BOSS, Utilities, BOSS lets you create up to 8 processes on a VAX/VMS system. Each process is identified by a single letter (A thru Z). At most one of these processes is `current'. What you type is sent to that process, and output from that process is sent to your terminal. A process which is not current can run but cannot do output. (Output is saved until you make that process current.) You usually switch between processes by typing control-\ followed by the identifying letter. You can run any program under BOSS. For example, you might run Emacs or EVE in process E SET HOST to another machine in process H do a FORTRAN compilation in process F execute DCL commands in process D talk to your colleague using PHONE in process P and so on. --------- AAAREADME.TXT BOSS V5.2 Ported to AXP by Malcolm MacArthur . Ported to IA64 by Hunter Goatley This distribution was created by Hunter Goatley and includes .OBJ files for Alpha and VAX (both using the PTD$ routines and the old TW devices used prior to VMS V5.5). For more info, see BOSS.README. --------- BOSS.README This is BOSS V5.2. A couple of minor changes were made to BOSS.C to allow the code to build and run on OpenVMS IA64 (Itanium). Hunter Goatley, August 22, 2004. This is BOSS V5.1. A bug in the routine to handle /STUFF_STRINGs was fixed and the code was cleaned up to allow clean compiles using both VAX C and DEC C (without /STANDARD=VAXC) by Hunter Goatley, September 25, 1996. ---------------------------------------- [readme file amended by M.McArthur@dct.ac.uk 02-May-94] This is BOSS version 5.0 (May 2nd, 1994). It consists of 6 files BOSS.README This file BOSS.HLP The user help file BOSS.C The source code BOSS_CLD.CLD The command language definitions BOSS_BUILD.COM The procedure for compiling and linking BOSS BOSS_INSTALL.COM The procedure for installing BOSS BOSS requires that pseudo TTY (PTY) drivers be installed on your system. This should be the latest version posted to INFO-VAX by Kevin Carosso in August 1988. This is recommended version for both VMS 4.x and VMS 5.0. Contact me if you need a copy of the PTY drivers. Alternatively, BOSS will run with the FTdriver. It is currently set up to do so, but can use the PY/TW driver combo instead; just edit the compile time conditional. Alpha users please note that the only pseudo terminal drivers available are the FTdriver ones. BOSS is set to automatically use these if you are compiling on an AXP system. If you plan to use BOSS/UW (to get multi-window operation on a Macintosh), you will need the UW terminal emulator. I can send you that too. You should edit BOSS_INSTALL.COM to refer to the directory where BOSS.EXE resides. BOSS should be installed with both PHY_IO and OPER privileges. You can get by without these privileges--see the comments in BOSS.C. Please note that you must edit BOSS_INSTALL.COM to reflect the location of the BOSS executable on your system. BOSS needs to be defined as a foreign command, i.e., $ BOSS == "$:[]BOSS" BOSS.HLP tells the user to do $ SETUP BOSS before running BOSS. SETUP on our system runs a .COM file which does the necessary initialization for various utilities. You will probably need to edit BOSS.HLP to insert the incantation appropriate for your site. BOSS.HLP should of course be installed in some easily accessible help library. Something like $ LIBRARY/HELP/REPLACE HLP$LIBRARY_1 BOSS should do the trick. Charles Karney Plasma Physics Laboratory E-mail: Karney@Princeton.EDU Princeton University Phone: +1 609 243 2607 Princeton, NJ 08543-0451 FAX: +1 609 243 2160 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For Alpha users: I've ported BOSS to the Alpha, and it seems to work fine, but there might be some unexpected bugs with it. If you find any bugs, please tell me. I haven't been able to test it with the Unix Windows software, and I can't (we don't have Macs or Amigas here...) so if it falls down with either of those two, you're on your own. Sorry :-( I'm not a system administartor or anything; just a first year computing student. So I haven't been able to test whether it'll work properly with PHY_IO and OPER privileges. Don't blame me if it trashes your system disk :-) On the whole it seems to work. This version will compile on both VAX and AXP systems. Enjoy! -Malcolm. -- Malcolm MacArthur M.McArthur@zippy.dct.ac.uk My views are not my own. I got them out of a book. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The remainder of this file is specific to people running BOSS/UW. The user documentation is in HELP BOSS Windows and its subtopics. You will get a separate mailing containing the three files UNIX-UW-42.HQX The UW terminal emulator and documentation UWPROTO.TXT Internal documentation on UW protocols MACMOUSE.EL Mouse support for Gnu Emacs UNIX-UW-42.HQX should be downloaded to a Mac as a text file and run through the BinHeX and Packit programs to give uw (the terminal emulator) and uw.doc (the documentation in MacWrite format). UWPROTO.TXT describes the protocol used by UW and BOSS/UW. Can be ignored if you like. If you have Gnu Emacs: MACMOUSE.EL should be moved to EMACS_LIBRARY:[LISP]. Add a uw entry in EMACS_LIBRARY:[ETC] with: # Macintosh/UW termcap (same as Mac without the cs, and has km = meta) d0|uw|uw-am|unix-windows:\ :cr=^M:do=^J:nl=^J:bl=^G:co#80:li#24:cl=50^O\E[;H\E[2J:\ :le=^H:bs:am:cm=5\E[%i%d;%dH:nd=2\E[C:up=2\E[A:\ :ce=3\E[K:cd=50\E[J:so=\E[7m:se=\E[m:us=\E[4m:ue=\E[m:\ :md=\E[1m:mr=\E[7m:mb=\E[5m:me=\E[m:is=\E[1;24r\E[4l\E[24;1H:\ :rs=\E>\E[?3l\E[?4l\E[?5l\E[?7h\E[?8h:\ :ks=\E=\E[?1h:ke=\E>\E[?1l:\ :ku=\EOA:kd=\EOB:kr=\EOC:kl=\EOD:kb=^H:\ :ho=\E[H:k1=\EOP:k2=\EOQ:k3=\EOR:k4=\EOS:ta=^I:pt:sr=5\EM:vt#3:xn:\ :ic=7\E[1@:dc=7\E[1P:al=9\E[1L:dl=9\E[1M:\ :sc=\E7:rc=\E8:\ :IC=7\E[%d@:DC=7\E[%dP:AL=3*\E[%dL:DL=3*\E[%dM:km: Postscript: I still prefer VersaTerm PRO to UW, even though it doesn't have multi- window support. There are too many VersaTerm features that I need which are absent in UW. I've only implemented the most basic level of UW service under BOSS (protocol 1 in UWPROTO.TXT). The next level allows windows to be retitled from the VAX, as well as setting many of the other attributes of windows. This will most likely not get implemented, unless multi-window support appears in VersaTerm. The main reason for implementing the UW features in BOSS was to show that the Macintosh can provide a multi-window enviroment for the VAXes. Now we have to get Lonnie Abelbeck to modify VersaTerm to support the UW protocol... Note that Meshugena-term on Amiga, as well as UW on Amiga, support the UW protocol.