Dear All,

Some time ago I was complaining about the terminal lines (serial ports)
entering 7E1 mode after using zmodem on the i386 port.  Well, the problem
occurs on other ports as well, I just didn't notice it on the Amiga port
because the serial port driver I'm using only supports 8N1. ;-)

I was told that the problem is caused by programs that use the older (?)
TTY control interface (sgtty) instead of the NetBSD's preferred way
(termios).  It seems that this, indeed, is the case.

I was also told that the sgtty interface on NetBSD doesn't have any bugs
that cause the odd behaviour, but that the interface is too limited for
today's needs.  The solution is 'to port the programs to use termios'.

While I know next to nothing about these interfaces (well, I know how to
use termios), I feel that fixing every single program using sgtty means
too much work.  Is there really NO way of changing the sgtty emulation (?)
of NetBSD so that the vital charasteristics of the TTY lines (like the
number of data bits, parity mode etc.) could be preserved even when a
program uses sgtty?

I guess the reason why this annoying problem hasn't been addressed so
far is that it doesn't affect network or console users.  It is only a
problem to those who log in via serial ports and need to run various
programs using sgtty.  Many NetBSD users may never have seen the problem,
so there hasn't been need to fix it.  Well, I am using NetBSD on a dial-
in UNIX system and this is a problem to me.  I also know other people in
the same situation.

Now that 1.1 release is coming up, it would be the time to fix this kind
of a basic problem, IMHO.  The fix might be a kludge that saves and
restores the basic TTY properties, but anything would be better than the
current behavious.  Having to reset the TTY line after using zmodem or
an editor (there are many programs that cause the problem) is stupid.

Any comments?  Should I send-pr this?

  Jukka Marin

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