10-Apr-92 16:27:41-GMT,11312;000000000001 Return-Path: Received: by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA17472; Fri, 10 Apr 92 12:27:31 EDT Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 12:27:31 EDT From: Christine M Gianone To: Info-Kermit Subject: Info-Kermit Digest V15 #3 Reply-To: Info-Kermit@watsun.cc.columbia.edu Queries-To: Info-Kermit-Request@WATSUN.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Errors-To: Info-Kermit-Request@watsun.cc.columbia.edu Message-Id: Info-Kermit Digest Fri, 10 Apr 1992 Volume 15 : Number 3 Today's Topics: Prime Kermit version 8.14 A few release files more for Kermit-12 New BOO file Encoder / Decoder Re: Unique Log File Names for MS-DOS Kermit RE: Question on MS-KERMIT 3.10 Terminal Emulator Digest submissions may be sent to Info-Kermit@WATSUN.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU or KERMIT@CUVMB.BITNET. Requests for addition to or deletion from the Info-Kermit subscriber list should be sent to LISTSERV@CUVMB.BITNET or LISTSERV@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU. These messages must be of the form: SUBSCRIBE I-KERMIT (To start a subscription) UNSUBSCRIBE I-KERMIT (To cancel a subscription) REGISTER I-KERMIT (To correct your name) Kermit files may be obtained over networks and by mail order. On the Internetwork, use FTP to log in to host WATSUN.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU, a SUN-4/280 running UNIX (SUNOS 4.1), IP host number 128.59.39.2. Login as user anonymous (note, lower case), any password, and GET or MGET (MULTIPLE GET) the desired files. The Kermit files are in directories kermit/a, kermit/b, kermit/c, kermit/d, and kermit/e. Test versions are in kermit/test. All files in these directories should be transferred in text (ASCII) mode. Binaries are in kermit/bin (use ftp in binary mode). You can also get Kermit files over the BITNET/EARN network; to get started send a message with text HELP to KERMSRV, the Kermit file server, at host CUVMB. For detailed instructions, read the file kermit/a/aanetw.hlp (AANETW.HLP on KERMSRV). To order by mail, request a complete list of Kermit versions and an order form from Kermit Distribution, Columbia University Center for Computing Activities, 612 West 115th Street, New York, NY 10025 USA. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Feb 92 19:51:17 From: John Horne Subject: Prime Kermit version 8.14 The current version of Prime Kermit, version 8.12, has now been superceeded by version 8.14. This new version incorporates many bug fixes, and some new functionality over version 8.12. The intermediate version 8.13, was never released since it was a development version. This release also contains an updated copy of the PRIME.HLP file listing all development work carried out up to the present. Unfortunately this file was not updated at the release of version 8.12. Some of the changes at revision 8.14 are : * Checks for the remote server being present in the BYE and FINISH commands. * The receive timeout code has been improved, and the timer converted from from minutes to seconds. The send packet timer may also now be set. * The AMLC line speeds are now set to Prime supplied default values, and only the validity of any specified speed is checked. This is necessary since the AMLC code in Kermit is somewhat 'awkward', because the Primos subroutines used to handle AMLC/ICS line speeds have several significant changes from Primos revision 21 to 22. The handling of data along AMLC lines has also been corrected to eliminate POINTER_FAULT$ errors. * Multiple file transfers with a specific file type has been corrected, and the MS-DOS pound sign conversion is also correctly handled. The automatic file type checking code has been improved, and the setting of a file type may be abbreviated to "FT" or any sub-string of "FILE_TYPE" * The "REMOTE SPACE" command will now show the amount of disk space (records) on the current partition, as well as the current directory quota. * The users 'environment' is re-evaluated after they have PUSHed from Kermit. This is in case they changed anything in their environment, e.g. message status, duplex settings, etc, whilst at Primos command level. * The exact file length is now sent in the attributes packet. Previously no account was taken of the Prime space compression character, thus misleading the remote Kermit. * The Kermit command line will now accept the "-INIT pathname" option to startup Kermit with an initialization file. If no pathname is specified, then the file "PRIME_KERMIT.INIT" is looked for in the current directory. * The sliding windows code has been improved, and uses a default window size of 6. Note, however, that it seems there are still problems with sliding windows by users dialing in to a Prime computer from a C-Kermit or MS-DOS Kermit machine. It does, however, work when using MS-DOS Kermit connected to the Prime by some other medium. More details of these, and other changes, can be found in the PRIME.HLP file. This version has been successfully run at Primos revisions 22.1.1b and 23.2.0b. Finally, I would like to thank Matthew Sutter for all his work on Prime Kermit. Matthew has, I gather, now left the world of Computers to become a Paramedic. Despite this I shall still be bug fixing Kermit, and improving it as time permits! John Horne, Polytechnic South West, Plymouth, U.K. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 15:52:25 EST From: Charles Lasner Subject: A few release files more for Kermit-12 In /uw/guests/lasner/nufiles is two new versions of K12DEC and K12ENC which now have a new feature for image transfer of an entire device. This comes at the request of several users, and was quite easy to add. As before, the source documents how to use it, etc. I am working on an upgrade (specifically a handler) for OS/278 to allow complete transfer of RX50 diskettes as an encoded ASCII-fied file. This utility merely handles records available to the normal file structure, but in the OS/278 RX50 case (from DEC) this is not the whole disk. In part this is a safety feature, so you can't access the "slushware" tracks, but in any case, you can't transfer an entire image of an RX50 currently, but when the system is upgraded with a suitable handler, then the encoder and decoder gain access to the entire device, along with all other utilities. If the handler project takes too long (it is actually quite involved surprisingly enough) I will possibly resort (by popular demand) to releasing an interim program that does its own RX50 I/O as a special case of encode and decode. That would be withdrawn later when the handler is available. (DECmates are becoming available to various people around the world, but they don't have the support software to get it running; this method would allow them to get their machines up after they had merely an OS/278 bootable disk (available from DECUS) and Kermit-12 stuff :-).) In any case, the two new files are useful for other devices. For example, an entire OS/8 RX01 or RX02 can be encoded as a file. With the WPS-oriented handlers installed (commonly available), images of an RX01 WPS document disk can be encoded/decoded directly. (This even includes bootable WPS RX01 systems diskettes, or even RT-11 RX01 disks!) The existant WPS/COS-style handlers allow transfer of any RX01 as long as track zero can be ignored. This is generally the case on RX01/02, but NOT RX50, thus the above problem. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Apr 92 10:33:38 EST From: Christine M Gianone Subject: New BOO file Encoder / Decoder Charles Lasner, the author of PDP-8 / PDP-12 / DECmate Kermit and of the previous message, discovered a while ago that the well-known flaw in BOO-file encoding could have distastrous effects on computers where executable program images included checksums or other checking information. The flaw is that the 4-for-3 encoding used in BOO files could add 1 or 2 extraneous null bytes to the end of a file. Christian Hemsing, in his work on C-Kermit for OS-9, found this flaw to be fatal for OS-9 also. Charles had suggested a method for having the BOO files record the exact image of the encoded file by adding special codes to the end to "take back" the extraneous null bytes. This method has the benefit that it is compatible with old BOO file decoders. Christian added the code for this to the MSBMKB (BOO file maker) and MSBPCT (BOO file decoder) programs. The new programs are now available in kermit/a/msbmkb.c and msbpct.c on watsun and MSBMKB.C and MSBPCT.C from CUVMA. Thanks to Charles and Christian for this valuable contribution! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jan 92 10:33:38 CET From: "Janusz S. Bie/n" Subject: Re: Unique Log File Names for MS-DOS Kermit Info-Kermit Digest Vol. 14 No 2 contained the following advice: [... SET COUNT 999 :LOOP DEFINE \%F \V(NDATE).\V(COUNT) IF NOT EXIST \%F GOTO OK IF COUNT GOTO LOOP ECHO Sorry, you've already created 1000 log files today! STOP :OK LOG SESSION \%F That should give you a unique filename.] I tried it with MS-Kermit 3.11. It works only if DEFINE is replaced by ASSIGN. Regards Janusz S. Bie/n Institute of Informatics, Warsaw University ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1992 21:41:44 CST From: Dave Mausner Subject: RE: Question on MS-KERMIT 3.10 Terminal Emulator In the past I reported that Kermit 3.11 would hang when receiving bursts of textual data at 19200 or above. This occurred in DOS 4.0, and 5.0 with or without HIMEM/EMM386 loaded. I never used ANSI.SYS ever. I recently downloaded UMBDR522.ZIP from EXEC-PC which loads HIMEM.SYS in the UMA and dispenses entirely with EMM386. It increases the amount of free main memory in DOS 5.0 from 621000 to 640000 bytes (not 640K mind you). It claims to remap chunks of ROM to speed up memory access. I downloaded NNANS591.ZIP from the USENET c.b.i.p. It advertises an ability to speed up screen writes of every type (DOS, BIOS). Don't ask me why, but with these things in charge, i no longer experience the Kermit hangs at 19200. I am a happy camper even if i have to use voodoo. Since the KERMIT.BWR file mentions the hang problem under DOS 5.0, i thought you might find the above interesting for future reference. Regards, Dave Mausner, Senior Consultant Datalogics Inc Chicago IL / 312-266-4450 dlm@dlogics.com [From jrd - Interesting indeed. About the best suggestion I have about why outages occurred previously is the video Bios held off interrupts too long while it scrolled the screen; such Bios's do vary quite a bit. By moving the Bios to fast memory (shadowing it) one gets work done faster there and hence fewer outages. Do be aware that when changing between 132/80 columns Kermit will need to look into that Bios for a signature of known boards, and if the "stealth" option of some memory managers is used to map away the Bios then Kermit won't find the signature.] ------------------------------ End of Info-Kermit Digest *************************