Re: Turning off automatic screen clanking

[jw schultz <jw@pegasys.ws>]

On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 11:16:05AM +0900, Miles Bader wrote:
> "Richard B. Johnson" <root@chaos.analogic.com> writes:
> > No. There are no ANSI, nor DEC nor AT&T nor IRIS, nor IBM, nor any
> > other terminals that have screen-blanking capabilities.
> 
> Yes there are.  I guess you never used any of them.
> 
> [The brand that immediately comes to mind is Wyse, but I seem to recall
> the H29 having this capability too...]

I can't speak for the others but according to my Wyse 50
manual the S.SAVER feature in the field level 4 menu
has a default value of OFF.

My recollection is that this was common among the VDTs which
suffered considerably from burn-in.  Many of the later
models had the feature but it was a hardware setting
controlled via a configuration menu or a dip-switch.  You
want the setting to persist across logins and power cycling.

It really should be disabled in-kernel by default.  The
distribution RC scripts would as a default then enable it
late in the boot process.  In a server setting where it
isn't wanted the admin should know enough to prevent its
being enabled.

I too have been bitten by this on servers where the console
display is either powered down or disconnected for months at
a time.  The error messages leading to the hang may be in
the display buffer but they can't be seen.


-- 
________________________________________________________________
	J.W. Schultz            Pegasystems Technologies
	email address:		jw@pegasys.ws

		Remember Cernan and Schmitt