Abstract: A furnace is provided. The furnace includes a chamber for heating a portion of a preform to draw a fiber. The chamber has a melt region for melting the preform, and at least one port disposed proximate to the melt region. A purge gas supply is provided for supplying a purge gas into the chamber. The purge gas moves vapor products away from the fiber and exits the chamber through the at least one port.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for the automatic completion of a computer generated screen including a plurality of fields. As the user completes each field in the screen with an alphanumeric string, the alphanumeric string is associated with an identification number. The alphanumeric string entries in the fields of the screen can be represented as a sequence of identification strings. As each screen is completed by the user, the present invention generates a sequence of identification strings representative of the screen. The rows are stored in memory and are used to automatically complete later screens at the user's command. When a user wishes to automatically complete the screen, the fields of the current screen that contain alphanumeric strings are analyzed. Once all of the fields have been analyzed and a sequence of identification numbers formed, the sequence of identification numbers for the current screen is compared to the plurality of sequences of identification numbers for prior screens.