wp

WordPerfect for UNIX Character Terminals

Thanks to the work of Tavis Ormandy (taviso), one can now easily run the 32-bit binaries of a word processor from the turn of the century which outputs sixel graphics specifically for the VT340. See Tavis's wpunix project which includes easily installable packages for Debian and other popular GNU/Linux flavors.

For raw data and notes on the sixel format used by WordPerfect, please see sixeloutput.

Getting it to work on a VT340

wp -t vt220 -G vt340hi_sixel

For some reason wp (WordPerfect) does not pay attention to the TERM settings and always states that its termtype is "xterm". This results in garbled screens, for example this equation editor which has an odd purple double image. The solution is to run wp with the arguments -t vt220 [sic] and -G vt340hi_sixel. As you can see, that gives much better results:

vt340.trs

I have created a terminal definition for the VT340 using wpterm to modify the vt220 definition. The major improvements are using a 10x20 soft font for the line drawing characters and defaulting to vt340hi_sixel for graphics. To use it, copy vt340.trs into /opt/wp80/shlib10/ and export WPTERM=vt340.

The line drawings provide the boxes for the menus and the "mosaic" font used for very low-resolution print preview. It makes WordPerfect look snazzier than it did with the ill-fitting VT220 font. However, this font may not be the best idea. The VT340 can have only one soft font and the menus could have simply used the builtin line drawings characters instead. Is it possible to convince WordPerfect to use DEC Graphics for boxes?

If we can have our own softfont, how do we use it in wordperfect? We'd like it to show other characters in text, such as mathematical symbols. wpterm must have some solution.

Note: WordPerfect already shows many mathematical symbols in the equation editor (hit the LIST (F11) key and use PgDn (Keypad 3)). It may be possible to reuse those as a font by using the wpterm program.

See also: wpterm documentation.

Keys

WordPerfect uses all the functions keys and the application keypad.

It also uses PF1 (the "GOLD KEY"), PF2, and PF3 as "dead keys" which do a single shift to select alternate functions. One nice thing about WordPerfect is that one can hit the VT340's Help key at any time for context sensitive help. Hit it a second time to get a list of the keyboard layout. Here are some photos of the help screens. [Sorry, I don't have this in text format yet. --b9]

[XXX: Replace images with correct screenshots].

[XXX: Add text version].

Caveat: These keyboard shortcut photos are from when I mistakenly thought the correct terminal type was "dectermcol", which is probably identical to the "vt220" keyboard map.

WordPerfect's DECTerm Color terminal type cannot be used with the VT340 because it does not include sixel graphics, although it does seem to have better character support which perhaps should be investigated. It may be possible to modify it to allow sixel graphics and create a better driver for the VT340.

IMPORTANT: Do not hit the F5 key.

F5 causes WordPerfect to immediately die.

On the VT340, F5 sends an RS232 'break' which the Linux kernel interprets as a request to send an interrupt signal to the current process. You can disable that effect by using stty -brkint. However, I've found it useful, actually. There were times when I had remapped keys to a point where I couldn't exit wordperfect. It is also handy for quitting the wpkey utility.

Even more keys, documentation not yet found

Although not listed in the online help, certain control keys work, such as CtrlP to print. [XXX: Surely there is a list somewhere? Wpterm just shows it as "P Substitution"]

The VT340's builtin Compose key works as usual to insert characters like æ, ü, é and to type hexadecimal using the number pad.

Menu key weirdness

PF3= opens the File menu without requiring a mouse. It is extremely awkward so it seems unlikely this was truly the way people used WordPerfect. Was it mouse driven?

EscF also (sometimes) works for "xterm" to open the File menu, but does not ever work for "vt220", instead complaining about some missing file. I may be able to rebind it to something more useful, like the Main Screen key.

LK201 Gold Key Editing Keyboard for document processing

The biggest problem with WordPerfect is the difficulty remembering all the different key strokes. Yes, one can hit Help twice to see a list, but it is still cumbersome because of the weird use of multiple shifts (PF1, PF2, and PF3) giving most function keys four different meanings. If you have a keyboard which has wordprocessing commands written in gold on the front of the letters and in other colors on top of the keypad, you'll find that WordPerfect does not correspond at all. It should be possible, however, to ditch the DOS compatibility and create a more sane keyboard mapping. [XXX: has someone already done this?]

To do

• Add the sixel output from wordperfect for the equation editor for the terminal types that support it (vt220, xterm, kermit, perhaps more).

• WordPerfect may use the VT340's "locator" (mouse) for its menus, so I should find one and see if it works.

• Does WordPerfect support the built-in TCS font for large symbols, like summation? It doesn't seem to do it by default. Did it use to, for example in WordPerfect 5.2?

• The VT340 isn't affected, but the xterm driver has many segmentation faults when editing in the equation editor? (Particularly when hitting the Help key). Was this the way it was back in the day?