GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR TERMINAL

Since  I already owned a terminal that I was  very 
happy  with  (Zenith  Z-29),  I  bought  my  Micro 
Decision  without  terminal.   I  knew  that  this 
terminal was as capable as most premium terminals, 
so  I  didn't  even consider that there  would  be 
compatibility problems.

When I received my MD-2, I noticed that of all the 
terminals that the Zenith could emulate,  only the 
Hazeltine  1500 was listed as a level 2  terminal.  
I  never  liked operating in this mode  because  I 
lose  many terminal attributes,  so I set  up  the 
system  with  the  terminal emulating  an  H/Z-19.  
This is listed as a level 1 terminal by Morrow.  I 
wasn't  very happy with this because  among  other 
features,  I  lost  highlighting.   The H/Z-19  is 
capable  of highlighting but by designating  it  a 
level 1 terminal this wasn't accessible.

I decided to try to do something about this. I got 
a   printout   of  TERMINAL.DAT  from   the   CP/M 
Distribution  disk.  The TERMINAL.DAT file is used 
when  first  starting the system to allow  you  to 
choose a terminal and to let the system know  what 
codes   your  terminal  requires  to  control  the 
screen.  If the terminal requires different  codes 
than  the operating system the operating system is 
patched  to the new codes.   Then when  installing 
the  rest  of the software  all  terminal  control 
codes  are translated into those required by  your 
terminal.   To simplify matters, Morrow has chosen 
to   classify  all  terminals  as  one  of   three 
different  levels.  Software supplied by Morrow is 
pre-installed for one of these three levels.   The 
problem  is that for one reason or another  Morrow 
has  not  classified all the  terminals  to  their 
maximum capability.

I  noticed that the VT100,  which is very close to 
an  ANSI  standard terminal,  is classified  as  a 
level 2 terminal and the ANSI standard terminal is 
classified as a level 1.   I also noticed that the 
control  codes for highlighting are not filled  in 
on either the H/Z-19 or the ANSI standard (as well 
as several others).   I also knew that my terminal 
could do everything that a level 3 terminal  could 
do,  and  all  I had to do is tell  the  operating 
system what the control codes were.

So  I  loaded  WordStar and edited a copy  of  the 
TERMINAL.DAT  file  in the  non-document  mode  to 
reflect  all  the control codes and to change  the 
ANSI terminal from a level 1 terminal to a level 3 
terminal.  I added highlighting, insert and delete 
line  and  insert and delete  character  codes.  I 
moved the new TERMINAL.DAT file to my backup  copy 
of  the  original CP/M Distribution disk  and  re-
installed the system as I did the first time.

Imagine  my  surprise when I noticed that much  of 
the Pilot menus were highlighted!   I re-installed 
WordStar  and Logicalc and noticed that  they  too 
made  much use of highlighting.   I decided not to 
re-install   Pearl  but  discovered  that  it   is 
possible  to  change terminals in  Pearl  by  just 
running   the   welcome  disk  and   picking   the 
appropriate  options.  I  just sysgened the  other 
disks  to  get the correct translation  tables  in 
them.

I  suspect  that  Morrow  did  not  complete   the 
TERMINAL.DAT  file  because  they lacked  all  the 
information they needed for the various terminals.  
If you have a terminal that has more  capabilities 
than your're using now,  don't hesitate to try it.  
If you are careful to always work on a backup copy 
of  everything  you  have nothing to  lose  but  a 
little  time.   You can always go back to your old 
system if you wish,  and you can sure learn a  lot 
about your system.

                                   Clarence Heier