Info-Kermit Digest Thu, 18 Jan 1990 Volume 11 : Number 3 Today's Topics: Announcing MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 Questions and Answers New MS-DOS Kermit Book Available MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 Feedback Wanted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1990 12:00:00 EST From: Christine M Gianone Subject: Announcing MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 Keywords: MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 This is to announce the final release of MS-DOS Kermit 3.0, first announced for beta-testing in Info-Kermit V11 #2. Thanks to the thousands of you who participated in the short testing period. To recapitulate the major new features of 3.0, they are: . DEC VT320 terminal emulation. . Many additions to Tektronix graphics emulation, including features from the DEC VT340 (color, sixel, but not REGIS) and HDS2000/3000, suitable for use with mainframe versions of WordPerfect 4.2 and 5.0. . Saving of graphics screens on disk in TIFF 5.0 format, suitable for import into PC Paint, Ventura Publisher, Pagemaker, WordPerfect 5.0, etc. . True half duplex operation with RTS/CTS hardware handshake. . International character set support for both terminal emulation and file transfer. . Sliding window packet protocol. Problems reported and fixed during the testing period include: . Incorrect Attribute packet character set announcers. . Problems when receiving badly formatted packets 1800-2000 bytes in length. . Incorrect receive packet length after SET WINDOWS command. . Incorrect crosshair cursor report in Tektronix mode. . Automatic return to wrong text terminal type after Tektronix emulation. . Several incorrect special terminal character translations. . Incorrect operation of SET TRANSLATE INPUT. . Terminal lockup after failure to automatically enter 132-column mode. . Insufficient maximum allowed number of ANSI escape sequence parameters. . Nonfunctional 3COM BAPI network support. . Case sensitivity of ARGC, VERSION, and other special numeric variables. . Various minor escape sequence misinterpretations. The new files have been installed in the regular Kermit distribution "A" area, and are available over the networks via anonymous FTP from watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Internet) and from KERMSRV at CUVMA (BITNET), and by mail order from Kermit Distribution at Columbia University on a variety of magnetic media. Internet BITNET Description msvibm.boo MSVIBM.BOO BOO-encoded (printable) version of MSVIBM.EXE. mskerm.hlp MSKERM.HLP Summary of MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 features & commands. msr300.upd MSR300.UPD Description of new features in version 3.0. mskerm.bwr MSKERM.BWR Limitations and known bugs in version 3.0. mskerm.ed MSKERM.ED Detailed edit history of version 3.0. msvibm.vt MSVIBM.VT VT52/102/320/340/H19 terminal emulation summary. msvibm.tek MSVIBM.TEK Tektronix graphics summary (in preparation). mss*.asm,.h MSS*.ASM,.H System-independent source code. ms*ibm.asm MS*IBM.ASM IBM-PC/PS2-specific source code. msvibm.bat MSVIBM.BAT DOS batch program for building 3.0. msvibm.mak MSVIBM.MAK A makefile for building 3.0 under DOS with MASM. msvibb.mak MSVIBB.MAK A makefile for building 3.0 with Borland TASM. msvibx.mak MSVIBX.MAK A makefile for building 3.0 under Xenix. msvibm.lnk MSVIBM.LNK LINK command file for 3.0. Kermit Init/Command Files: mskermit.ini MSKERMIT.INI Sample initialization file, includes DIAL macro. msihay.tak MSIHAY.TAK Hayes modem dialing script (used with DIAL). msiem*.ini MSIEM*.INI Keyboard setups for use with EMACS. msiwp3.ini MSIWP3.INI New keyboard setup for mainframe WordPerfect. Utilities: mspeps.* MSPEPS.* Epson printer driver for EGA graphics screens. mspep4.* MSPEP4.* PC CP437-to-Epson character set translation. mspupc.sh MSPUPC.SH PCPRINT (transparent print) for UNIX. mspvpc.com MSPVPC.COM PCPRINT for VAX/VMS. msixse.* MSIXSE.* XSEND utility for sending directory trees. msuchk.* MSUCHK.* SCANCHEK utility to display keyboard scan codes. msulk2.* MSULK2.* LK250 keyboard driver. Binaries are available on watsun only, for FTP in binary (image) mode, in the kermit/bin directory: msvibm.exe The MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 executable program. mspeps.com Epson printer driver for EGA graphics screens. mspep4.exe PC Code-Page-437-to-Epson character set translation. msixse.exe XSEND utility for sending directory trees. msuchk.exe SCANCHEK utility for keyboard scan codes. Non-IBM Versions: The non-IBM-compatible versions of MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 are not done yet. Some (DEC Rainbow, Heath/Zenith-100) are currently in preparation and will be announced when they are ready. Volunteers are needed for the others (Victor, Sanyo, TI, HP, NEC, etc). In the meantime, the new mss*.* source files are incompatible with the old msu, msg, msx, msy, and msz system-dependent source files for the non-IBM systems. The .BOO files for the non-IBM versions, however, will remain available. Also, the old source files will be accessible for limited time (most likely until the next major release of MS-DOS Kermit) in kermit/old on watsun. Bootstrapping: For those who cannot use FTP to transfer the binary MSVIBM.EXE file directly, the MSVIBM.BOO is an encoding of MSVIBM.EXE into printable ASCII characters that should be safely transferrable over BITNET, e-mail, etc. Use your old version of Kermit to download this file to your PC, and then run any of the "BOO-file decoders" to translate it back into a runnable .EXE file. The following files are available for this purpose: msbaaa.hlp An explanation of the bootstrapping files and procedures. msbpct.bas A BOO-file decoder written in Microsoft BASIC. msbpct.c Like MSBPCT.BAS, but written in C for speed. msbpct.boo BOO file formed from MSBPCT.EXE based on MSBPCT.C. msbpct.* There are also versions of MSBPCT in assembler, Fortran, etc. If you have a C, Pascal, or other compiler, download the appropriate MSBPCT source code, compile it, and run it to translate MSVIBM.BOO into MSVIBM.EXE. If you only have BASIC, you should download MSBPCT.BAS and MSBPCT.BOO. Then use the former to create MSBPCT.EXE from the latter, and then use MSBPCT.EXE to decode MSVIBM.BOO (using the BASIC version directly on MSVIBM.BOO would take a very long time). Our deepest thanks to Professor Joe R. Doupnik of Utah State University (JRD@USU.BITNET) for the year of hard work he put in on this release, and for his continuing devotion to the Kermit effort over the years. Thanks also the many others who contributed to 3.0, particularly Terry Kennedy, Jack Bryans, John Junod, Bert Tyler, Mikko Laanti, Fred Richter, Hirofumi Fujii, Gary Stebbins, Drew Derbyshire, and Paul Whitmer. And for the accompanying utilities, thanks to Mark Buda, Terry Kennedy, Phil Benchoff, Mark Zinzow, R. Brooks Van Horn, and Frank da Cruz. More about MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 in the following messages. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1990 13:12:11 EST From: Christine M Gianone Subject: MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 Questions and Answers Keywords: MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 Here are the questions that came up most frequently during the MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 beta testing period: Q - I tried using the Latin-1 (or DEC-MCS) terminal character set, but I didn't get any special characters on my screen, only incorrect ASCII characters where the special characters should be. A - To see 8-bit text characters, you need an 8-bit no-parity connection to the host, and you must tell MS-DOS Kermit to SET DISPLAY 8 (7 is the default). In the 7-bit environment, you can still use an 8-bit character set if your host sends shift-in/shift-out codes (but see MSKERM.BWR). Otherwise you must use one of Kermit's 7-bit "national replacement character sets" (Italian, Norwegian, etc), in which brackets, vertical bars, etc, are replaced by national characters. Q - If none of Kermit's built-in terminal character is suitable for my language or computing environment, what can I do? A - Put a lot of SET KEY and SET TRANSLATE INPUT commands in your MSKERMIT.INI file. These commands override Kermit's built-in translations of outbound and inbound characters, respectively. Also remember to SET TRANSLATE INPUT ON. Using these mechanisms, you can construct an entirely new terminal character set. Q - Word-11 or other DEC PDP-11 or VAX/VMS applications do not seem to work right with 3.0. Screens are fractured, etc. A - Kermit's new VT320 terminal emulation is noticed DEC by operating systems like VMS 5.0 or later, causing them to send 8-bit control sequences which are ignored by MS-DOS Kermit unless you SET DISPLAY 8. SET DISPLAY 7 is still the default, for compatibility with earlier releases. Q - If Kermit does VT340 graphics, how come my SAS graphs don't come out right if I tell SAS that I have a VT340? A - Kermit implements many VT340 graphics features, including colors and sixels, but not DEC's REGIS graphics language, which is what SAS uses. There are no current plans to implement REGIS, which is huge. The VT340 features which are supported by Kermit can be used to best advantage with host-resident versions of WordPerfect (4.2 and 5.0) on VAX/VMS or UNIX. Q - Why do I have to SET FILE TYPE TEXT and SET FILE TYPE BINARY with 3.0 when I didn't have to do this in previous versions? A - During file transfer, version 3.0 does two things that previous versions didn't do: text file character set conversion, and conveying and using the file type given in the file attribute packet. If you want to approximate the old mode of operation, in which you did not have to (and indeed could not) give SET FILE TYPE commands, you can SET TRANSFER CHARACTER-SET TRANSPARENT (this is the default anyway) and SET ATTRIBUTE TYPE OFF. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 90 10:34:09 EST From: Frank da Cruz Subject: New MS-DOS Kermit Book Available Keywords: MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 Christine M. Gianone, who you know as the editor of the Info-Kermit Digest, Manager of Kermit Development and Distribution at Columbia, designer of recent extensions to the Kermit protocol, author of recent pieces in Data Communications Magazine, PC Week, etc etc, has written a book on MS-DOS Kermit 3.0: "Using MS-DOS Kermit", Digital Press, Bedford, MA (1990). This book includes MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 for the IBM PC family on a 5.25-inch PC diskette. Printing should be complete by early- to mid-February. The short beta-testing period for 3.0 was due to the printing and binding deadline for this book+disk package. Chris's book is quite different from the earlier MS-DOS Kermit manuals. It is tutorial in nature, geared mostly towards the typical non-computer-expert PC user. It includes illustrated step-by-step instructions for program installation and hooking up your cables and modems, an introduction to MS-DOS, and chapters devoted to major Kermit topics including terminal emulation, file transfer, server mode, international character sets, script programming, features for people with disabilities, etc. Every concept is illustrated by examples. A complete command reference is included, along with tables of PC keyboard scan codes, Kermit keyboard verbs, and PC character sets, plus glossary, index, etc. The detailed technical appendices (escape sequences, etc) found in the previous manuals are omitted; this information is (or will be) available in other forms. "Using MS-DOS Kermit" is an excellent introduction to MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 and its new features, and the command summaries and tables also make it a valuable reference. The new book+disk package provides higher-quality documentation to a wider audience. Its tutorial approach will reduce the consulting burden on the organizational help desk. The book will give Kermit software a more "serious" and professional image in the corporate and government sectors, and in the press. Ultimately, the result should be increased popularity for Kermit, new inroads into the mass market, and some badly needed revenue for Kermit Development and Distribution at Columbia to keep the Kermit project alive. See the file MSKERM.HLP for availability and ordering information. Of course, the Kermit software itself remains free, copyable, and sharable, with source code openly available. Online documentation is available too, including: MSKERM.HLP - Expanded summary of MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 features and commands. MSKERM.BWR - The "beware" file, listing limitations, bugs, workarounds. MSR300.UPD - Description of the new features in 3.0. MSKERM.ED - Detailed edit history since 2.32/A. MSVIBM.VT - Description of terminal emulator escape sequences, keys, etc. MSVIBM.TEK - Description of graphics emulation features and escape sequences. MSKERM.DOC - The 2.32/A manual (long). Also .MSS and .PS versions. MS*.ASM,.H - The source code! (very long). All these files are new except for the 2.32/A manual (which still applies, since 3.0 is backwards compatible with 2.32/A). In addition, there are numerous supporting files (contributed script programs, key mapping files for various applications, notes and hints found in the Info-Kermit digest, etc). Those who don't have access to the book should be able to find whatever information they need in these files, and of course can tailor or combine these documents to produce whatever local documentation they need. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1990 14:13:12 EST From: Christine M Gianone Subject: MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 Feedback Wanted Keywords: MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 How is MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 working for you? We usually hear from you only if you have problems. We'd also like to hear about it when things are OK. Please let us know how you like the new features of 3.0 -- international character sets, VT320 emulation, the new graphics features, sliding windows, etc. Also let us know about any discoveries you have made: how to use the program with local area networks, host graphics applications, character sets, etc, that are not mentioned in the documentation. And of course, your problem reports and suggestions for additional features in future releases are always welcome. And if you have any interesting stories about how you or your organization are using Kermit, please send them in for possible publication in forthcoming issues of Kermit News (yes, the fourth issue is on the way!). ------------------------------ End of Info-Kermit Digest *************************