NEW MULTICS NETWORK SOFTWARE FEATURES

Two recently-installed features of the Multics Network software

might be of general interest to the Network community, and should

be of particular interest to those who use Multics via TIP's:

Case Mapping

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In order to allow Network users at upper-case-only terminals on

systems which do not furnish case-mapping to access Multics,

typing "MAP" (upper-case, followed by Telnet New-line)

immediately after receipt of the Multics load message actuates

Multics software which applies the following typing conventions:

1) as most Multics input is lower-case, alphabetic input is

mapped to lower-case, except for any letter immediately preceded by "

2) back (left) arrow is treated as underscore, up arrow as

circumflex, apostrophe as acute (right) accent

3) escape sequences exist for the following:

    backspace = -
    grave (left) accent = '
    left brace =
    vertical line =
    right brace = )
    tilde = =

4) the sequence "\" is treated as "

    octal  escape, it is only necessary to type     a "
    them

The case-mapping software is also actuated if "HELP" (upper-case)

is typed prior to login in response to the system's "login

incorrect" message, in which case the normal information (which

would appear in response to lower-case "help" as well) on login

format will be printed out. (Note: the escape sequences are the

same as existing Multics conventions for direct-dialled Model

33/35 TTY's. On these particular devices, "

indicated on the key-caps: it is input as SHIFT-L.)

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Allocate Handling

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Output to systems which give small allocations has long been a

problem, both to the remote user (who experienced frequent pauses

in the output at his terminal) and to the Multics "Network

Daemon" process (which encountered considerable inefficiency

because of being frequently awakened to process the ALL control

messages). To alleviate this, we have introduced interrupt-time

code which processes the ALL's and outputs the next group of

bytes without causing the Network Daemon to take a wakeup. As

attendees of the ICCC will have already observed, response is far

superior under the new scheme. (System Programmers responsible

for NCP's might be interested to know that some 75% of our

control-message processing deals with ALL's.)

[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ]

    [ into the online RFC archives by BBN Corp. under the   ]
    [ direction of Alex McKenzie.                      1/97 ]

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