours i already spent on emulations, untic-ing etcetera..
But indeed ^F1 can also be ^F+1...
..how stupid i feel :(
..how happy i am now :)

Greetings,
Ceesjan