[CamTin]

> We propose to implement this solution by creating a language for console control. This language, current named DEL, would be used by subsystem designers to specify what components are needed in a terminal and how the terminal is to respond to inputs from its keyboard, Lincoln Wand, etc. Then, as a part of the initial protocol, the remote HOST would send to the local HOST, the source language text of the program which controls the console. This program would have been by the subsystem designer in DEL, but will be compiled locally.

This bit is interesting. Javascript and AJAX in 1969!

[gumby]

If you're interested in remote (client-based) rendering and I/O (as opposed to TELNET (or these days ssh) where the characters are simply sent across), look at RFC 734. Emacs, and a small number of other programs, used this so that you could do local editing and update to compensate for the slow networks back then. It was also supported by the MIT lisp machines and descendants.

It was actually like a networked channel controller; the latter was mocked by the design of Unix and yet today all IO is done that way.

The author of that RFC was also the author of IMAP.

[CamTin]

Thanks, this does look interesting! I find any old ITS-related technical discussions like this (despite it being ostensibly OS-neutral standards language) to be very difficult to pore over. Sometimes I wonder if I'm computer-literate or just Unix-literate! Maybe one of these days I will get ITS running in an emulator and see what I've been missing.

[CamTin]

Also the full DEL scheme proposal hinted at in RFC-1 is the subject of RFC-5.