| We have a very small team working on support for VXT software and Multia
software. The products are no longer orderable. If customers have a problem which has been
fixed in a patch release, I will send the patch directly to the customer if requested.
If the customer has a problem that has not been fixed, an IPMT case needs to be created.
The release notes for the patch releases available for VXT software follows.
Regards,
Joel
VXTK021.RELEASE_NOTES Copyright Digital Equipment Corporation, 1997
VXT Software V2.1K - Release Notes 21-Jan-1997
----------------------------------
******************************* NOTE ***************************
VXT Software T2.1K-4 21-Jan-1997 is a TEST VERSION of V2.1K and
will be replaced with the final V2.1K release when verification
and test has been completed.
The terminal manager title bar will say T2.1K-4 21-Jan-1997.
******************************* NOTE ***************************
VXT Software V2.1K is a maintenance release of VXT Software which fixes
problems encountered in VXT Software V2.1. It supersedes the earlier
patch releases V2.1A, V2.1B, V2.1C, V2.1D, V2.1E, V2.1F, V2.1G and V2.1H.
This is a patch kit and requires a complete version of VXT Software V2.1 or
VXT Software V2.1G to have been installed.
These released notes are structured as follows:
o Problems Resolved Since VXT Software V2.1
o Known Problems and Restrictions
o Hints For Getting More From Your VXT Terminal
Problems Resolved Since VXT Software V2.1
-----------------------------------------
Changes made since V2.1H are noted with change bars "|".
Patch Release V2.1A
1. Pasting accented characters into a 3270 emulator window inserted the
wrong character values.
2. 3270 emulator sessions with NetView would terminate prematurely if the
user typed while the application was still displaying data.
Patch Release V2.1B
3. On VXT 2000 color/grayscale terminals, an application or applications
that displayed two large pixmaps in succession would run very slowly.
4. On VXT 2000 color/grayscale terminals, dashed lines of width zero or
one would be drawn as solid lines.
5. Periodic loss of characters on serial port.
6. PCF fonts served over LAT from OpenVMS AXP could be rendered
incorrectly on terminals running VXT Software V2.1.
Patch Release V2.1C
7. On VXT 2000 monochrome terminals, the outline of rectangles would
always be drawn solid and of width one without regard to the style
requested.
8. On VXT 2000 color/grayscale terminals, dashed lines requiring a dash
pattern greater than 32 pixels would be drawn solid.
9. Pointing devices with greater than 3 buttons lost use of some buttons
after the server was reset.
10. The VXT 2000 terminal would sometimes crash (Exception 64) while
processing SNMP activities.
11. The memory used by VXT DECterm increased in VXT Software V2.1 because
the default number of lines recorded off top was increased from 100 in
VXT Software V2.0 to 500 in VXT Software V2.1. The default has been
restored to 100.
12. The behavior of DECterm in VXT Software V2.1 changed when using ANSI
escape sequences for colored text. The behavior has been restored to
that used in VXT Software V2.0.
13. The DECterm title bar in VXT Software V2.1 did not function correctly
when a language other than English was selected.
14. The Configuration Manager in VXT Software V2.1 did not allow access to
all customizations when a language other than English was selected.
15. The form for Customizing Terminal Manager did not display correctly
for all languages.
16. Treating linewidth 1 as linewidth zero can speed up line drawing
considerably and is acceptable for most users. However, a user may
need to disable this for a particular application. In VXT Software
releases prior to V2.0 it was possible to disable this feature by
setting a value into the terminal's NVRAM as shown below. This feature
has been restored.
>>> D/U 200904D4 56 ! Disables line width 1 optimization
>>> D/U 200904D4 0 ! Re-enables line width 1 optimization
Patch Release V2.1D
17. Scrolling windows that were partly occluded could cause a significant
memory leak in the X server causing local DECterm sessions to be lost
or the terminal to reboot. This problem was particularly evident to
users of terminal emulators which were overlapping.
18. Incorrect switching to NRC mode when language set to Hebrew has been
fixed.
19. DECterm now supports the crosshair and rubberband line ReGIS input
cursors in addition to the rubberband rectangle and diamond cursors.
This feature is available on both color and monochrome terminals.
20. Versions of VXT Software prior to version 2.1 started the X server
with bug compatibility mode enabled. This behavior has been restored
as the default in V2.1D to allow older X11 and X10 programs to execute
without error. Bug compatibility mode can be disabled using the host
utility xset.
21. SNMP was reporting the incorrect subnet mask. This was only a problem
in SNMP's reporting and did not affect the operation of the terminal
in any other way.
22. A problem in the VXT local window manager (MWM) which could crash the
terminal has been corrected.
23. The X server was not always recovering memory when fonts loaded over
LAT were unloaded. This was more noticeable when loading large fonts.
Patch Release V2.1E
24. The VXT 3270 Terminal Emulator now responds to size request changes
from the host application, such as from a display with 24 lines to a
display with 32 lines.
25. The VXT 3270 Terminal Emulator now allows the use of larger X Window
key maps. In particular, in earlier versions of VXT Software use of
the Austrian-German key map could cause the VXT terminal to crash.
26. The VXT no longer replies to IP ICMP Address Mask Requests.
Replying to ICMP Address Mask Requests was an error since the VXT
terminal is never an authoritative agent for ICMP Address Mask
requests.
27. A problem in the VXT serial port driver has been corrected. In some
circumstances the VXT terminal would crash while printing if the
serial port had been customized to use modem control rather than data
leads only.
28. DECterm was incorrectly resetting the character set mode from 7-bit
to 8-bit characters when it received a DECSCL (set conformance level)
sequence. This had consequences for users of national replacement
character sets. DECterm now correctly preserves the character set
mode when it receives a DECSCL sequence.
Patch Release V2.1F
29. The MIT X11 Release 5 X server does not cache arcs with a drawing
rectangle greater than 1500 pixels high. This would cause the X server
to hang for several minutes when drawing such arcs because the whole
arc would be re-computed for each segment drawn. The X server in VXT
Software has been changed so that where possible, computed arcs are
retained until the whole of the request has been serviced.
30. The X server was incorrectly computing the width of characters in a
font when drawing text with style FillTiled causing the terminal to
crash. This only affected a limited number of fonts and only when one
of these fonts was used for the first operation of this kind. In
particular, this would happen if the font "variable" was used the first
time text was drawn with style FillTiled. This problem has been
corrected, and is applicable to grayscale/color VXT terminals and
VT1300s only.
31. The X server was incorrectly computing the width of characters in
a font when determining whether the font required special handling for
large characters. This would cause corruption of the glyphs for
characters with a width greater than 29 pixels if the X server
computed the maximum glyph width as 29 or less. This applies to
Digital-supplied fonts with names matching the following 2 patterns.
DECwrite fonts matching "-dec-decwrite pictures-medium-r-normal-*"
DECpresent fonts matching -dec-present bullets-medium-r-normal-*"
This problem has been corrected, and is applicable to grayscale/color
VXT terminals and VT1300s only.
32. The X server was not always placing text strings in the correct column
when a client used the Xlib functions XDrawText and XDrawText16 to
draw multiple strings. This could be seen when using BookReader with
DECwindows Motif V1.2. This problem has been corrected, and is
applicable to grayscale/color VXT terminals and VT1300s only.
33. VXT Software ensures that all paths for files used with TFTP have a
slash "/" as the first character, even if the user omits this. This
technique only works on systems understanding UNIX file system syntax.
In order to allow files to be accessed from systems not supporting
UNIX file system syntax, paths can now be specified that will not have
a slash character prepended. This is specified by placing two slash
characters "//" at the front of the path.
Example:
To access a file from a system running DEC TCP/IP for OpenVMS.
File name on OpenVMS: UCX$TFTP_ROOT:[VXT]VXTCONFIG.XRM
VXT path: //[vxt]vxtconfig.xrm
VXT path including transport and host address:
Boot host: //tftp////[vxt]vxtconfig.xrm
Host myhost: //tftp/myhost///[vxt]vxtconfig.xrm
Paths used in earlier versions of VXT Software will continue to work.
34. The support for using the BOOTP host as the default host name for TFTP
file access to host-based resource files was not implemented
correctly. This has now been corrected so that in Customize Resources,
an omitted host is now permitted and indicates that the address of the
host replying to the last BOOTP request should be used. This applies
when VXT software is loaded via BOOTP/TFTP or the customization for
TCP/IP support is set to Determine IP address which causes VXT
Software to issue a BOOTP request. Also, see note 6 in Known
Problems and Restrictions when using terminals with TCP/IP and
DECnet enabled.
Patch Release V2.1G
35. There is information missing from the VXT documentation that is
necessary when using LAT font access from an OpenVMS host. LAT font
access requires that the LAT font daemon be running on OpenVMS. This
is started by the DECwindows startup procedure DECW$STARTUP.COM when
the logical name DECW$INSTALL_XTERMINAL is defined as "TRUE".
$ DEFINE/SYSTEM DECW$INSTALL_XTERMINAL "TRUE"
To ensure that this is set each time the system is loaded, this
command should be included in your OpenVMS system startup procedure
prior to starting DECwindows.
36. There is information missing from the VXT documentation that is
necessary when setting up printer queues when using LAT to access a
printer attached to the terminal.
On OpenVMS, use the LAT utility LATCP to define a LAT device to be
used to access the printer as follows:
$ SHOW DEVICE LT ! Display LAT devices currently in use
$ LATCP:==$SYS$SYSTEM:LATCP ! Specify LATCP as a foreign command
$ LATCP CREATE PORT LTA9000 ! Specify an unused LT device
$ LATCP SET PORT LTA9000 - ! Specify port characteristics
/NODE=LAT_08002Bxxxxx - ! LAT node name for terminal
/PORT=LAT_PORT - ! VXT's name for the printer port
/APPLICATION - ! Application port
/QUEUED ! Must be queued
$ INIT/QUEUE/ON=LTA9000:... ! Initialize the queue
To ensure that this is done each time the system is loaded, the LATCP
commands should be included in your startup procedure for LAT.
On DEC ULTRIX there are 3 steps required:
Step 1: Locate an unused tty in /etc/ttys and edit its entry to set it
unavailable for login.
tty07 "/etc/getty std.9600" vt100 off nomodem #VXTLAT
Step 2: Use lcp to set the tty device available for host-initiated LAT
sessions. Include the lcp command in your /etc/rc.local with
the other lcp commands that initialize LAT.
# /etc/lcp -h /dev/tty07
Step 3: Use /etc/lprsetup to create the queue definition. The key
questions relevant to LAT printer support on VXT are as
follows:
# /etc/lprsetup
. . .
Set device pathname 'lp' [/dev/tty01] ? /dev/tty07
. . .
Set printer connection type 'ct' [dev] ? lat
Set terminal server name 'ts' [] ? LAT_08002Bxxxxxx
Set terminal server output port 'op' [] ? LAT_PORT
Set terminal server output service 'os' [] ?
On DEC OSF/1, there are 3 steps required:
Step 1: Locate an unused tty by selecting one not specified for use
with getty in /etc/inittab.
Step 2: Use latcp to set the tty device available for host-initiated
LAT sessions and associate the device with the VXT's LAT port.
Include the latcp command in your /sbin/init.d/lat.
# /usr/sbin/latcp -A -ptty07 -H LAT_08002Bxxxxxx -R LAT_PORT
Step 3: Use lprsetup to create the queue definition. The key questions
relevant to LAT printer support on VXT are as follows:
# /usr/sbin/lprsetup
. . .
Set device pathname 'lp' [/dev/tty01] ? /dev/tty07
. . .
Set printer connection type 'ct' [dev] ? LAT
Set printer baud rate 'br' [4800] ?
For information on how to set up a print queue using LAT on other
hosts, see your host system's documentation and/or man pages for
how to set up a LAT tty for use with print services.
37. When using a remote window manager, starting the VXT local window
manager (MWM) would sometimes crash the terminal. This was an error
introduced in VXT Software V2.1F and the change that caused this has
been removed.
38. Some of the LucidaTypewriter fonts supplied with VXT Software V2.1 have
incorrect sizes for QUAD_WIDTH. These fonts are those distributed with
MIT X11R5. QUAD_WIDTH often indicates the width of the digits 0-9 and
is used by the Motif toolkit to determine the size of a box for
entering data when the required size is expressed in columns. The error
could result in boxes being drawn half the required width. The X Server
has been amended to recognize the error in LucidaTypewriter fonts and
correct it.
39. The X Server would crash if a cursor size greater than 32x32 was
requested. Cursors larger than 32x32 will now be clipped to the maximum
size.
40. The maximum number of VXT DECterm sessions has been raised from 31 to
64.
41. The software option 3270 terminal emulation is now disabled by default.
To enable support for 3270 terminal emulation, you must customize
Software Options. There is a separate software license for 3270
terminal emulation. The message concerning 3270 licensing that was
displayed in the Create window has been removed.
42. VXT DECterm would allocate memory for Record Lines Off Top, even if the
feature were disabled.
43. The customization for Negative Image for Ribbon Or Toner Saver was
being ignored by Print Screen.
44. The VXT X Server would sometimes hang after server reset, such as when
logging out from an X session.
45. LASTport Group codes can be be managed remotely from the VXT
Configuration Manager. The terminal being managed must be running and
the VXT Configuration Options for NVRAM Synchronize must have Terminal
Operations selected for this to succeed.
46. LASTport Group Codes would not work correctly when running VXT
Software in host-based mode.
47. The status window System Configuration has been amended to show the
active LASTport Group Code for the terminal.
48. The VXT would sometimes crash when X applications used the GC function
GXnoop. This problem has been corrected and was applicable to
grayscale/color VXT terminals and VT1300s only.
49. Occasionally VXT Motif Window Manager would crash with exception 10 or
11.
50. Occasionally the VXT X Server would crash with exception 64.
51. Printing on printers attached to the parallel port would generate
excessive blank pages. This was caused because a form feed was
sent to the printer each time it was released.
52. The local VXT DECterm would not handle print requests consistently.
This applied to using F2 to print from separate DECterm sessions
and also when a host application would switch between autoprint
mode and print controller mode. Sometimes data was lost and sometimes
an error message would be generated.
53. When an error occurred loading a font from a host-based X font server
the VXT X server would sometimes crash.
54. In VXT Software V2.1, the ability to failover between font sets on
an InfoServer did not work for custom font sets or font sets shipped
with previous releases of VXT Software.
55. Using VXT DECterm over DECnet to run FMS on an OpenVMS host would cause
the VXT to crash if the terminal connection was set to PASTHRU mode.
56. VXT DECterm would save the window title and icon title as "VXT
DECterm". This problem only appeared in early test versions of VXT
Software V2.1G.
57. Sometimes, XPutImage to a pixmap would fail to draw. This was because
the pixmap was not always locked in offscreen memory. This problem
was applicable to grayscale/color VXT terminals and VT1300s only.
Patch Release V2.1H
58. The installation procedure for OpenVMS did not support versions of
OpenVMS greater than V6.0.
59. Drawing with a clipmask which intersected the bounding window would
draw to the root window on grayscale/color VXT terminals and
VT1300s.
60. Wide area DECnet connections did not terminate immediately after a
disconnect.
61. In patch kit V2.1F and V2.1G, DECnet addresses in the following ranges
did not work when assigned to a VXT terminal running in host-based
mode: *.49-*.57, *.305-*.313, *.561-*.569, *.817-*.825
62. In the re-mastered maintenance kit VXT Software V2.1G 12-Jun-1995,
there were problems creating IP X sessions to UNIX host systems because
the IP address for the host was not being added to the list of trusted
hosts.
63. Under certain conditions, using a clip mask to draw to a pixmap
would cause the drawing to occur in the root window.
64. SNMP reported the incorrect active MAC address when DECnet was enabled.
Patch Release V2.1K
| 65. Port numbers specified for TCP/IP services would not work when
| autostarting a connection. The method of specifying a port number for
| TCP/IP services has been changed. You must now specify
| hostaddress:portnum. The previous method used hostaddress,portnum. This
| conflicted with the use of commas in saved customizations and would
| fail.
|
| 66. Some memory leaks were detected and fixed within the VXT Motif Window
| Manager (MWM).
|
| 67. It was not possible to use a DECnet/OSI host such as Digital UNIX
| to resolve DECnet names to addresses.
|
| 68. The local VXT window manager, MWM would switch colormaps needlessly,
| causing the display to flash unpleasantly.
|
| 69. Occasionally the VXT X server would crash when video memory was
| full.
|
| 70. The active position of the cursor was one pixel away from the specified
| position.
|
| 71. X Window clients with large numbers of large X requests could
| monopolize the X server at the expense of other clients. The X server
| scheduler has been changed so that clients such as the window manager
| can execute a large number of small X requests in a timeslot of 1/10
| second but clients executing large X requests can execute up to 15 X
| requests in a timeslot of 1 second. This change means that when there
| are a large number of X clients active, the delay servicing all active
| clients is reduced.
|
| 72. Starting the terminal manager from the keyboard
| The VXT can be operated without the terminal manager active. If
| you need to review a terminal that is operating in this mode you
| can press <ctrl>+<alt>+<F3> to start the terminal manager and message
| box. This feature is intended to allow system managers to
| examine the VXT Status while minimizing the memory overhead of
| running the VXT terminal manager all of the time.
| Previously this feature was only available when the VXT was
| started in DEBUG mode.
Known Problems and Restrictions
-------------------------------
1. Saving customizations in VXT DECterm will only affect future VXT
DECterm sessions when all active VXT DECterm sessions have been closed.
2. In order to manage DECterm customizations for a workgroup using the
VXT Configuration Manager, there are special steps required if you
need to revise the DECterm customizations for the workgroup. This is
because of a DECterm problem not yet resolved when saving
customizations.
Step 1: Before revising the customizations of a workgroup, from
a terminal in the workgroup, Create a DECterm session and
note all current settings.
Step 2: In DECterm use "Restore System Options" and then "Save
Options".
Step 3: In VXT Configuration Manager, use "Copy local terminal
settings" and press OK. This removes any previous DECterm
customizations from the workgroup.
Step 4: Reset or Reboot the Terminal.
Step 5: Create a DECterm session and re-enter any previous
customizations in addition to any new settings and then "Save
Options".
Step 6: In VXT Configuration Manager, use "Copy local terminal
settings" and press OK. This will place the revised DECterm
customizations in the workgroup.
Verify the settings using a second terminal within the workgroup.
3. VXT Software on VT1300 terminals does not support use of the serial
ports for printing or VXT DECterm.
4. Access to the Configuration Manager is also locked when "Lock all" is
selected to limit customizations. If you select this option then you
will need a second terminal that has access to the Configuration
Manager to make any changes to the first terminal's customizations.
This applies to terminals running in host mode with customizations
stored in NVRAM, and terminals running in served mode with
customizations stored on InfoServers.
5. The system image for VXT Software Essential X (also known as VXT EX)
is provided as an unsupported feature on all VXT Software kits. This
software is intended to simplify the operation of VXT terminals in
host-based mode when running as a workstation companion. VXT EX
provides an X11R4 compatible X server and limited customizations. This
image has a number of limitations that make it unsuitable when used
to connect to many hosts or where it requires remote management. There
are no plans to upgrade VXT EX.
Much of the attraction of this feature is its low memory requirement
and simplified user interface. The full function image in VXT Software
V2.1 provides a mode similar to VXT EX through customizations that
allow control over which software feature is loaded and which local
applications can be started. The only restriction of VXT Software V2.1
when compared with VXT EX is that it will not run in host-based mode
on terminals with less than 8 megabytes of memory. Note, that to use
full function VXT Software V2.1 in host-based mode with all features
enabled requires a minimum of 10 megabytes of memory.
6. If you have DECnet and TCP/IP enabled, you should use MOP to boot VXT
Software. This restriction applies because enabling DECnet changes the
terminal's effective hardware address. IP booting via BOOTP/TFTP
uses the terminal's Ethernet address (08-00-2B...) as the hardware
address. The effective hardware address when DECnet is enabled
is changed to a DECnet address (AA-00-04...). Hosts that remember the
original pairing of IP address and Ethernet address are then unable to
communicate with the terminal and services such as TFTP will fail.
You can still use BOOTP with VXT Software with DECnet enabled. Just
set the TCP/IP customizations to "Determine IP address". As well as
determining the local TCP/IP customizations, this will also get the
address of the configuring host which will be used when the host name
is omitted from file paths for TFTP.
7. When expanding the index entries in the Inforeader books provided with
VXT Software V2.1 and V2.1G use Fully Expand rather than Expand. When
Expand is used for an index, only the first entry for the index letter
is shown.
8. When using DECterm in autoprint mode together with a printer that is
offline an error message will be displayed for each line of text output
to the terminal window.
9. Do not place terminators on usused network connectors on the VXT
terminal. The terminal senses terminated ports as active and may
cause the terminal to fail to boot.
Hints For Getting More From Your VXT Terminal
---------------------------------------------
1. Speeding up VXT Software Startup when not using TCP/IP
VXT Software, by default, presumes that TCP/IP is enabled and that a
host is configured to give its IP address using BOOTP. If you are not
using TCP/IP you should disable TCP/IP. This will speed up the time it
takes to startup VXT Software.
2. Memory Considerations when using VXT Host-Based Terminals
Although VXT does much to minimize memory usage, there are still
things you can do to use less memory which will enable you to do more.
- Disable VXT Software options not required in your environment
By default, all VXT features are enabled although many users do not
require all of them. Each feature enabled increases the amount of
memory in use. You can reduce this by disabling the features you do
not need (See Customize Startup, Options from the VXT Terminal
Manager).
- Close VXT local clients when not in use
In particular, closing the VXT Terminal Manager can considerably
reduce the amount of memory used. The Terminal Manager can be
re-started from the VXT Motif Window Manager or by issuing an rshell
command from a host system.
- Reduce the lines recorded off top in VXT DECterm
By default 100 lines will be recorded off the top of the screen. This
can be significant when using a column width greater than 80. If you
are not using vertical scroll bars then disable recording lines off
top.
| 3. VXT memory may develop problems causing crashes
| When VXT hardware is shipped FASTBOOT is enabled. This minimizes
| the diagnostics performed when the VXT is powered on. Whenever
| a change is made to the VXT hardware configuration, the VXT
| detects this and performs a full diagnostic. Over time, the VXT
| memory may develop problems. When this happens a VXT terminal
| will start to behave erratically. This can be resolved in 1 of
| two ways. First you mess press the LAT switch to get the console
| prompt >>>.
|
| a. Perform a full memory test
| >>> SHOW MEM
| >>> TEST MEM
| >>> SHOW MEM
|
| b. Disable FASTBOOT
| >>> SHOW FBOOT
| >>> SET FBOOT 0
|
<End of Release Notes for VXT Software V2.1K>
|