Comment by wkat4242

1 day ago

> In summary: multiplexers add unnecessary overhead, suffer from a complexity cascade, because they actually have to translate escape codes, modifying them in hackish ways to get them to work with their concepts of windows/sessions.

This is a feature for me. Because less and less applications bother supporting termcap, this way some applications can still work on my VT520.

I don't really care what the kitty dev thinks anyway. He's entitled to his opinion but for me tmux is way more important. Also I think alacritty is better (though I generally just use Konsole).

As a user I only care about what works well for me, not what's architecturally the most elegant solution.

8 comments

wkat4242

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JdeBP  1 day ago

You are very lucky to have a VT520. I have been idly on the look-out for a 525 for years, but not only are they inordinately expensive, the people selling them are not on the same continent as I am (and probably don't have my country's version of the LK).

I've been on the lookout partly just to see whether this works properly with a genuine VT525:

* https://jdebp.uk/Softwares/nosh/guide/commands/console-termi...

Yes, should tmux ever go away, there's another option for transliterating terminal output of applications that just expect all of the modern stuff with AIXTerm's 16 colours and alternate screen buffers and mouse sequences and whatnot and do not check TERM properly. (-:

  • wkat4242  11 hours ago

    The 525 was the color version, right?

    I like the 520. It's easy because it's the last terminal DEC made, it's the fastest and it can work with ordinary PS/2 keyboards.

    The downside is the design is really boring. It looks like a typical OEM VGA monitor from the 90s that you got with every cheap PC clone.

    To be honest it's really hard to work with it these days because so many apps just blast xterm codes without checking anything. Tmux helps a bit but it's not perfect.

    However I love the feel of it, it's mainly nostalgic but it's also great it can be dimmed so low it's hard to read in a darkened room. My PC monitor is so bright I already use it at 0% brightness during the day. And at night in the dark (I leave the lights off when I have the windows open) it's basically unusable. The 520 is great then and also good for concentrating because there's no distractions.

    If you'd like me to test something let me know!

NoGravitas  1 day ago

My VT420 doesn't support hardware flow control, but software flow control does not play nice with many modern terminal applications. GNU Screen provides an extremely effective workaround, plus its other features. I've used tmux a lot on modern terminal emulators, but it seems to lack this important feature for vintage terminals. Glad that tmux solves your problems with broken apps that don't support termcap or terminfo.

  • tsowell  21 hours ago

    Fellow VT420 user here! The problem with tmux is that it disables flow control, but you can fix that with this:

      diff --git a/tty.c b/tty.c
  index 359dc13..f98c9c4 100644
  --- a/tty.c
  +++ b/tty.c
  @@ -319,8 +319,8 @@ tty_start_tty(struct tty *tty)
    event_add(&tty->event_in, NULL);
   
    memcpy(&tio, &tty->tio, sizeof tio);
  - tio.c_iflag &= ~(IXON|IXOFF|ICRNL|INLCR|IGNCR|IMAXBEL|ISTRIP);
  - tio.c_iflag |= IGNBRK;
  + tio.c_iflag &= ~(IXOFF|ICRNL|INLCR|IGNCR|IMAXBEL|ISTRIP);
  + tio.c_iflag |= IXON|IGNBRK;
    tio.c_oflag &= ~(OPOST|ONLCR|OCRNL|ONLRET);
    tio.c_lflag &= ~(IEXTEN|ICANON|ECHO|ECHOE|ECHONL|ECHOCTL|ECHOPRT|
        ECHOKE|ISIG);

    Then you'll want to run this before starting tmux:

      stty -iutf8 ixon
  export LANG=en_US

    I also recommend using a dedicated tmux socket with the VT to avoid accidentally connecting to an unpatched tmux server that helpfully re-disables flow control. That happened to me while I was testing the patch, and it was infuriating.

    I've also hacked up support for storing tmux window contents in different pages of VT memory, so you can switch windows instantly without waiting for full screen redraws. It's a bit rough around the edges (doesn't handle split windows very well, for example), but it's enough of a quality-of-life improvement that I use it anyway. It's a bit long for a comment, but I can post it somewhere if you're interested.

    Feel free to email me if you want more information about my setup.

homebrewer  1 day ago

> I think alacritty is better

Can I ask why? It starts slower (has a significant lag on old hardware), has way less useful features (like tabs), has the same responsiveness, and loses in benchmarks (for what they're worth). I see no reason to use it when kitty/ghostty/konsole/foot exist (depending on one's preferences), but people obviously do.

  • wkat4242  11 hours ago

    Reloading the config is great and it uses a lot less CPU than kitty on my system when the terminal is constantly being updated. Startup doesn't matter to me as I always have tons of terminals open.