Re: Is it possible to have 2 display devices in one program?

["Booth Martin" <Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've not had very much success with the SNDBRKMSG solution.  For example can
Bob send a break message to Alice, or must he first find out her device
name?

Actually, I am not trying to communicate between programs.  All of the data
is in the same copy of the same program, if I understand what multiple
devices do.   It still isn't clear to me if one device can open/interrupt
another device.  I want Alice's and Bob's screens to have identical windows
with identical data, and have the data scroll, much the same as instant
messaging works although this could not be feature rich like Sametime and
other instant messaging applications.
 
As I said, this has no real relevance.  I just want to have a problem to
work through, to see if it is possible. 
 
---------------------------------------------------------
Booth Martin   http://www.MartinVT.com
Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx
---------------------------------------------------------
 
-------Original Message-------
 
From: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Date: Monday, October 20, 2003 2:51:07 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Is it possible to have 2 display devices in one program?
 
Booth,
 
The break message handling program is ideal for this purpose.
 
Imagine the following scenario:
 
Bob types:
Talk Alice
and presses enter
 
Window pops onto the screen, Bob enters message.
 
All that really happens is: SNDBRKMSG to Alice's terminal.
 
On Alice's terminal, rather than a DSPMSG, your break handling program
grabs the message,
formats it into a window, and pops it up on Alice's terminal *with a reply
area*, and sets the target of the message back to the originator, in this
case Bob. The original message can be quoted in the reply, as well.
 
Behind the scenes, Alice's program just does a SNDBRKMSG back to Bob.
 
Bob's break handling program is the same as Alice's - It pulls of the
message, formats it for display, and pops the window with Alice's reply
message at the top, and a place for Bob to reply below. Bob types his
reply, and off it goes via SNDBRKMSG back to Alice.
 
In this way, conversation can go back and forth and back and forth.
 
One limitation is that only two people can converse. If you want more than
two folks, then you have to create a mechanism for a list of folks to get
together, like a channel on IRC.
 
Even if you don't like this model, the break handling program is just about
the only way I know for one interactive job to interrupt another...
 
I dug up some old code (V2R3) that does this, but I don't think it's my
code. It looks like it came from a Midrange Computing or Q38 magazine
article. I don't know if it would be prudent to post it not knowing the
copyright status...