[Coco] more that one shell from an external terminal(update)

[George Ramsower]

On 9/18/2015 2:31 AM, Bill Pierce via Coco wrote:

  Big <snip> here....
>
> In this experiment (which again, was DW4 based), I could find no way to create a shell from a terminal and then switch to it. Someone with a little more knowledge may know a trick or two that I don't (many do) and may be able to do this, but I saw no way to be able to send the proper control codes for it to switch and the terminal had no way of knowing any different. As stated above, I did get 4 individual terminals going and could switch between them on the PC, with all 4 showing at once.
>
>
> And.... I had a lot of fun trying... :-)
>
>

  I was thinking on this last night....

  For one thing, we would not be creating a shell. They should already 
be created, just like windows (w1, w2,<etc>).  The shells for those 
windows are already there. The window is just waiting for an input, 
AFTER a person begins using the keyboard, once selecting that window. I 
expect changing to another port descriptor might be the same. Again, 
just guessing here. But how would this be done? And how the heck could a 
port descriptor be changed or how to change to a different shell.... oh, 
this gets confusing. It seems the answer would be in the way OS9 does it 
for the keyboard.... another shell on that same keyboard.
  A detailed knowledge of OS9 and it's inner workings would be very 
helpful here.
  I'm guessing here. I suppose these shells would be assigned to that 
com port such as /t2 or some such.. maybe.
  I haven't tried this or experimented with it in the past... never 
thought about doing this until just the other day when working at the 
"term" on the coco is becoming so painful. With a bad back and the 
uncomfortable seating in that room, an alternative would be really nice. 
Otherwise, I need to make some serious changes in that room which I call 
the "Darkroom" as it was originally set up to be for photo processing. I 
haven't done film for over five years now and it looks like that is 
going to be history now.

  So... I can still use this PC through a com port on the coco and it is 
a lot more comfortable to use it this way.
  But this idea of switching shells from a remote terminal seems like a 
great possibility, if it can be done. I'm not thoroughly convinced it is 
possible but what a great thing if it can be done!! This would save me a 
lot of foot work and pain.
  On that coco, I'm constantly switching from one window to another 
while working with or even developing another process with Basic09. 
Basic09 is my "dream app". With that and the hardware I have, anything 
is possible.
  See my limited information on this at 
http://coco.thetinbox.com/CNCCoco.html.
  That's only ONE example of what can be done. Right now, I'm using 
those same ports to monitor old mechanical clocks, using switches on the 
clock for reading from the coco. One homemade clock is only a pendulum 
right now but the coco is monitoring it for accuracy. Eventually it will 
morph into a battery operated, pendulum clock that uses the pendulum 
solely for the purpose of controlling the clock movement.

Dangit!! The pain pills are starting to do their job now and I'm 
beginning to ramble on...

"Looking for less painful ways to do things"....
George R.