🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <17814@laurel.athertn.Atherton.COM> alex@Atherton.COM (Alex Leavens) writes:
>Regarding the phantom typist and hunting it down...
>
>The TSR Newbell.prg (which replaces the bell on the Atari with
>digitized sound playback) seems to make this bug happen fairly
>frequently;  all you need to do is pop up the 'About GEM' dialog
>box from the desktop, click on anywhere _but_ the OK button, and
>wait for the sound to stop playing.  About 1 in 4 times, you'll
>get multiple playbacks of the sound, followed by a whole series
>of keyclicks (the phantom typist!).  As soon as you press a key,
>the typing stops.


What you describe is _not_ the infamous "phantom typist"; it is rather
the well-documented problem of the machine spewing out an infinite
series of escape characters until a key is pressed.  The latter
problem is generally harmless enough (unless, that is, your
application does something quirky with escapes); if memory serves, the
experts attribute the behaviour in question to applications spending
too long in interrupts.

You can tell that your machine is possessed by the real phantom typist
when you're typing merrily away and suddenly the machine slows down
dramatically, or appears to lock up altogether.  If you stare at the
screen long enough, the characters which you typed when the machine
began to slow down will eventually be read from the keyboard buffer,
one by one, at an abominably slow rate (ranging from numbers of
seconds to perhaps minutes).  If you're very lucky, you can spend the
next five minutes inputing the keystrokes to save your document (but
see below), and then reboot to get rid of the phantom; but if he's
managed to get a sufficiently firm grasp on the machine, it will
probably just lock up or bomb completely.

Note that word processors seem to be the phantom's favorite target,
though some users have reported that he sometimes gnaws on Flash;
perhaps any keyboard-intensive application is a candidate.  The
problem is definitely not limited to any one company's applications;
Word Writer, Word Perfect, 1st Word+, and Flash users have all been
bitten at one time or another.  If (as kbad recently suggested) the
phantom is due to bad programming practice rather than a bug in TOS,
then a lot of major developers are breaking the same rule or rules,
and it would sure make everyone's lives a lot easier if we could
isolate them.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned in previous discussions of the
phantom is that the slowdown is connected to mouse movement.  (I
posted concerning this a few days ago, but I'm not sure the posting
made it out.)  Next time the phantom strikes, try moving the mouse
slightly after each keypress.  Here's the typical scenario when the
phantom strikes me in Word Perfect:

1. The machine slows to a crawl; keystrokes and mouseclicks take
   effect only seconds after a key is pushed or button clicked.
2. I hit F7 ("Exit").  Nothing happens.
3. I move the mouse slightly.  "Save file?" dialogue appears instantly.
4. I respond with "y".  Nothing happens.
5. I move mouse slightly.  File is instantly saved and "Exit?"
   dialogue appears.
6. I respond with "y".  Nothing happens.  Etc.

Maybe the fact that keystrokes take effect immediately when the mouse
is moved suggests something that will help to ferret out the phantom.
At the very least, moving the mouse may save you a few tense moments
the next time he strikes. BBB
-- 
Bob Bright <bright@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Dept. of Philosophy
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Man  R3T 2N2  (204) 474-9680