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- NWG/RFC# 734 MRC 07-OCT-77 08:46 41953
- SUPDUP Display Protocol Page 1
-
- Network Working Group Mark Crispin
- Request for Comments 734 SU-AI
- NIC 41953 7 October 1977
-
- SUPDUP Protocol
-
- INTRODUCTION
-
- This document describes the SUPDUP protocol, a highly efficient display
- telnet protocol. It originally started as a private protocol between the
- ITS systems at MIT to allow a user at any one of these systems to use one
- of the others as a display. At the current writing, SUPDUP user programs
- also exist for Data Disc and Datamedia displays at SU-AI and for
- Datamedias at SRI-KL. The author is not aware of any SUPDUP servers other
- than at the four MIT ITS sites.
-
- The advantage of the SUPDUP protocol over an individual terminal's
- protocol is that SUPDUP defines a "virtual" or "software" display terminal
- that implements relevant cursor motion operations. The protocol is not
- built on any particular display terminal but rather on the set of
- functions common to all display terminals; hence it is completely device-
- independent. In addition, the protocol also provides for terminals which
- cannot handle certain operations, such as line or character insert/delete.
- In fact, it is more than this. It provides for terminals which are
- missing any set of features, all the way down to model 33 Teletypes.
-
- The advantage over the TELNET protocol is that SUPDUP takes advantage of
- the full capabilities of display terminals, although it also has the
- ability to run printing terminals.
-
- It is to be noted that SUPDUP operates independently from TELNET; it is
- not an option to the TELNET protocol. In addition, certain assumptions
- are made about the server and the user programs and their capabilities.
- Specifically, it is assumed that the operating system on a server host
- provides all the display-oriented features of ITS. However, a server may
- elect not to do certain display operations available in SUPDUP; the SUPDUP
- protocol is far-reaching enough so that the protocol allows terminals to
- be handled as well as that host can handle terminals in general. Of
- course, if a host does not support display terminals in any special way,
- there is no point in bothering to implement a SUPDUP server since TELNET
- will work just as well.
-
- A more complete description of the display facilities of SUPDUP and ITS
- can be found by FTP'ing the online file .INFO.;ITS TTY from ARPAnet host
- MIT-AI (host 206 octal, 134. decimal). For more information, the mailing
- address for SUPDUP is "(BUG SUPDUP) at MIT-AI". If your mail system won't
- allow you to use parentheses, use Bug-SUPDUP@MIT-AI.