Home

Kermit News March 1995

1. Those who can read the German Japanese and Russian financial notices will have a definite edge Those who can respond have a sharper edge still These two encodings GB and Big5 are used on most Chinese host computers and services So you would run the appropriate DOS extension or version and then simply tell Kermit to set parity none set terminal bytesize 8 set term character set transparent This allows Chinese characters to be received viewed typed and transmitted during terminal emu lation No translation is necessary because the PC and the host are using the same codes Input is ac cording to the input method supplied in the par ticular DOS version or extension BoPoMoFo Chang Jie etc In this way MS DOS Kermit can be used as a terminal to say a UNIX host where Lynx is used to view Chinese newsgroups such as alt chinese text and tw or to access Chinese Web servers Adding Other Languages Cyrillic terminal emulation is done externally to Ker mit via keyboard and screen translation tables such as in the KOI8 INI file and by loading a font which is supplied on the Kermit diskette Other languages that have 8 bit single byte character sets can be done in exactly the same way Greek Armenian Georgian etc using readily available fonts and constructing the necessary mappings in the same way that the Cyrillic ones were done a series of SET TRANSLATION INPUT and SET KEY commands collected into a K
2. The moral of this story is that improving accessibility for persons with disabilities benefits everybody else too Kermit scripts that are suitable for persons who rely on screen reader technology are good for able bodied computer users as well About the author Alan Cantor 171 Roxborough Street West Toronto Ontario M5R 1T9 Canada is a Workplace Accom modation Consultant with a special interest in im proving individuals access to workplaces and schools His clients include the Ontario Ministry of Labour the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Energy the Office of the Employment Equity Commissioner for the Province of Ontario the Hugh MacMillan Rehabilitation Centre Toronto Services for Stu dents with Disabilities at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Toronto and the Zimbabwe Canada General Training Facility Ottawa He is an Associate of Advanced Work Design Toronto a Research Associate with Employment Achievement Services Scarborough and a member of the Ad visory Group on Employment Equity for Persons with Disabilities His current project is a program of Repetitive Strain Injury RSI awareness and preven tion for persons with disabilities who use assistive devices He will present a paper on his work on RSI and disability at the 10th annual CSUN Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference in Los An geles 14 18 March 1995 Acknowledgments I would like to thank Professor Be
3. 220 0 0 0 0 e cece eee ee eee eee C 4mm DAT cassette UNIX TAR format 185 220 2 0 0 0 ununun nurunun enn cence tenes C 8mm EXABYTE cartridge UNIX TAR format 185 220 0 0 cc cece eee e eee eens C C Kermit source code on DOS format diskettes 100 115 1 5 25 inch 0 3 5 inch C Kermit Binaries on DOS format diskettes 45 55 each 3 5 5 25 O C Kermit for OS 2 2 00 amp Warp S2ebithe 6 ay eae ec use va noe wavy aoe a wes O C Kermit for OS 2 1 xx 16 bit u usuusu uurin ae aeaaeae hh Ba ead hcl OET CRermit for ONK e A E eu ta A eed a ees ey O C Kermit for SCO UNIX ODT 0 cece ccc ene aeaaaee o oO C Kermit for SCO Xenix 0 0 ccc cece cece eee eee eee een nena o oOo C Kermit for Solaris SPARC 000 0 nen ene t nen aeree oO oOo C Kermit for Solaris Intel 00 0 0000 ect nen ence n nen eens O C Kermit for Commodore Amiga 0 0 ccc cece ccc eee ene e ee eeenneeeeeennaes Others contact us for availability 9 TRACK 1600 bpi MAGNETIC TAPE Price 100 135 per tape ANSI TAR OS ANSI TAR OS ANSI TAR OS TapeA O g g Tape C g g g Tape E g g g TapeB O g g Tape D g g g See above for C Kermit 9 TRACK TAPE SUBTOTAT i s earms A a E elt tes 4 doh decane a aad LEE a bs E EA E as ade Hosta peed Gaeta ts TAPE CARTRIDGES 150 185 each DAT 8MM QIC TK50 Contents of Tapes A B and
4. fledged TELNET clients as well as serial communi cation programs poof you ve got international Web access from home and office Thanks to the Internet the world is becoming smaller every day and it becomes increasingly neces sary for us in the USA to dust off our high school Spanish German Italian French or Russian etc if we want to partake fully in the information revolu tion just as it is becoming increasingly necessary for business communications to take place in many languages Those who can read the German Japanese and Rus sian financial notices will have a definite edge Those who can respond have a sharper edge still Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 19 Kermit in the Brazilian Elections _ Fernando Cabral CEO PADRAO ix Sistemas Abertos Brasilia Brazil Columbia University s Kermit software and protocol are robust enough to work dependably even when using the poorest telephone lines and in Brazil THERE ARE poor quality telephone lines KERMIT SOFTWARE PLAYED A CRUCIAL ROLE in Brazil s general election of October 3 1994 almost certainly the world s largest and most complex election ever At stake in this country of 180 million were the presidency all of the 28 state governorships two thirds or 56 of the Federal Senate seats and almost 600 Federal and 1000 State Representatives To cope with this task the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral Superior Electoral Cou
5. s script programming lan guage you can use it to make all kinds of connec tions not just serial ones You can also use the same script programs with minor alterations e g for device or directory names on other operating systems where C Kermit runs UNIX VMS and so on You can even make the same scripts portable to DOS and Windows since MS DOS Kermit s script program ming language is very similar to C Kermit s This is a significant leveraging of our most precious asset people time time spent in training study ing figuring things out Make the investment once rather than over and over again Even afterwards once you ve become an expert you can benefit from not having to retrain your fingers every time you ac cess a different host or service you can set up con sistent key maps for all your online connections Terminal Emulation Let s take a quick look at some of the improvements OS 2 C Kermit s terminal emulator First there is VT220 emulation which allows us to take advan tage of many host based applications or features of them primarily on the VMS and UNIX operating sys tems that were not accessible to us before The new emulation includes a complete repertoire of keyboard verbs that can be assigned to the keys of your choice and which are compatible with those of MS DOS Ker mit These represent not only the common program control actions reset emulator send BREAK hang up return t
6. 15 People and Places Cover Story Kermit in the Brazilian Elections 20 19 Kermit Helps Automate Mail Delivery 0 2 000002 ae 23 Kermit and Market Research inthe UK 2 0 000084 24 Computer Access for Persons with Print Handicaps 25 Down to Business Ordering Information odos ae her aeea ad au a A R E E a a a E 28 Kermit Version Listonin u inire a aaa u Be A a We ee Bl lato 29 Order Formirana 20 mea ahs Aa a a a a a E Ree Seb 31 Kermit News ISSN 0899 9309 is published periodically free of charge by Kermit Development and Distribution Columbia University Academic Information Systems 612 West 115th Street New York NY 10025 USA Contributed articles are welcome Editor Christine M Gianone E Mail cmg columbia edu Copyright 1995 Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York Material in Kermit News may be quoted or reproduced in other publications without permis sion but with proper attribution The Kermit file transfer protocol is named after Kermit the Frog star of the television series The Muppet Show used by permission of Henson Associates Inc Cover Brazilian Presidential Election October 1994 Using computers to count votes Rio de Janeiro Photo Jorge William Ag ncia O Globo Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 1 Editor s Notes Welcome to Kermit News Number 6 This issue an nounces new releas
7. DBCS machine either for local delivery or else to the appropriate des tination P amp DC from which it is sent to the ap propriate local post office for delivery by mail car riers It is at the destination post office that the automation process returns to manual handling of the mail Mail carriers still have to sort mail into bins and cub byholes a labor intensive and time consuming pro cess before they can embark on their routes The ever increasing volume of mail adds to the workload of the mail carriers and the manual sorting step can no longer keep pace The Solution Now bar codes will be used to eliminate the manual sorting step too speeding the delivery of mail directly to your door A major contract between the United States Postal Service and Loral Federal Systems formerly IBM Federal Systems Company of Owego New York calls for the installation of 3 144 Carrier Sequence Bar Code Sorter CSBCS machines in ap proximately 1 100 of the larger local post offices Using technology licensed from AEG ElectroCom of Konstanz Germany the CSBCS machines sequence bar coded mail for each mail carrier at 36 000 pieces per hour The mail is sorted by mail route and within each route according to the order in which the mail carrier visits each building Routes can be cus tomized on a daily basis for example to allow for buildings that are closed on Saturdays By sorting mail in walk sequence without manual handling the
8. IK B IBM 870 Series VM CMS Assembler 4 3 1 95 02 02 CK F PC 386 amp higher Linux 386 Cc 5A190 94 10 04 MS A IBM compatibles MS DOS MASM C 3 14 95 01 18 CK F PC 386 amp higher Lynx Cc 5A190 94 10 04 cs9 C IBM CSs9000 CSOS Pascal 92 09 10 CK F PC 386 amp higher MINIX 386 C 5A190 94 10 04 CK F IBM Mainframe AIX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F PC 386 amp higher MtXinuMach C 5A190 94 10 04 UCI C IBMPC UCSD p Sys UCSD Pascal 0 1 84 05 23 CK F PC 386 amp higher NetBSD Cc 5A190 94 10 04 cc C IBM PC clones ChineseDOS MASM 2 32A 91 09 09 CK F PC 486 amp higher NeXTSTEP C 5A190 94 10 04 MX B IBM PC family MINIX 1 0 Cc 4D 61 88 05 17 CK F PC 386 amp higher OS 2 1 x c 5A191 95 03 01 TP4 C IBM PC family PC DOS Turbo Pascal 1 la 88 04 15 CK F PC 386 amp higher OS 2 2 0 Cc 5A191 95 03 01 QK C IBM PC XT AT PC DOS Turbo Pascal 3 1 88 12 14 CK F PC 386 amp higher OS 2 Warp c 5A191 95 03 01 QNX C IBM PC XT AT QNX 1 x c 1 0 85 09 23 CK F PC 386 amp higher SCO ODT c 5A190 94 10 04 MS A IBM PC family PC DOS MASM C 3 14 95 01 18 CK F PC 386 amp higher SCO UNIX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 MS A IBM PC family MS Windows MASM C 3 14 95 01 18 CK F PC 386 amp higher Solaris c 5A190 94 10 04 WK A IBM PC family MS Windows MicrosoftC 91 10 19 CK F PC 386 amp higher UnixWare Cc 5A190 94 10 04 MS A IBM PC family Windows NT MASM C 3 14 95 01 18 UCP C Pecan UCSD p Sys Pascal 1 1 90 08 05 CK A IBM PC family Os 2 c 5A191 95 03 01 PER D PerkinElmer 3200 OS 32 MT72 Fortran 1 0 87 03
9. This is important when callers arrive over public data networks and other non direct paths In most cases Kermit can even sense 7 bit connections automatically 4 Kermit protocol can be used by Internet accessible BBSs and other services It works well over TELNET connections even 7 bit ones and Kermit TELNET clients are available for most popular operating sys tems DOS Windows OS 2 UNIX VMS VOS etc 5 Only Kermit protocol is capable of converting from one text character set to another during text file transfer This is vital as the BBS world becomes more international and BBS clients more diverse Remember not all computers use IBM Code Pages to to represent non English text 6 MS DOS Kermit can autoconfigure callers for max imum performance and can initiate autoupload and autodownload operations without user intervention provided the client software is MS DOS Kermit 3 13 or later or C Kermit 5A 190 or later for UNIX OS 2 VMS or OS 9 see article on page 14 New features ideal for use in BBS systems e Support for Fossil drivers used on BBSs e Support for high interface speeds up to 115200 bps and hardware flow control for use with high speed data compressing modems e Ability to release the connection immediately when the carrier signal drops e File transfer operations may be logged to a file e Uploads can be restricted to a particular directory e Downloads can be driven by a
10. new systems will cut costs and enable faster mail delivery even as volume goes up Both the DBCS and the CSBCS machines are par tially controlled by PCs running DOS or QNX QNX is a POSIX compliant realtime version of UNIX from QNX Software Systems Ltd Kanata Ontario see profile on page 7 The PCs provide the user interface and the link to the outside world Kermit s Role Columbia University s Kermit software MS DOS Kermit on DOS PCs QNX C Kermit on the QNX PCs is a key component it handles according to the specification transfer of End of Run reports End of Period reports density analysis data sort plans and software configuration updates Each day Kermit software dials up and sends machine usage performance diagnostic and other reports to a regional hub of the National Directory Support System NDSS for postanalysis fault detec tion trend analysis and so on The regional hubs are equipped with Digital Equipment Corporation VAX and Alpha AXP computers running the Open VMS operating system and Kermit software Once a week Kermit software is also used to load updated address information the data for the sort plans into each CSBCS from the NDSS which maintains a database of every address in the region Thus each bar code sorting system depends on Ker mit software in order to do its job to sort the mail 3The DBCS receives the sort plan data via TCP IP but is also equipped w
11. 26 MS A NEC APC III MS DOS MASM 2 30 88 03 21 CP A TRS 80 Model 4 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 MS A NEC PC9801 MS DOS MASM 3 10 91 04 18 M4 C TRS 80 Model 4 TRSDOS ASM 5 2 86 10 29 CK F NeXT NeXTSTEP C 5A190 94 10 04 UM C UMicro U MAN1000 CP M 68K CandAsm 86 04 10 NIC C Nicolet 80 Demon Assembler 1 76 94 07 01 CK F UNISYS 5000 UNIX SVR3 C 5A190 94 10 04 CK F Nixdorf Targon31 TOS Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F UNISYS 5000 UTSV Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CP A Nokia MikroMikko CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 UAS D UNISYS A Series MCS AS Algol 1 041 90 07 13 ND D Norsk Data 10 SintranIII ND Pascal 3 1b 85 06 24 USY D UNISYS A Series MCS AS Algol 0 0 94 07 20 CK F Norsk Data 88 17 UNIX SV 88 C 5A190 94 10 04 CP A USmicroSalesS100 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CP A Northstar CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CP A Vector Graphics CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CP A Ohio Scientific CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 C86 C Victor Sirius 1 CPM86 ASM86 2 9 86 07 07 CK F OkiStation 7300 UNIX SVR4 C 5A190 94 10 04 MS A Victor Sirius 1 MS DOS MASM 3 14 95 01 18 CK F Olivetti CP 486 UNIX SVR4 C 5A190 94 10 04 CP A Video Genie CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F Olivetti LSX30xx X OS Cc 5A190 94 10 04 MS A Wang PC APC MS DOS MASM 2 31 88 08 13 CK F Olivetti PCs SCO UNIX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CP A Xerox 820 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 MS A Olivetti PCs MS DOS MASM C 3 14 95 01 18 CN8 C Orion PCi CCPM86 ASM86 2 9 86 04 10 CP A Osborne 1 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 UCM C PascalMicroengin UCSD p Sys
12. 5A190 94 10 04 CK F Intergraph Clipper CLIX c 5A190 94 10 04 CK F Sony NEWS NEWS OS c 5A190 94 10 04 CE A Ithaca Intersys CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 UN D Sperry 1100 Exec Assembler 2 5 86 09 03 UCI C J Loebl Magiscan2 UCSD p Sys UCSD Pascal 86 06 23 UN D Sperry 1100 Exec NOSC Pascal 2 0 84 10 08 CP A Kaypro II CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F Sperry 5000 UNIX SVR3 C 5A190 94 10 04 CP A Kaypro4 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F Sperry 5000 UTS V Cc 5A190 94 10 04 M2 C Lilith Worksta Medos Modula 2 1 0 87 05 17 SP9 D Sperry 90 60 VS9 Assembler 86 04 09 LM C LMI Lispmachine LMI Lambda ZETALISP 1 0 85 09 12 CK F Stardent 1520 UNIX SVR3 C 5A190 94 10 04 CP A Lobo Max 80 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F Sun all models Solaris 1 2 Cc 5A190 94 10 04 LUX C Luxor ABC 80 ABC DOS Z80 Asm 1 0 90 07 13 CK F Sun all models SunOS 3 4 5 C 5A190 94 10 04 LUX C Luxor ABC 80x ABC DOS ABC BASIC II4 11 90 07 13 CP A Superbrain CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F Luxor ABC 9000 DNIX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 LM C Symbolics 36xx Lisp ZETALISP 1 0 85 09 12 MBF D MAI Basic Four BOSS VS BASIC BB86 1 0 88 04 11 TAN D Tandem Nonstop Guardian TAL 1 0 86 04 08 CK F Masscomp RTU 4 0 c 5A190 94 10 04 TA1 C Tandy 100 Tandy 100 BASIC 1984 90 10 07 CP A Merlin M2215 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 TA2 C Tandy 2000 MS DOS MASM 1 20 84 02 16 PIC D MicroDataREALITY PICK DATA BASIC 0 3 89 08 21 CK F Tandy Model 16 Xenix 3 0 Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CP A Micromint SB180 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 C86 C
13. E g g g g Contents of Tapes C D and E g g g g TAPE CARTRIDGE SUBTOTAL A A A E cg eo E E E on ho ay oa ees wha O e MACINTOSH KERMIT a work in progress O Macintosh Kermit 0 991 190 or latest prerelease 3 5 inch 25 30 0 ccc cece eee ee ee LITERATURE C Book Using MS DOS Kermit 36 95 47 n nunn nununn anunn iy ae EER ae aE IRS C Book Using C Kermit without software 36 95 47 00 00 ccc ccc ccc ence cence nent enees J Book Kermit A File Transfer Protocol Kermit protocol specification 32 95 43 0 J Book Kermit MS DOS Mode d Emploi in French 36 95 47 0 ccc cece ccc eee e eens J Any three of these books 85 00 115 2 0 20 0 cece cece eevee ebevveeseeedecuceustesevests Contact us for quantity discounts on books SIDE 1 SUBTOTAL please complete side 2 also 0 ccc eee Number 6 March 1995 KERMIT ORDER FORM SIDE 2 Kermit News Shipping by UPS or post is included in the price Please do not add sales tax SUBTOTAL from Side 1 sooni pr iin ewn te ve bea Waals Ob ae a ee Pie ee es g Voluntary tax deductible donation help support the Kermit effort USA CANADA AND MEXICO ONLY C For PRIORITY HANDLING and NEXT DAY SHIPMENT add 30 A TOTAL MATERIALS DONATION AND SHIPPING 0 c eee cece eee teen ene Please complete ONE of the numbered sections 1 2 or 3 and then fi
14. Pascal II 0 84 12 03 MS A PC 8088 amp higher MS DOS MASM C 3 14 95 01 18 CK F PC 286 amp higher Microport C 5A190 94 10 04 Kermit News KERMIT ORDER FORM SIDE 1 Number 6 March 1995 Prices terms and items are subject to change If this form is dated more than 12 months prior please contact us for new information Please order carefully since we can not refund or exchange items that were ordered incorrectly Prices are in US dollars first price for North America second price for shipping outside North America MS DOS KERMIT 3 14 FOR DOS AND WINDOWS IBM PC PS2 MS DOS Kermit software with book Using MS DOS Kermit 36 95 47 EJ lt 5 25 inchs ERS 52th cs er e e veeee ix bay a envi goad Leb beats MS DOS IBM PC PS2 Kermit source code 60 68 O 5 25 inch EJS 595 cl Dae oR toe TORR oe E Crynwr formerly Clarkson packet drivers For the IBM PC family on DOS diskettes Binaries and Docs 35 40 O 5 25 inch BERA E car es aueirn een Source Code 60 68 O 5 25 inch 23 beinch lt st ia oo eee a Mee ae C KERMIT 5A 190 Each format includes the book Using C Kermit Tapes and Cartridges Tape F Please read IMPORTANT C KERMIT INFO on page 28 C 9 Track Tape 135 170 Format 1 ANSI includes VMS hex binaries J TAR C TK50 cartridge DEC VMS OpenVMS BACKUP format includes VMS binaries 185 220 C Quarter Inch Cartridge QIC UNIX TAR format 185
15. a complete Hebrew package a Hebrew font that any body can load under DOS not Windows a key map for entering Hebrew letters on the keyboard hot keys for switching the keyboard between English and Hebrew modes all you need for accessing Hebrew applications online The HEBREW macro sets it all up for you Just type hebrew at the MS Kermit gt prompt and off you go David de Leeuw Head of Computing Services at Ben Gurion University of the Negev Faculty of Health Sciences says Our range of computers and applica tions is very wide To complicate things even more many of our applications run in a variety of Hebrew setups three different character sets and various concepts of screen orientation mixed left to right and right to left The only communications software I know of that handles all this smoothly is Kermit The new 3 14 release even takes care of automatic translation between different character sets when transferring text files from one system to the other Our users working on PC s accessing UNIX VAX and IBM Mainframe can t tell the difference between different code pages and now they don t have to Japanese MS DOS Kermit has been capable of converting Japanese character sets during file transfer since ver sion 3 12 Version 3 14 adds Japanese terminal emu lation for ordinary IBM PCs and compatibles running the DOS V operating system no special hardware is required Now you can use M
16. attributes in tact Labeled transfers can also take place between an OS 2 system and some other kind of system in which case the file will be archived together with its attributes for later restoral to perhaps another OS 2 system again with all its attributes intact Finally OS 2 C Kermit comes with a procedure for sending entire directory trees and their contents preserving the directory structure When used in conjunction with labeled mode this lets entire direc tory trees and even entire file systems be cloned from one OS 2 system to another In non labeled mode it also facilitates the movement of directory trees between PCs running similar but different sys tems such as OS 2 and DOS or Windows And beyond finally OS 2 C Kermit 5A 190 comes with a complete repertoire of macros for easy access to external protocols for the hopefully rare occasions when you must transfer files with a host or service that does not support Kermit protocol Documentation All the new features of version 5A 190 are docu mented in the accompanying CKERMIT INF file an on line supplement to but not a substitute for Using C Kermit You can browse the CKERMIT INF file with the OS 2 VIEW program this is an indexed hypertext document that you can click your way through search for particular material and so on just like the regular OS 2 help facility and very similar to using a World Wide Web browser Acknowledgements Spec
17. but orders to the publisher e g from bookstores must now go to Butterworth Heinemann Overseas offices of Butterworth Heinemann can be reached at the following telephone numbers 44 1933 414414Rushden England office for Europe 61 2 3872 5511 Chatswood NSW office for Australia and New Zealand 65 220 3684 Singapore office for Asia 27 031 294247 Durban office for South Africa The new arrangement has been in effect for more than a year so all the wrinkles should be ironed out But if your bookstore is having difficulty obtaining English language Kermit books please refer them to the new publisher Und immer noch ein neues Buch Always again another book Using C Kermit the C Kermit 5A user manual published by Digital Press has been translated into German by our good friend Gisbert W Selke of the WIdO Wissenschaftliches In stitut der Ortskrankenkassen in Bonn a small Uni versity town in Germany and published in deluxe hardcover edition by Verlag Heinz Heise of Han nover The proper citation is Frank da Cruz and Christine M Gianone C Kermit Einf hrung und Referenz 1994 ISBN 3 88229 023 4 Deutsch von Gisbert W Selke Price DM 88 00 Ver lag Heinz Heise GmbH amp Co KG Helstorfer Stral 7 D 30625 Hannover Germany Tel 49 05 11 53 52 0 Fax 49 05 11 53 53 1 29 Readers may recall that Gisbert also translated and Heise also published a German edition of Using MS DOS Kermit for
18. file list The new Kermit Lite program KERLITE EXE devel oped in part with the financial support of XAP Com pany see page 5 is especially suited to BBSs Fea tures not needed on BBSs such as a terminal emulator and a TCP IP network stack are stripped away to minimize its disk footprint and its memory requirements so it can easily coexist in conventional memory with your BBS program The KERMIT UPD file that comes with MS DOS Kermit 3 14 includes a new BBS Operators Guide to show you how it s done Bob Mahoney President of Exec PC Inc the World s largest BBS The Business Knowledge Exchange serving the business community since 1983 says we had not supported Kermit since 1989 when our old version of PC Kermit became obsolete when it was unable to support the higher DTE speeds of the new modems We took Kermit offline and have been looking for a replacement ever since We finally came across KERLITE just what we were looking for It is now installed on Exec PC and has proven to be very popular on our Telnet in nodes of the BBS that are available via our Internet connection The other protocols we have online were troublesome for many of the Telnet users Kermit has done a good job on fixing the download problems for many of them Mike Robertson in Sweden says We have been using the KERLITE program to provide an external Kermit protocol under the MBBS system a BBS system found mostly in Scan
19. kUpload Also handy are CLEAR which clears the INPUT REINPUT command buffer and the communication device buffer and SET TERMINAL CLEAR SCREEN for clearning the terminal screen Together the two com mands effectively wipe the display clean during script operations so the screen reader does not read ir relevant out of date information These two commands have proven so indispensable that I have combined them into a single macro define ERASE SCREEN clear set terminal clear screen Finally a novel use for the SET PROMPT command which changes MS DOS Kermit s interactive com mand prompt In some circumstances I have found it advantageous to define macros with single character names as a means to streamline script and macro operations Then I modify the prompt to create an audible menu prompt define 1 dial School define 2 dial Library define 3 dial Work define e echo Exiting hangup exit set prompt l School 2 Library 3 Work e Exit gt Conclusion I have written MS DOS Kermit scripts for a number of clients who use screen readers Although I am not print handicapped I use virtually identical scripts for my own purposes Many able bodied friends and col leagues having seen my scripts in action have been impressed enough to request copies This has led to an ironic situation more able bodied people use my print handicapped scripts than people with print handicaps
20. long as he could read and write amd was older that 21 Not until the early 1930s did a modified constitution give women the right to vote Unfortunately a dic tatorship quickly took control of Brazil and no elec tions were held until after World War II So in fact women voted for the first time in 1945 However only in 1988 did the right to vote become truly universal Gender property literacy and other ex cluding criteria were eliminated and the minimum voting age was lowered to sixteen Brazilian elections prior to 1994 were susceptible to many different kinds of manipulation and fraud Page 20 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News Most have become parts of Brazilian folklore and have revealing names like the tip of the pen vote where the result desired by the local landowner was simply recorded on the document listing the tabula tion of each ballot box There was also the lunchbox vote where the local plantation coronel would fill out the ballots before delivering them to the awaiting voters in a closed or lunch box Not even the voters knew who they were voting for The term corral vote means that the landowner kept his workers in his own corral like cattle and told them who to vote for Like cattle they obeyed Not to be forgotten is the phantom vote when the dead arose to cast their ballots Of course these ghosts existed in name only on their voter ID cards their polling
21. many hats often playing the agent provocateur among mainframers COBOLers and MS Windowers Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 23 Kermit Helps Automate Mail Delivery Did you ever wonder how U S Mail is delivered Much of the process has been automated in recent years and soon thanks in part to Kermit software one of the most tedious tasks will be on its way out Postal Bar Codes Let s take a simplified look at how mail is delivered today When a piece of mail enters the system at a local post office it is sent to the nearest Processing and Distribution Center P amp DC At each of the 270 Bar codes will soon speed the delivery of mail directly to your door Kermit software is a key component P amp DCs mail passes through an optical character recognition OCR device If the OCR machine can read the address it applies a POSTNET bar code if there already isn t one representing the ZIP Code If the address is illegible the mail piece is rejected In many of the P amp DCs and eventually all of them the rejected pieces are routed to a Remote Bar Code System RBCS where the electronic image of the front of the mail piece appears on a video display ter minal an operator keys in the ZIP Code and then the bar code is applied Thus all mail pieces leave these facilities with bar codes The Problem From the receiving P amp DC the mail is routed in many cases by a Delivery Bar Code Sorter
22. see article on page 12 e ANSI and Wyse 50 terminal emulation add two popular terminal types to MS DOS Kermit s reper toire ANSI emulation is ideal for accessing BBSs e The greatest Kermit protocol implementation is now available for BBSs themselves see article on page 4 e The new Kermit diskette includes complete packages for Hebrew and Cyrillic terminal emulation includ ing fonts and keyboard drivers Read those Russian newsgroups Access online Hebrew databases e Japanese Kanji and Chinese terminal emulations are now fully supported even on ordinary US model IBM PCs and compatibles See article on page 15 e The script programming language now includes built in functions just like C Kermit s e New smaller versions are provided for those who don t need or can t fit all the features of the full version and for use as an external protocol or script execution engine in BBSs and other applications The New MS DOS Kermit Diskette MS DOS Kermit now comes on a high density 1 44 MB 3 5 inch DOS format directory structured dis kette that contains everything you need including three different executables the full functioned ver sion a smaller Medium version and a tiny Lite version The medium version can be used on PCs with small memories e g on old XTs where the full featured version might not fit It can also be used if you simply do not need Kermit s networking or graphics terminal emulation ca
23. the copyright is held by Columbia University and forbids redistribution by commercial enterprises without our written permission even when not done directly for profit and even on free software or shareware CD ROMs or other media If your company wishes to distribute Kermit software to its customers or clients please contact us the advantages are many our terms are easy You can read about several suc cessful new cooperative ventures in this issue While Surfing the Internet Be sure to visit our new World Wide Web home page http www columbia edu kermit Here you will find our new illustrated catalog MS DOS Kermit graphic screen shots and a whole new approach for us to software dis tribution But please do remember to purchase the relevant manuals if you haven t already done so And for a unique international perspective on the Internet be sure to read Circumnavigating the Web on page 15 Page 2 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News Books Books Books Digital Press Changes Hands Digital Press publisher of our English language Ker mit books has been transferred from Digital Equip ment Corporation to DIGITAL PRESS Butterworth Heinemann 225 Wildwood Street Woburn MA 01801 USA Voice 1 800 366 2665 Fax 1 617 933 6333 a member of the Reed Elsevier group Kermit books can as always be obtained directly from Columbia University see our order form
24. to JIS X 0208 or other encod ing for printing or e mail read and send e mail and netnews online in Japanese and finally download new material from UNIX to the PC translating back to Shift JIS You can also use text based Web browsers such as Lynx 2 3jp the Japanese version from Chiba Univer sity to access Japanese information on the World Wide Web no matter whether the Japanese Web server uses JIS7 EUC or Shift JIS MS DOS Kermit can display the Kanji text correctly If you are on the World Wide Web and have a Web viewer that can display GIF graphics files you can view an illustration of MS DOS Kermit s Kanji capacity in http www columbia edu kermit kanji http Page 18 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News Chinese MS DOS Kermit can be used on regular IBM PCs and compatibles equipped with USA keyboard and VGA video adapter running special Chinese extensions to DOS two of which are available via anonymous ftp from host cnd org China News Digest e ZWDOS GB 2312 80 encoding Peoples Republic of China shareware free to students by Ya Gui Wei Eden Prairie MN e KCDOS Big5d encoding Republic of China Kuo Chiau Business Computer Company Ltd Taiwan or from ftp ifess org Independent Federation of Chi nese Students and Scholars in the US Other ver sions of Chinese DOS are available elsewhere which fit these models such as CC DOS described in Kermit News Number 5 ETen and others
25. who have low vision In recent years it has become clear that other constituencies benefit from the technology too For example persons who have a learning disability that interferes with their ability to read but not to write successfully use screen readers Screen reading technology has made previously in accessible documents available to persons with print handicaps Because almost all books newspapers and journals begin as computer files the potential ex Page 26 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News ists for the first time for persons who have print handicaps to read any printed document MS DOS Kermit works beautifully with screen readers Its rich macro language is an exceptional medium Complex series of commands can be reduced to a single macro or keystroke Virtually all DOS VMS and Unix applications are screen reader friendly Screen reading technology enables users to run most DOS applications access Bulletin boards communicate by e mail and transfer files and other information using Internet services like GOPHER and FTP The ability to use computers effectively has opened doors to new educational and employment opportunities for persons who have print handicaps The Threat of the GUI The proliferation of graphics based computer environ ments threatens to wipe out many of the gains made by persons who rely on screen reading technology DOS based screen readers do not work with GUI g
26. with PP14400 SCR File transfer mode must be binary This is just to keep the script program short ry up to 50 times to send the fil Skip message the first time here to redial the phone lin Com Giv a rest echo Pausing for s seconds sleep s Echo redialing NOMSG dial Sn if fail goto AGAIN output 13 input 15 login output Su 13 input 8 Password output p 13 input 60 cd budget output cd budget 13 input 8 out kermit r 13 input 10 KERMIT READY pause 1 resend fy9495 wks if success goto done AGAIN if count goto LOOP Stop 1 Too many tries DON echo File transferred OK output exit 13 pause 5 hangup stop 0 Script succeeded EJ Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne T Dial the phone number Keep trying System answered send a carriage return Get UNIX login prompt Send user ID Get UNIX password prompt Send password Get UNIX system prompt CD to desired local source directory and remote destination directory Get system prompt kermit r eceive on remote system Wait for READY message Plus a second for safety RESEND the file Success means file is completely transferred Otherwise try again Too many tries give up Success give message Log out from remote computer Give it time Hang up Finished the end This MS DOS Kermit 3 14 script dials into
27. 04 PIC D IBM PC XT AT PICK DATA BASIC 0 3 89 08 21 CK F PerkinElmer 3200 Xelos SV Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F IBM PS 2 AIX 1 2 Cc 5A190 94 10 04 PE7 D PerkinElmer 7000 IDRIS Cc 1 10 86 12 08 MS A IBM PS 2 Series PC DOS MASM C 3 14 95 01 18 CP A PMC Micromate101 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F IBM RS 6000 AIX 3 x Cc 5A190 94 10 04 PRI D Prime PRIMOS R2x PL P 8 15 93 04 19 CK F IBMRTPC 4 3BSDReno C 5A190 94 10 04 CK F Pyramid 9810x T OSx Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F IBMRTPC ACIS 4 x Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CP A Rair Black Box CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F IBMRTPC AIX 2 x Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CP A RM380ZF ZM CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 VME D ICL 2900 VME s3 1 01 87 07 14 RM C RML 480Z ROS 2 x Cc 1 22 86 11 03 CK F ICL DRS3000 6000 DRS NX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 RM C RML Nimbus MS DOS c 1 22 86 11 03 CN8 C ICL PC 2 Quattro CCPM86 ASM86 2 9 87 05 17 CP A Sanyo 1100 MBC CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 PQ C ICL Perq Perq OS Pascal 2 0 84 12 04 MS A Sanyo 550 MBC MS DOS MASM 2 30 88 05 16 MS A Intel 300 Series iRMX 286 MASM ASM862 30 88 05 02 CP A ScreenTyper CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F Intel 302 Bell Tech c 5A190 94 10 04 CK F Sequent DYNIX ptx C 5A190 94 10 04 RMX C Intel 86 286 RMX 1 0 PL M 1 0 85 10 25 CK F Silicon Graphics IRIX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 186 C Intel 86 380 iRMX 86 PL M 2 3 85 09 23 QL2 C Sinclair QL QDOS BCPL 87 05 15 IRM C Intel 86 380 iRMX 86 PL M 2 41 87 03 04 QLK C Sinclair QL QDOS Cc 1 10 87 05 15 MD C Intel MDS ISIS PL M 87 04 06 CK F Solbourne OS MP Cc
28. 19 86 09 11 Os9 C Gimex III OS 9 Cc 1 5 85 09 20 B79 D Burroughs B7900 Burroughs Algol 5 2 85 11 27 GM D Gould SEL 32 MPX 32 Fortran 77 2 3 86 12 10 Uxx D Burroughs Also see UNISYS MS A GRiD Compass II MS DOS MASM 3 10 91 03 18 CD3 D CDC Cyber NOS Fortran 5 3 4 88 05 10 H1 D Harris H100 1 VOS 4 1 1 Fortran 77 1 06 88 03 17 CYB D CDC Cyber NOS 2 2 Compass 1 0 86 04 17 H8 D Harris 800 vos Pascal Asm 85 02 11 NOS D CDC Cyber NOS 2 4 Compass 1 30 87 05 19 CK F Harris NightHawk CX UX 6 1 C 5A190 94 10 04 CDC D CDC Cyber 170 NOS NOS BE Fortran 77 2 2 84 09 07 CP A Heath H8 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F CDC Cyber 910 IRIX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CP A Heath Zenith 89 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F Charles River UNOS Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CP A Heath Zenith 100 CPM85 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CIE C CIE 680 XX REGULUS Cc 87 01 26 MS A Heath Zenith 100 MS DOS MASM 3 14 95 01 18 CP A Cifer 1886 CPM80 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 MU D Honeywell MULTICS PL I 2 0h 84 09 20 CP A Comart CommunicatorCPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 HD6 D Honeywell DPS6 GCOS6 Cc 2 01 91 06 03 C64 C Commodore 64 FORTH FORTH 15 85 02 08 HG D Honeywell DPS66 GCOS3 8 Cc 3 0 84 10 05 C64 C Commodore 64 128 DOS CROSS 2 27 92 09 30 HC6 D Honeywell DPS8 CP 6 PL 6 1 00 88 01 28 CK F Commodore Amiga 3000UX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 HCP D Honeywell DPS8 CP 6 Pascal 85 04 04 CK F Commodore Amiga Intuition Cc 5A190 94 10 04 HDP D Honeywell DPS8 GCOS TSS B 1 1 85 03 21 CP A Compupro IF 3 4 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 HG D Honeywell DP
29. Acorn Compact Panos Cc 4C 57 87 07 14 K12 D DECmate I OS 78 V4 PAL 8 10g 90 09 13 BBC C Acorn Master 128 OS 3 6502 Assem 1 45 87 05 19 K12 D DECmate II III OS 278 V2 PAL 8 10g 90 09 13 AC C Acorn Workstation PANOS Cc 87 07 13 CP A DECmate ILII CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 MS A ACT Apricot MS DOS MASM 2 30 88 05 12 MS A DECmate ILII MS DOS MASM 2 29 86 05 28 CP A Action Discovery CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F DECstation MACH c 5A190 94 10 04 AM C Alpha Micro 68K AMOS xx AM68K Asm 2 0 94 03 21 CK F DECstation OSF 1 c 5A190 94 10 04 CK F Altos ACS68000 UNIXIILV C 5A190 94 10 04 CK F DECstation ULTRIX c 5A190 94 10 04 CK F Amdahl Mainframe UNIX SVR2 C 5A190 94 10 04 K10 D DECsystem 10 TOPS 10 Bliss Macro 3 134 89 09 18 CK F Amdahl Mainframe UTSV Cc 5A190 94 10 04 K20 D DECSYSTEM 20 TOPS 20 MACRO 20 4 2 88 01 25 IK B Amdahl Mainframe Also see IBM 370 CK F Dell PC Dell UNIX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CP A Amstrad CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CP A Delphi 100 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 APO C Apollo Aegis Pascal 2 9 89 05 07 RD2 D DG800 RDOS BASIC 87 03 26 CK F Apollo Aegis 9 x Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F DGAViiON DG UX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F Apollo HP SR10 0 c 5A190 94 10 04 AOS D DGMV AOS AOS VS SP Pascal 85 02 08 CP A Apple II CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F DGMV AOS VS c 5A190 94 10 04 APP A Apple II DOS ProDOS CROSS 3 87 90 12 05 CK F DGMV AOS VS II c 5A190 94 10 04 UCA C Apple II UCSD p Sys UCSD Pascal 1 0 86 04 08 DGM D DGMV AOS VSMVUX C 85 11 27 CK F Appl
30. DOS Kermit has been capable of Cyril lic text file transfer since version 3 11 version 3 14 is the first to also incorporate a complete Cyrillic ter minal emulation package including a font that every body can use keyboard drivers and complete key and screen mappings for accessing host based applica tions using KOI 8 Short KOI or Latin Cyrillic As a quick demonstration if you have the rn or trn newsreader on your UNIX host or similar programs on other hosts you can use MS DOS Kermit 3 14 un der DOS not Windows to read the Russian relcom newsgroups such as relcom ads relcom commerce or relcom currency Just type MS Kermit gt cyrillic beforehand to load the Cyrillic font code page 866 into your PC and set up the translations between CP866 and the KOI8 encoding used in the news groups Now you can get the latest news on Russian business commodities investment opportunities and currency Page 16 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News If you also want to write in Russian during your ter minal session or for that matter in DOS on your PC you must load a Russian keyboard driver two of which are provided on your Kermit diskette The term Russian is used advisedly here since these drivers do not support the special characters unique to Serbocroation Macedonian Ukranian and Bielorussian One driver conforms to the USSR model PC keyboard layout the other assigns Cyrillic characters to Roman lett
31. German speaking Kermit users amp en Francais The French translation of Using MS DOS Kermit by another good friend Jean Dutertre of Digital France remains available not only in France but can also be ordered from us on our order form as a special con venience to Francophones outside France Christine M Gianone Kermit MS DOS mode d emploi 1993 ISBN 2 901143 20 2 Adaption fran aise Jean Dutertre Heinz Schiefer amp Cie 45 rue Henri de Reg nier F 78000 Versailles Tel 33 39 53 95 26 Fax 33 39 02 39 71 Our neighbors to the north are heartily encouraged to indulge their bilingual inclinations by keeping both French and English editions close by at all times We also hope that French authorities will kindly overlook the comments on page 46 Here s Proof James Huggins Department of EE and CS University of Michigan Ann Arbor MI USA In his preface to Frank da Cruz s book Kermit A File Transfer Protocol Don Knuth wrote I hope that many readers of this book will be chal lenged to find high level concepts and invariant rela tions by which various versions of the Kermit protocol can be proved correct in a mathematical sense Im pleased to announce that such a proof has recently been completed It shows that Kermit is both safe if you receive a file using Kermit it will be the same one that was sent and live if you send a file using Kermit and the network doesn t behave hideously i
32. ISP 14 94 06 04 K12 D DEC PDP 12 05 12 PAL 8 10g 90 09 13 TRI C various TRIPOS BCPL 87 07 10 K11 B DEC Pro 3xx P OS Macro 11 3 60 89 06 13 TD C various TurboDOS ASM 92 10 29 KRT B DEC Pro 3xx Pro RT Macro 11 3 60 93 09 22 FLX C various 6809 Flex 9 6809 Asm 86 04 17 C86 C DEC Rainbow CPM86 ASM86 2 9 84 12 03 UF C various 6809 UniFLEX c 15 93 08 23 MS A DEC Rainbow MS DOS MASM 3 10 91 03 18 os9 C various 6809 OS 9 Cc 15 85 09 20 QNX C DEC Rainbow QNX 1 x c 1 0 85 09 23 CK F various 68000 OS 9 Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F DEC VAX 4 xBSD Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CP A various 808x CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 PIC D DEC VAX PICK DATA BASIC 0 3 89 08 21 CP A various 808x CPM80 3 0 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F DEC VAX OpenVMS C 5A190 94 10 04 MS A various 80x86 MS DOS MASM 3 14 95 01 18 CK F DEC VAX ULTRIX c 5A190 94 10 04 CP A Access Matrix CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F DEC VAX UNIX SVR3 C 5A190 94 10 04 AR C Acorn Archimedes Arthur Cc 1 3 93 05 01 MS A DEC VAXmate MS DOS MASM C 3 14 95 01 18 AR C Acorn Archimedes RISC_OS Cc 1 3 93 05 01 CK F DEC VAXstation Open VMS Cc 5A190 94 10 04 BBC C Acorn BBC B OS1 20 6502 Assem 1 45 87 05 19 CK F DEC VAXstation ULTRIX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 BBC C Acorn BBC B 128 OS2 6502 Assem 1 45 87 05 19 CP A DEC VT 180 Robin CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CP A Acorn BBC CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 K12 D DEC VT 78 OS 8 Fam PAL 8 10g 90 09 13 BBC C Acorn Compact OS 3 6502 Assem 1 45 87 05 19 K12 D DEC VT 278 OS 78 Fam PAL 8 10g 90 09 13 BBC C
33. K F HP 9836CU HP UX c 5A190 94 10 04 K12 D DEC PDP 8 OS 8 Fam PAL 8 10g 90 09 13 HP9 C HP 9845 BASIC SAM HP BASIC 1 00 86 10 07 CK F DEC PDP 11 2 1x BSD Cc 5A190 94 10 04 HP9 C HP 98xx UCSD p Sys HP Pascal 84 01 20 K11 B DEC PDP 11 IAS 3 1 Macro 11 3 60 89 06 13 IK B IBM 870 Series CICS MVS Assembler 4 3 1 95 02 02 Page 30 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News Operating Program Program Released Operating Program Program Released Prefix Tape Machine System Language Version yy mm dd Prefix Tape Machine System Language Version yy mm dd IK B IBM 870 Series CICS VSE Assembler 4 3 1 95 02 02 CK F PC 286 amp higher QNX 4 2x Cc 5A190 94 10 04 MT2 D IBM 870 Series MTS PLUS 86 11 03 CK F PC 286 amp higher SCO Xenix Cc 5A190 94 10 04 MTS D IBM 370 Series MTS Assembler 84 01 06 CK F PC 286 amp higher Trusted Xenix C 5A190 94 10 04 MTS D IBM 870 Series MTS Pascal 1 0 84 01 06 CK F PC 386 amp higher 386BSD Cc 5A190 94 10 04 IK B IBM 870 Series MUSIC Assembler 4 2 3 92 09 30 CK F PC 386 amp higher BSDI 386 c 5A190 94 10 04 GUT D IBM 370 Series MVS GUTS Assembler 85 04 05 CK F PC 386 amp higher Coherent Cc 5A190 94 10 04 IK B IBM 3870 Series MVS ROSCOE Assembler 4 3 1 95 02 02 CK F PC 386 amp higher ESIX SVR3 C 5A190 94 10 04 IK B IBM 870 Series MVS TSO Assembler 4 3 1 95 02 02 CK F PC 386 amp higher FreeBSD c 5A190 94 10 04 IK B IBM 370 Series MVSXA TSOE Assembler 4 3 1 95 02 02 CK F PC 386 amp higher Interactive Cc 5A190 94 10 04
34. Kermit News Brazil Election Day 1994 Brazil s October 1994 general election was almost certainly the world s largest and most complex ever Kermit software played a crucial role In Rio de Janeiro ballots are transcribed to PCs for transmission to the tabulating center by MS DOS Kermit Article on page 19 Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 CONTENTS Editor s Notes occ oc Shee eb Ro Bok eB lw cde He ws Bae Syd ae ewe Pe be 1 New Releases MS DOS Kermit 3TA as aie oe eh AR EO AT A Sek DH he Re ees 3 ANGLD BOS E eae e ecg ah ng ake ge Oh a ad age Se ae aes PPD ee et 4 and Business Communication oao e 5 C K rmit 5A 190 si Suee as tds bb eon cs Bs a0 sg Bl teagan awe wu abs os tol y cde Me de cede GE 6 LOT UNDE ai ns eens ge haat SE Me ct aut HEE attend ge at EE a OR Ae E O Uz as 6 for VMS fs ves Set amp Ss Be Red 6S eS Res FER ER Bh Gt Bee 7 for OS D7 rai a ar cee wieght ler es Oe G ach es Bie wb when we kal G amp bees oe a and 7 for Stratus VOSS 2 7f se ye en ee a PD ae a ee 10 IBM Mainframe Kermit 370 4 3 1 2 2 0 0 0 02 cee ee ee 11 Digital PDP 11 Kermit 113 62 8 0 0 0 0 0 00 eee ee ene 11 Other New Kermit Releases Soucy me noate a a a a aa aa a a e a aa 11 New Features File Transfer Recovery rive 86 vos ah ies SOLE Ps E 12 Auto Upload Auto Download Auto Anything 0004 12 Character Sets Circumnavigating the Web with MS DOS Kermit
35. S DOS Kermit for Japanese e mail for the Japanese fj newsgroups such as fj kermit and for accessing the Nikkei Telecom Database a comprehensive online service of fering full text of most articles appearing in all major Japanese newspapers plus Japanese equivalents of Readers Guide to Periodical Literature and Books in Print patent registrations and all sorts of financial and corporate data Many Nikkei Telecom users prefer MS DOS Kermit over the Nikkei supplied ac cess software because Kermit offers additional essen tial capabilities such as session logging screen cap ture and scripting The Japanese fonts are combined into Code Page 982 also known as Shift JIS supplied with DOS V along with the Japanese keyboard input driver CP982 in cludes half width Roman a 7 bit character set iden tical to ASCII except in two positions half width Hankaku Katakana a 7 bit phonetic character set and then a double byte full width Kanji set consist ing of thousands of symbols Shifting among these three character sets which are all essential in Japanese writing is a challenge for the terminal emulator during both keyboard input and screen dis play but MS DOS Kermit 3 14 does it all It is now commonplace in Japan to make use of all Kermit s Kanji features compose long documents offline in the native PC environment transfer them with Kermit to a UNIX host translating them in the process from Shift JIS
36. S8 GCOS3 8 Cc 3 0 84 10 05 CVK D Computervision CGOS Fortran S 1 21 87 03 04 HC6 D Honeywell DPS90 CP 6 PL 6 1 00 88 01 28 PER D Concurrent 3200 OS 32 MT72 Fortran 1 0 87 03 04 HCP D Honeywell DPS90 CP 6 Pascal 85 04 04 CK F Concurrent 3200 Xelos SV Cc 5A190 94 10 04 HL6 C Honeywell L6 10 MS DOS MASM 1 20A 84 10 05 CK F Concurrent 6xxx RTU 4 5 6 Cc 5A190 94 10 04 HP8 C HP86 HP BASIC HP BASIC 1 01 87 04 29 CK F Convergent CTIX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 HP8 C HP87 HP BASIC HP BASIC 1 01 87 04 29 CT C Convergent NGEN CTOS c 2 00 93 01 20 MS A HP95 100 MS DOS MASM C 3 14 95 01 18 CK F Convex ConvexOS Cc 5A190 94 10 04 MS A HP Portable Plus MS DOS MASM 3 10 91 03 18 CP A CPT 85xx CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 MS A HP 110 MS DOS MASM 3 10 91 03 18 CK F Cray C90 UNICOS 6 7 8 C 5A190 94 10 04 CP A HP 125 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F Cray X MP Y MP UNICOS 6 7 8 C 5A190 94 10 04 MS A HP 150 MS DOS MASM 3 10 91 03 18 CR D Cray 1 Cray XMP CTSS Fortran 77 85 02 08 HPM D HP 1000 RTE6 RTEA F77 amp Asm 1 99D 90 01 09 CK F Cray 2 Cray 3 CSOS Cc 5A190 94 10 04 HP2 C HP 264x 8080ASM 1 2 87 10 09 CP A Cromemco CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 HP3 D HP 3000 MPE SPL 94 07 20 CN8 C Daisy PCi CCPM86 ASM86 2 9 86 04 10 HP3 D HP 3000 MPE Cc 94 07 20 CK F DEC Alpha AXP OpenVMS Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F HP 9000 HP UX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F DEC Alpha AXP OSF 1 c 5A190 94 10 04 HPB C HP 9000 200 300 HP BASIC HP BASIC 1 02 89 06 21 MS A DEC Alpha AXP Windows NT MASM C 3 14 95 01 18 C
37. Tektronix 4170 CPM86 ASM86 2 9 84 12 03 CK F MIPS System RISC os Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F Tektronix 4xxx UTek Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F Modcomp Real IX c 5A190 94 10 04 CK F Tektronix 6130 UTek Cc 5A190 94 10 04 MOD D Modcomp Classic MAX IV Fortran ASM A 0 87 01 26 CK F Tektronix XD88 UTek Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CP A MorrowDecisionI CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CP A Telcon Zorba CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CP A MorrowMicroDecl CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CP A Teletek CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 FL C Motorola 6809 Flex Assembler 86 02 14 UCT C Terak UCSD p Sys UCSD Pascal 84 04 11 FL2 C Motorola 6809 FLEX 09 Cc 3 0 87 03 04 TI9 D TI990 DX10 Pascal 1 0 87 07 10 CK F Motorola Delta SV 68 R3x Cc 5A190 94 10 04 EXP C TI Explorer LISP Common Lisp 1 0 87 03 04 CK F Motorola Delta SV 88 R3 4 Cc 5A190 94 10 04 MS A TI Professional MS DOS MASM 2 29 86 05 28 NCR D NCR 9800 4 VE4 0 Cc 4E 72 90 07 13 CP A Torch Unicorn 5 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CP A NCR Decisionmate CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F Tri Star Flash ESIX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F NCR System 3000 UNIX SVR4 C 5A190 94 10 04 co C TRS 80 CoCo DOS EDTASM 11 85 03 21 CK F NCR Tower 1632 UNIX SVR2 C 5A190 94 10 04 os9 C TRS 80 CoCo OS 9 c 1 5 85 09 20 CK F NCR Tower 32 UNIX SVR3 C 5A190 94 10 04 TRS C TRS 80 I and III TRSDOS M80 3 5 84 08 08 C86 C NEC APC CPM86 ASM86 2 9 84 12 03 CP A TRS 80 Model II CPM80 2 25 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 MS A NEC APC MS DOS MASM 2 29 86 05 28 TR2 C TRS 80 Model II TRSDOS Assembler 1 2 87 03
38. Y 10025 USA Phone 1 212 854 3703 FAX 1 212 663 8202 E Mail kermit columbia edu Sorry we can t respond by FAX Thank you Directory Staff Frank da Cruz Christine M Gianone Max Evarts Andy Newcomb Postal Address Kermit Development and Distribution Columbia University Academic Information Systems 612 West 115th Street New York NY 10025 USA Telephone Ordering Information 1 212 854 3703 Technical Support 1 212 854 5126 Fax 1 212 663 8202 Networks E mail kermit columbia edu News comp protocols kermit announce misc Web http www columbia edu kermit Kermit News Non Profit Org Kermit Development and Distribution aS Columbia University Academic Information Systems 612 West 115th Street New York N Y New York NY 10025 USA Permit 3593
39. a UNIX host and assumes UNIX prompts and other conventions It can easily be modified to run under C Kermit and or to access non UNIX host computers A copy of this script can be found on the MS DOS Kermit diskette as RECOVER SCR in the UTILS subdirectory Page 14 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News Auto Upload Auto Download Auto Anything Kermit users often ask Why is it so hard to transfer files Why are there so many steps Why do I have to escape back give a SEND or RECEIVE command and then give another CONNECT command If I give a file transfer command to one Kermit program why can t it just take care of everything itself Stop asking so many questions You wanted it to be easier now it can be MS DOS Kermit 3 13 an nounced in our last issue added a new capability called APC which stands for Application Program Command see box When an APC capable Kermit program receives an APC while in CONNECT mode it executes the com mands contained in the APC and then returns automatically to the CONNECT screen This allows the host application to initiate file transfers in either direction auto upload and download It also lets the host application operate and configure Kermit in all sorts of other ways such as setting pro tocol and file parameters or loading custom keymaps This makes it easy for administrators of central cor porate computers dialup information services and BBSs to create canned pr
40. a WWW navigator or newsreader but it has a distinct advantage it can handle a wide variety of character sets and writing systems simply and easily It s practically compulsory nowadays to surf the In formation Superhighway using high powered graphi cal navigation tools but once you leave the confines of your own country or more often attempt to access information that is not written in English you are very likely to run into trouble A quick tour of the World Wide Web WWW using NCSA Mosaic on a Hewlett Packard workstation turned up only garbage in place of accented or non Roman characters when trying to access Web pages in just about every country we visited Costa Rica Belgium the Czech Republic France Germany Hungary Iceland Israel Italy Norway Poland Russia Much time was wasted trying to rectify the problem involving adding hundreds of cryptic lines to the Xresources file repeatedly shutting down and reloading the X Windows system logging out and back in all to no avail German still came out look ing like Icelandic Russian and Hebrew were hope less A solution was found eventually but it only works for the Western European Latin 1 languages HyperText Markup Language or HTML the lan guage of the Web does not allow for any other writ ing systems Similar problems occur when using graphical newsreaders like NewsGrazer and the ones built in to Mosaic and Netscape they don
41. ailable now on several popular UNIX platforms two new device drivers can be used to generate color graphics directly on your Kermit display To view a graph from an interactive SAS GRAPH ses sion use this syntax at the beginning of your graphics program GOPTIONS DEVICE KRMT Xxx where xxx is VGA or AUTO corresponding to Kermit s SET TERMINAL GRAPHICS setting For more information on these device drivers contact SAS Institute Technical Support at 1 919 677 8008 and ask for the Graphics group To view sample full color Kermit SAS graphics screens point your graphics Web browser at URL http www columbia edu kermit shots html Page 4 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News MS DOS Kermit Meets the BBS Most Bulletin Board Systems BBSs today either lack support for Kermit protocol or supply a poor im plementation Now BBSs can use the Real MS DOS Kermit itself as an external protocol Why should a BBS add or upgrade Kermit file transfer 1 To make your BBS accessible to Kermit software pro grams The new releases of MS DOS Kermit and OS 2 C Kermit include ANSI terminal emulation required for accessing BBSs 2 Kermit file transfer is robust It works well even when connections are noisy And properly imple mented and configured it is just as fast or faster than other protocols see benchmarks in Kermit News 5 3 Kermit protocol survives 7 bit connections most other protocols do not
42. aims submission and EDI Electronic Data Inter change applications Much of this new software relies on MS DOS Kermit to make the connec tions and transfer the data behind the scenes Health care providers and insurers are turning to PCs and modems to eliminate costly paperwork in or der to reduce health care costs and speed up the reimbursement process Claim forms are filled out on the computer screen in the doctor s office hospital or pharmacy and submitted at the touch of a button to a medical claims clearinghouse or directly to the in surance company Over the years every insurer and clearinghouse de veloped proprietary and incompatible formats and software The recent growth in electronic claims sub mission has spurred a movement towards standar dization allowing for example a doctor s office to submit different types of claims in a uniform manner The American National Standards Institute ANSI recently approved EDI formats for Insurance Claims Submission and Electronic Remittance and this will only hasten the end of the mountains of paper sys tem with all its confusion and delays and will enable not only a standardized method for electronic submis sion of claims but also for their payment A similar movement is stirring in the consumer electronics market where warranty claims can now be filed electronically Likewise companies that use computers to keep track of inventory can now refresh the
43. ballots Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 21 including those for state and federal representatives and senators and for transferring the results of the presidential race from each tabulating station to the Superior Electoral Court in Brasilia and at the same time offered any interested party particularly the press all information concerning the election espe cially the numbers coming out of the ballots boxes Meanwhile 3 800 Digital Equipment Corporation DECpc personal computers with modems special data entry software and Columbia University s MS DOS Kermit software were installed at 2 000 data entry and transmission sites in all parts of Brazil some of them so remote that they could only be reached by boat or small plane Thus Kermit software linked together the two worlds the world outside the network and the world inside it In more than one sense Kermit was the bridge con necting the external unprotected world to the inter nal Gauntlet protected world Election Day On Election Day the one and only day all Brazilians are equal they each have one vote the polls are open from 8am to 5pm Because of the numerous races involved the voting was conducted in two parts the state and federal races each had a separate bal lot First the voter shows personal and voter iden tification and receives a white ballot Then behind a screen the voter chooses one presidential candidate and two federal se
44. d says The QNX net work transparently supports several standard proto cols while simultaneously carrying its own high speed FTL protocol Kermit extends QNX s connectivity by providing a broad spectrum communications solution that lets users make connections to and transfer files with virtually any other kind of computer over ei ther serial connections or TCP IP For more info on QNX phone QNX Software Systems at 1 800 676 0566 or 1 613 591 0931 Internet info qnx com VMS C Kermit Like UNIX C Kermit the Open VMS version of C Kermit 5A 190 for Digital Equipment Corporation VAX and Alpha AXP computers incorporates major new features like file transfer recovery and auto up and download during CONNECT mode described in separate articles as well as user controllable auto matic directory creation for incoming files that in clude directory names However of even greater interest to some VMS shops might be the fact that the new release is able to run in batch jobs and when SPAWNed from other programs such as ALL IN ONE or VMS MAIL This was our number one wish list item from VMS users for the new release Other important new features include support for the CMU Tektronix TCP IP package and new automatic compensation for small system buffers during file transfer now long packets can generally be used even when big buffers have not been installed in VMS at SYSGEN time VMS C Kermit binaries are available fo
45. dinavia We run two of the BBS lines as direct connect to a Portmaster box ac ting as a Telnet server to let people get to the BBS over the Internet our address is bbs gar no for those who d like to try it Because the Telnet server only gives us a short carrier interruption before it s ready to accept a new login it s very important that exter nal protocols terminate quickly when carrier is dropped so that the BBS can sense the drop KER LITE fulfils this requirement Other options set here make sure that Kermit tidies up after failed uploads and also forbids access to files other than those specified by the BBS in the command line both of which are important requirements for a BBS Experience so far has shown KERLITE to be extremely reliable as an external protocol MS DOS Kermit may be used by BBS operators with out any special arrangements Simply order it in stall it according to the instructions in the BBS Operators section of the KERMIT UPD file and then an nounce it to your users Makers and vendors of BBS software packages may contact us if they would like to make arrangements to package MS DOS Kermit with their products Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 5 MS DOS Kermit Means Business In recent years MS DOS Kermit has seen increasing use within business software as a communications and scripting program and or file transfer engine This phenonenon is especially evident in electronic cl
46. e Macintosh AU X Cc 5A190 94 10 04 RDO D DGNova RDOS Fortran 5 84 09 14 CK F Apple Macintosh Mac OS MPW C 0991 94 08 16 AOS D DGS250 AOS Fortran 5 84 09 14 CK F Apple Macintosh MachTen Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F DIAB DS90 DNIX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CN8 C Argos Pro PC CCPM86 ASM86 2 9 86 04 10 CK F Dolphin Triton UNIX SV 88 C 5A190 94 10 04 CK F AT amp T 3B Series UNIX SVR3 C 5A190 94 10 04 CK F Encore UMAX 4 x c 5A190 94 10 04 CK F AT amp T 6300 PLUS UNIX SVR3 C 5A190 94 10 04 CK F Encore UMAX V c 5A190 94 10 04 CK F AT amp T 6386 WGS UNIX SVR3 C 5A190 94 10 04 CP A Epson PX8 CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F AT amp T 7300 UNIXPC UNIX SysV C 5A190 94 10 04 LUX C FACIT DTC DTC2 ABC DOS ABC BASIC II4 11 90 07 13 ATA C Atari Home Comp DOS Action 84 01 09 CN8 C Fallon 2000 CCPM86 ASM86 2 9 86 04 10 UCP C Atari MEGA ST2 UCSD p Sys Pascal 1 1 90 08 05 CP A Ferguson BigB I CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CK F AtariST GEMDOS Cc 5A189 93 06 30 CK F Fortune 32 16 For Pro2 1 c 5A190 94 10 04 CK F AtariST MINIX ST Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CK F FPS 500 FPX 4 1 Cc 5A190 94 10 04 CP A BigBoard II CPM80 2 2 LASM 4 11 91 04 23 CN8 C FTSPCi CCPM86 ASM86 2 9 86 04 10 B78 D Burroughs A Series MCS AS Algol 1 019 86 09 11 C86 C Fujitsu Microl6s CPM86 ASM86 2 9 85 09 23 CT C Burroughs B20 BTOS Cc 2 00 93 01 20 C86 C Future FX20 FX30 CPM86 ASM86 2 9 86 04 10 B68 D Burroughs B6800 CANDE Algol 85 02 15 GEC D GEC 4000 Series 054000 MUM SERC 3 9 89 05 07 B78 D Burroughs B7800 Burroughs Algol 1 0
47. e system was reinstated Interestingly now that both systems are readily available many able bodied students say they prefer the old command line interface Many DOS based communication programs are pseudo GUIs a development that has perilous con sequences for blind computer users Because these software packages feature dialogue boxes pull down menus and graphical file transfer thermometers they are inherently more difficult to access by screen reader than text based communication programs Kermit and Screen Readers I encourage my clients who use screen readers in con junction with communication software to try MS DOS Kermit for the following reasons 1 Compatibility Because MS DOS Kermit is a com mand line processing application it works beautifully with screen readers Kermit has no pull down menus or dialog boxes Users type commands at the prompt and during terminal emulation they perform special functions by pressing hotkeys Screen reading pro grams configured for DOS can often be used with Kermit with little or no modification Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 27 2 Automation MS DOS Kermit s rich macro lan guage is an exceptional medium for writing robust dial up log in and special purpose scripts 3 Simplicity MS DOS Kermit s macro language makes it possible to reduce a complex series of com mands to a single macro or keystroke For example a script for uploading a file
48. ends to fill in the sys tem dependent modules of C Kermit which perform serial and file I O As a side benefit C Kermit supports X 25 and TCP IP connections similar to the VOS CALL_THRU and TELNET commands There was file transfer support for X 25 on VOS but only with modifications to a sys tem server x25_exchange pm and with unsupported software from Stratus Of course TCP IP file trans fers can use FTP but using FTP through a corporate firewall or proxy server can be difficult to automate Using the ACCESS macros in C Kermit is much easier than using different commands for each type of connection Having the X 25 and TELNET support within C Kermit has also helped to debug the option setting on remote connections because we can have a single method that allows us to see the options for both X 25 and TCP IP rather than having different methods for each and C Kermit doesn t require privilege to debug it s own connections Using the ACCESS macros in C Kermit is much easier than using different com mands for each type of remote host connection and it greatly simplifies the use of proxy servers So now we have a full featured C Kermit implemen tation for Stratus VOS that fills a need in this area of critical computing Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 11 Other Recent Releases IBM Mainframe Kermit 4 3 1 Kermit 370 version 4 3 1 for IBM mainframes with CICS CMS MUSIC and TSO and TSO s
49. ented and special characters mnemonically for example Alt c and u sends t u circumflex just as in MS DOS Kermit and as on a real VT220 terminal All sorts of improvements have been made to the on screen helpers and prompters the status line in dicates exactly what is going on context sensitive pop up help screens are available in all different Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 9 modes online rolled back compose key sequences and so on There are no sacred keys in C Kermit s terminal emulator all functions can be remapped to other keys and the help screens and status line keep track automatically And of course you have total control over the colors used in all types of screen ele ments the status line the pop up screens the ter minal screen and so on Printer functions are expanded and improved host directed and user initiated printing of online screens and sessions is now available as well as redirection of printer material to a file or device Finally a powerful session debugging capability has been added similar to a professional quality ex pensive line monitor It shows control characters eight bit characters escape sequences and even TELNET option negotiations symbolically but read ably in different colors and renditions for easy problem diagnosis and perhaps more importantly to help you with your INPUT and OUTPUT commands when you are constructing script programs so y
50. er keys by sound for easy use by QWERTY typists pick the one that is most natural for you In both cases a hot key switches the keyboard between English and Roman modes For e mail which is predominantly 7 bit you should use Short KOI which is understood by most Russian computer users MS Kermit gt cyrillic shortkoi Some applications might also require the new 8 bit ISO standard MS Kermit gt cyrillic latinc As always you can also transfer Cyrillic text files be tween your PC and any computer that is running C Kermit 5A or IBM Mainframe Kermit 4 2 or later with full character set translation as explained in the appropriate Kermit manuals Now back to the World Wide Web Switching to a text based Web browser Lynx from the University of Kansas on a UNIX host and using MS DOS Kermit as your terminal emulator you can surf the Russian Web in Russian for example starting at URL http www ac msk su Roman Alphabet For West European languages using the Roman al phabet but with accented letters and sometimes a few special letters like German 9 a wide variety of char acter sets both 7 bit and 8 bit is in use Most of the 8 bit sets are proprietary HP Roman8 Data General etc the standard is ISO 8859 1 Latin Al phabet 1 The 7 bit sets come from the older ISO 646 standards one for each language or country in which certain ASCII characters normally I Ne cle te dl doe a are sacr
51. ermit command file Webbing with C Kermit MS DOS Kermit is not the only Kermit program that can handle character sets C Kermit all versions IBM mainframe Kermit all versions can also con vert among diverse encodings for Roman alphabet and Cyrillic alphabet languages Hebrew Japanese and other languages as an integral part of text file transfer This is a unique capability of Kermit proto col and software Most C Kermit implementations can also handle character set conversion during CONNECT mode just as MS DOS Kermit does IBM Mainframe Kermit does not have a CONNECT mode The difference is that most C Kermit programs do not contain actual terminal emulators but instead provide a semi transparent pipe to a terminal terminal window or terminal emulator Thus loading of fonts and so on must be accomplished outside of C Kermit An exception is version 5A 191 of OS 2 C Kermit It has a terminal emulator and it comes with Cyrillic Hebrew and other fonts that can be loaded when C Kermit is running in a fullscreen session the fonts can t be loaded in an OS 2 window because then Ker mit does not have access to the video adapter This lets you use OS 2 C Kermit to access Hebrew applications such as ALEPH just as you would with MS DOS Kermit and to read Russian and East Euro pean newsgoups and most of the rest Now since most versions of C Kermit OS 2 UNIX VMS VOS like MS DOS Kermit itself are full
52. es the Federal District 300 000 ballot boxes eight presidential candidates 231 Federal Senate candidates 3164 candidates for seats in the Federal House of Representatives 7977 to a seat in one of the 600 seats in 27 states plus the federal district and 134 candidates for 28 governor ships Altogether we are talking of 501 456 916 votes in the first round alone And all of them checked and double checked were transferred with Kermit software The chairman judge in charge of the TSE Minister Sep lveda Pertence and the court s director general Alysson Mitraud did not take these numbers lightly Despite the risks of failure and the uncertainty of gaining widespread support for their decision the two officials decided to proceed with the automation The single most important factor to the venture s suc cess was close and effective partnerships with soft ware and hardware vendors Among the software providers were Kermit developer Frank da Cruz of Columbia University and his col laborator Joe Doupnik of Utah State University who both worked with the TSE to make everything run as smoothly as possible Old Style Elections The Brazilian electorate has evolved since the country s first election in the mid 19th century At that time only the richest could vote The richest men that is women could not vote Eventually the standard for elegible voters was universalized This meant that every man could vote as
53. es of our three most popular com munications software programs 1 MS DOS Kermit for DOS and Windows 2 C Kermit for UNIX OS 2 OpenVMS Stratus VOS and several other operating systems 3 IBM Mainframe Kermit for VM CMS MVS TSO CICS and MUSIC These new versions offer e File transfer failure recovery for DOS Windows UNIX VMS OS 2 OS 9 AOS VS VOS Amiga and IBM mainframes see the article on page 12 e Auto download upload configuration via APC mech anism article on p 14 e General improvements in performance script pro gramming client server protocol terminal emulation character sets dialing and much more New and full featured C Kermit programs are avail able for QNX and Stratus VOS And there also is new support for recent OS releases in the ever changing UNIX market article on p 6 Kermit software today is a powerful consistent and fully interopable communications solution for the industry s most popular computers In the December 1994 issue of DEC Professional mag azine Kevin Barkes writes in his column The newest MS Kermit and C Kermit programs have fea tures and speeds rivaling the leading commercial soft ware packages Of Kermit s role in the 1994 Brazilian elections see our article on page 19 he says If Kermit can work in a difficult situation like this you can imagine what it can do in your shop A Word to Our Sponsors The Kermit project is entirely sel
54. f supporting funded by book sales mail orders and commercial licenses Since our last issue there has been an explosion in the popularity of the Internet Our Internet ftp site KERMIT COLUMBIA EDU always a popular Internet resource is now playing host to thousands of file transfer requests each day The increased accessibility of Kermit software via network is good and bad too While were delighted with its increased visibility and popularity mail orders are down and our support burden is up To keep pace we must increase our mail order sales and the use of our documentation Our manuals teach users even complete novices how to use Ker mit software effectively and are also excellent refer ence works for seasoned professionals and everyone in between Please keep in mind e The manuals reduce the load on our help desk and yours e Sales of the manuals are the primary source of fund ing for the Kermit project Second we look to those large organizations that save huge amounts of money on software licensing and support by distributing Kermit software internally to purchase manuals from us in bulk at quantity dis counts and to consider making contributions to the Kermit effort so we may continue to produce and sup port the software that saves them so much money Third we must reemphasize our policy towards com mercial distribution of Kermit software Remember most Kermit software is not in the public domain
55. friend ROSCOE is now available Its major new feature is the ability to recover interrupted Kermit transfers when used in conjunction with MS DOS Kermit 3 14 or C Kermit 5A 190 described in detail in the article on page 12 Any interrupted binary mode file trans fer even a non Kermit one can be restarted with this facility and the resulting file will be identical to what would have been received in a single transfer Its other major new feature is the ability to initiate automatic file transfers with MS DOS Kermit 3 14 or C Kermit 5A 190 by sending Application Program Command APC escape sequences see article on page 14 Also the CMS and CICS variants can now set the date time stamp for a received file to match that of the original and the MUSIC variant has newly added support for long names and now allows arbitrary MUSIC commands to be executed from within Kermit Kermit 370 4 3 1 has been verified to transfer both text and binary files flawlessly with the new 3270 ter minal emulator supplied with Cisco terminal server software release 10 3 even with performance features such as long packets and 8 bit transparency enabled This is welcome news for the many sites where Ciscos provide dialup access to the mainframe Thanks as always to John Chandler of the Harvard Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory for the new release January 1995 Tape B EMACS Yes EMACS An implementation of Kermit was written on a dare
56. from a PC to a UNIX main frame included on the MS DOS Kermit 3 14 diskette as UTILS UPLOAD SCR was custom designed for a blind doctoral student who had no interest in learn ing the complexities of using a computer 4 Special Commands MS DOS Kermit features many special commands that make it a practical choice for use with screen readers among those described in Chapter 15 of Using MS DOS Kermit 2nd Edition by Christine M Gianone An example Kermit s screen reader friendly com mands is SET DISPLAY SERIAL which causes the status of the transfer to be written to the screen as a series of dots and pluses instead of as a screen thermometer and columns of continuously changing numbers When using a screen reader the default setting SET DISPLAY REGULAR produces an alphanumeric stream of consciousness SET DISPLAY SERIAL transforms the cacophony into a useful gauge of file transfer progress Other settings that I would usually recommend for use with screen readers include SET TERMINAL MARGIN BELL ON SET INPUT ECHO OFF SET MODE LINE OFF SET TERMINAL VIDEO WRITING BIOS Of particular utility is the SET KEY command With it I can reassign application keystrokes that conflict with screen reader commands disable online applica tion keystrokes that have untoward effects and bind special purpose macros and scripts to a key For ex ample UPLOAD SCR might be activated by Alt u define UPLOAD take upload scr set key 2326
57. gt PCSEND is a single command that takes the place of 1 Give a SEND filename command to C Kermit 2 Escape back to the MS DOS Kermit prompt 3 Tell MS DOS Kermit to RECEIVE 4 When the transfer is complete tell MS DOS Kermit to CONNECT again Now steps 2 4 happen automatically The same is true in the reverse direction with PCGET APC All Around The new release of C Kermit OS 2 UNIX VMS and OS 9 versions can not only send APCs but also respond to them while in CONNECT mode and the new MS DOS Kermit can not only respond to them but also send them The new Kermit 370 can send them too So now you can choose one from column A and one from column B and start automating A Local B Remote MS DOS Kermit MS DOS Kermit OS 2 C Kermit UNIX C Kermit UNIX C Kermit VMS C Kermit VMS C Kermit OS 9 C Kermit OS 9 C Kermit IBM Mainframe Kermit The ability of the remote application to initiate file transfers automatically in either direction is a big step forward in the ease of use department especially when the host application is menu driven Since it is so easy to hide Kermit software behind menus it s only a matter of time until one touch file transfer becomes the norm in Kermit land Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 15 Circumnavigating the Web with MS DOS Kermit Frank da Cruz Thanks to the Internet the world is becoming smaller every day MS DOS Kermit might not be
58. hat character set is used on the host you can always enter u circumflex the same way Alt c for Compose then circumflex then u Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 17 Hebrew In Israel of course as well as up the street at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America JTSA and elsewhere people need to access Hebrew ap plications on the host text editors such as HEDT on VMS and vi iv or Mule or Hebrew Pico on UNIX Hebrew Pine and other e mail and especially Hebrew University s ALEPH library catalog software which runs at all major universities in Israel as well as at JTSA and which accepts Hebrew queries and also can display the results in Hebrew Here again we have the classic problem different computers use different encodings for Hebrew letters 7 bit Hebrew 7 ISO Latin Hebrew IBM PC Code Page 862 IBM Mainframe CECP 424 each incom patible with the others Confounding the situation further is the intrinsically bidirectional nature of the Hebrew writing system Hebrew letters right to left digits and Roman letters left to right The only communications software I know of that handles all this smoothly is Kermit Since version 3 13 MS DOS Kermit has included full Hebrew character set translation as well as Hebrew VT terminal emulation at the VT420 level which in cludes host directed screen writing direction Ver sion 3 14 however is the first release to come with
59. he move away from traditional data collection techniques has eliminated seven million sheets of paper a year already we expect this to rise toa savings of twenty million within two years As far security is concerned once the call has been made to the PAD the process is entirely automated and the user cannot escape to gain access either to the PAD or the SPARCstation The autocall facility on the PAD is set to call only a single host our SPARCstation in London Once the call arrives at the host a modified login process takes the call and fires up Kermit in a restricted shell from which the end user cannot escape At the head office the SPARCstation joins the GNS network via four 64K digital links which automati cally load share and perform hand offs to other cir cuits if any should fail This gives us an inbound capacity of 256K second handled by SunLink X 25 There is a single menu option available to the inter viewer to transfer data to head office In all cases a single ZIP d file is sent from the PC to the Sun and another back from the Sun to the PC Actually there are other hidden menu options to put Kermit into verbose mode for error trapping A long 500 lines Kermit script file handles the en tire communications process It reads data from the configuration file and sets up a call to the local PoP Because there are over 70 ways in which the process can fail there is extensive error check
60. ial thanks to Jeff Altman for massive contribu tions to the OS 2 specific portions of OS 2 C Kermit 5A 190 to Kai Uwe Rommel for his sage advice and to the OS 2 Developers and Testers group for cheer fully fielding an endless barrage of Alphas and Betas OS 2 C Kermit Take Two Already But we didn t stop there C Kermit 5A 191 an OS 2 only C Kermit release 5A 190 is still current for UNIX VMS et al adds the following improve ments and new features e The terminal emulator is about 500 percent faster than before scrolling text even in an OS 2 Window at about 200 full width lines per second On TEL NET connections it is about four times faster than the system TELNET program With speeds like this screen updates and scrolling will never be a bot tleneck on serial connections not even the fastest ones e 132 column mode is available in Full Screen sessions on video adapters that support it Under Warp ar bitrary screen dimensions are supported in an OS 2 Window Terminal emulation screen width and height can be set by new C Kermit commands and Page 10 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News TELNET screen size negotiations NAWS are now supported as well as host directed 80 132 column mode switching e Hebrew and Cyrillic EGA VGA SVGA fonts are sup plied and can be loaded in a Full Screen session This means that you can have Hebrew and Cyrillic ter minal sessions without having to install s
61. ificed for the special characters needed in a particular language thus each ISO 646 version is in compatible with all the others ISO 646 sets are com monly used in e mail a predominantly 7 bit medium For example when you receive e mail from H kan Sjlberg in Sweden it is probably from Hakan Sjoberg fictitious name encoded in ISO 646 Tell Kermit to SET TERMINAL CHARACTER SET SWEDISH and it will look right On the other hand if the same person s return address looks like Hekan Sjvberg it was probably encoded originally in 8 bit Latin 1 and had its 8th bit chopped off on its way to you an irritating trait of many e mail systems Newsgroups on the other hand use an 8 bit trans port and one can often find Latin 1 encoding in them In one newsgroup recently swnet svenska there was a debate in Swedish over the relative merits of Swedish ISO 646 and ISO Latin 1 with the encoding of each message reflecting the preference of its au thor This was handled quite nicely by setting up hot keys in MS DOS Kermit to switch between the two character sets without leaving CONNECT mode def swedish set term char swedish c def latinl set term char latinl c set key 315 Kswedish set key 316 Klatinl Here we assign one macro to F1 and the other to F2 When a message comes up that is not readable we push the other hot key and then ask our news reader to redisplay the message Hunting through the newsg
62. in EMACS Lisp by Bob Manson of MIT and Ben Mesander of the US Geographical Survey in June 1994 It works with GNU EMACS versions 18 and 19 It s a bare bones implementation that should be portable to any machine where EMACS runs UNIX VMS etc It lets you transfer files in text or binary mode into and out of an EMACS buffer for example when using MS DOS Kermit as a terminal emulator into a UNIX or VMS system where you are editing with EMACS Tape B Digital PDP 11 RT 11 and TSX Version V03 62 8 of Kermit 11 for the Digital PDP 11 with the RT 11 or TSX Plus operating system and for Pro 350 380 systems with Pro RT or TSX Plus was contributed by Billy Youdelman on behalf of DECUS the Digital Equipment Computer Users Society This program runs under RT 11 from V4 and TSX from V5 A special minimum version for floppy disk based systems is included especially handy on sys tems having no line time clock or for getting files from small systems often found in older image processing equipment File creation date time TSX only protection and length attributes are now sup ported and work with C Kermit and MS DOS Kermit And smaller program size bigger packets improved communications and modem control faster CONNECT sessions and command line arguments are now sup ported September 1993 Tape B Apple Macintosh No significant progress has been on Macintosh Ker mit since Kermit News 5 volunteers Except The bug tha
63. ing and report ing in the script file Having set the call up to the PoP Kermit logs in and the PoP automatically and sets up an X 25 call to the Sun here in London this is Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 25 the GNS autocall feature Kermit then logs into the Sun host does some authentication and then starts C Kermit on the Sun in server mode The PC file is uploaded first and then if it exists the Sun file is downloaded At any failure or exception an external program is called to beep and display an appropriate flashing er ror message Otherwise the communication session terminates normally and the machine is returned to the main menu We ll be upgrading to Kermit 3 14 soon to take advan tage of the the new performance and recovery fea tures which will greatly improve the overall system We experience around 10 failure rates on the UK phone system which can be frustrating if you are 250K into a 300K transfer We ve already lab tested this feature to death and have found it to be ex tremely successful and will be deploying it following some more small scale field trials with agents dotted around the country Since February 1994 we have transferred over 50 000 files of about 250K each on average 12 5Gbytes roughly Kermit has performed mag nificently and the sophistication of the scripting and error reporting has meant that even when things have gone wrong the support team has easily been able to
64. into valid ballots In Brazil originally a title of honor which could be awarded by or bought from the federal government Eventually the title took a derogatory meaning when used to identify landowners industry barons and other rich and powerful people who used their money and influence to force common people and lesser politicians to do what they wanted When refering to elections the term always means the rich influential and conservative persons who use their power and money to allure or coerce poor voters The 1994 Election For the 1994 election the TSE was ready to fully ac cept any challenge posed by total automation it wanted to take computer automation as far as pos sible This included automating the voter and can didate registry and verification data transfer among regional election courts supervising the elections and tabulating stations public access to voting regula tions and dissemination of the results The only phase not automated was the tabulation of individual ballot boxes not surprisingly the only phase to suf fer fraud in the 1994 election primarily in Rio MS DOS Kermit software was installed at 2 000 data entry and transmission sites in all parts of Brazil some of them so remote that they could only be reached by boat or small plane The elements of election automation include hard ware operating system networking software data base software transmission lines secur
65. ir stocks automatically when items run low using software that sends orders to their suppliers by modem Retail distributors of standardized parts and components can now have pricing updates loaded automatically into their business computer systems by their suppliers Much of this new software relies on MS DOS Kermit to make the connections and transfer the data behind the scenes Because of its unobtrusive user interface MS DOS Kermit can be invisible to the user and be cause of its powerful script language it can easily be programmed to do automatically anything that might be done interactively such as dialing up logging in handling various error conditions and of course transferring data swiftly and accurately Student Financial Aid by Modem XAP Company of Los Angeles California is putting together a package to allow admissions and financial aid applications for higher education institutions throughout the United States to be created on PCs and then submitted either on diskette or by modem According to Allen Firstenberg XAP President through the development of information manage ment technologies data collection hard copy print ing multimedia interactive information display database management and electronic data exchange XAP Company is making the task of filling out complex forms simple for students and their parents and also more efficient to process Kermit Lite driven by a custom script prog
66. is needed RESEND filename The same file can be recovered in this way more than once for example if the phone connection is broken several times Another interesting property of the RESEND feature is that it can also be used to recover interrupted non Kermit transfers such as with Ymodem G or FTP As long as you have a partial file that was trans ferred in binary mode by whatever means you can continue the transfer from the point of failure using Kermit s new RESEND feature When you combine Kermit s automation features with its new recovery ability you can create script programs like the one opposite that are virtually guaranteed to transfer a file even under the worst conditions by automatically redialing and RESENDing each time there is a failure until the file is com pletely transferred Once started such a script can run totally unattended read the newspaper go out to dinner take a nap relax don t worry barring to tal failure of the telephone network or destruction of one of the computers the file will get through What about text mode transfers These can t be recovered automatically because there is no reliable correspondence between the original file and the transferred file many operating mark lines of text differently CR carriage return and LF linefeed at the end as in DOS LF only as in UNIX CR only as on the Mac via length fields or other mechanisms on record oriented file system
67. ith Kermit software as a fallback in case the network should fail Page 24 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News Kermit and Market Research in the UK The Role of Kermit Software in our Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing System Pat Molloy Operations Director NOP Research Group Limited Tower House Southampton Street London WC2E 7HN England NOP is the third largest market research company in the UK Roughly 55 of our interviewing is done face to face conducted by some 1600 field staff located all over the country In February 1994 we equipped 600 of our field staff with small personal computers with which to conduct this data gathering exercise Naturally we required a cost effective and reliable method for transferring data to and from these machines It must be borne in mind that the typical market research interviewer is no PC expert and so a further prime requirement was that the system had to be pretty well idiot and bomb proof We looked at a number of commercial offerings which as well as being expensive also did not give us the required functionality We decided early on that the prospect of managing a rack of fifty or so modems filled us with dread and therefore looked towards a service provider giving us a number of dial up Points of Presence PoPs all over the country Not only did this mean that the modems were avoided but it also offered us the potential to significantly reduce our telecommunication
68. ity software terminal emulation and file transfer software For each of these elements the Electoral Court found a working partner Hewlett Packard Company and its Brazilian distributor Mito for example supplied ser vers operating system and networking software Trusted Information Systems TIS and PADR O iX supplied security software and consulting services And Columbia University furnished Kermit for ter minal emulation and file transfers The Electoral Network The electoral computer network was composed of 33 HP RISC servers whose size varies from state to state according to population Each machine runs HP UX and includes both TCP IP and X 25 networking TCP IP would suffice save that the only public net work available in Brazil RENPAC is X 25 based In fact it is only the bare bones of a network providing no services not even transport So having TCP IP and being able to make it run on top of X 25 was a distinct advantage The available X 25 infrastructure permitted TSE to build a virtual network connecting all the regional courts within just a few weeks em bodying functionality that TCP IP users were fami liar with The RISC servers installed at each regional electoral court ran HP UX Oracle database software supplied by Oracle s Brazilian distributor UNIMIX Gauntlet security software from TIS and Columbia Univer sitys C Kermit communications software Each machine was responsible for tallying all state
69. like UNIX VOS does not come with a dial out program though some can be found There are several programs available but they either require specific software at the remote end to perform file transfers do not perform file transfers at all or are quite costly I had previously developed a small communications program for our support group to use to dial out to 1The mention of Stratus in Tom Clancey s Debt of Honor not withstanding our customers for remote maintainance I had been getting many requests to add file transfer capability to this program However I wanted to have a better program than what I was prepared to write from scratch so I started to look around at what was avail able and soon discovered a portable full featured implementation of Kermit written in C Great care has been taken by all the people involved with C Kermit to al low it to work with older compilers It only took several evenings to get the basic sources compiled under the VOS C compiler even though it was at the time not an ANSI compiler Great care has been taken by all the people involved with C Kermit to allow it to work with older compilers Even though the VOS compiler at the time had many ANSI features if C Kermit had required a full ANSI compliant compiler I would have had a great deal of trouble getting it to work on VOS After the portable pieces of the C Kermit code compiled it took several months of evenings and week
70. ll in your shipping information Use only the payment methods indicated please do NOT attempt to pay us with international bank transfers or postal coupons or with credit cards that are not listed 1 PAYMENT BY CREDIT CARD Check one MasterCard O Visa Cardholder Name TOTAL PAYMENT Line A above Card Number Expiration Date Signature Today s Date 2 PREPAYMENT BY CHECK Please make your check payable in US dollars to Columbia University Kermit Distribution B If your check is not drawn on a US bank please add a 35 check cashing fee TOTAL AMOUNT OF YOUR CHECK Lines A and B 1 0 0 0 cece eens 3 PURCHASE ORDER WE BILL YOU PO Number C Add 25 invoicing fee D If your check will not be drawn on a US bank add 35 check cashing fee TOTAL Lines A C and D Please enclose your purchase order for this amount 5 SHIPPING INFORMATION Please do not use Post Office Box for UPS or Federal Express Name Company Address City State or Province Zip or Postal Code Country Phone E Mail and or Fax if any If you want us to use your Federal Express account please provide account number and authorized signature Federal Express Account Number Signature MAIL YOUR COMPLETED ORDER FORM TO Kermit Distribution Columbia University Academic Information Systems 612 West 115th Street New York N
71. llot box are added to the total as they ar rive An exact copy of each individual box s result is kept so if any fraud eventually turns up in any ballot box its votes can be deducted easily from the total Newspapers TV and radio stations poll takers and other interested parties could access partial results using a number of methods Here again TIS s Gauntlet ensured that only cleared information flows out and no tampering is possible And Kermit was there too ensuring that the information that flowed in piece by piece can now flow out in aggregate Kermit s update feature allowed any user with read privileges to dial in and download the latest numbers without tying up valuable telephone lines unneces sarily if no updates had occurred since last time Page 22 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News Kermit s flexible scripting language eliminated the end user contact with the file transfer mechanism after automatically dialing Kermit would check whether the remote file was newer than the local one and transfer it only if it was In any case the local application would proceed This way no file was ever transferred twice and no user had to control any thing Kermit took care of all this automatically Using Kermit s powerful scripting language the results of each ballot box as well as the aggregated results were easily transferred from end to end all complexities were hidden under Kermit s well thought out
72. nando Henrique Cardoso is recog nized as a prudent person an intellectual who has written dozens of books and taught sociology in the USA England France and Chile As the Economy Minister he reduced inflation from 48 per month to about 3 in less than five months Since his election as President inflation has dropped to under one per cent per month and the Real has gained value against the US dollar which not even the wildest dreamer could have predicted a year ago 85 of Brazilians are optimistic about the future and the economy is growing by leaps and bounds The Future Today Brazilians seem to be ready and eager to have the next election in 1996 completely automated The TSE conducted extensive studies not only of computer technology but also of the Brazilian public s reactions to these new technologies to identify the right tools to provide a fully automated election within two years In this upcoming election when almost 5 000 mayors and 50 000 city representatives will be elected 100 million Brazilians will touch a screen not mark a piece of paper There will be no transcription there fore there will be no fraud Unless we come to know some new kind of cyberfraud About the Author Fernando Cabral studied Philosophy Psychology and Mathematics but ended up involved with C UNIX and networking Five years ago he founded PADRAO iX a consulting firm dedicated to connectivity and in teroperability He wears
73. nators and then drops the folded ballot into the ballot box in view of the recipient com mittee which includes common citizens as well as representatives of the political parties Then the voter receives a second ballot for state races this time yellow and marks it behind a paper screen suspended over a counter folds it and deposits it in the ballot box in front of the committee When the polls close the ballot boxes are sealed and sent to the tabulating stations along with an official report stat ing the number of people voting at that site The next morning dozens of tabulating teams under the close scrutiny of the political parties represen tatives break open the ballot boxes one by one and check the reported numbers of voters against the bal lot count for the box If there are discrepancies or if there is any indication of tampering the ballot box is declared invalid If everything checks out the tabulation proceeds The white and yellow ballots are separated into two piles First the votes for the presidency and the federal senate are counted then the votes for gover nor and federal and state representatives This is a time consuming process since each name or number has to be checked against a long list of valid numbers names nicknames etc After all the ballots are counted an official statement is issued and signed by the committee the parties representatives and the judge in charge of the regional elect
74. o prompt etc but also all of the keys of the VT220 terminal including arrow function keypad and editing keys which faithfully follow the host directed modes for these keys Then there is ANSI terminal emulation for full color access to BBSs with all their special effects Hopefully see page 4 more BBSs will be offering a good Kermit protocol from now on but even when they don t OS 2 C Kermit is set up to let you run external protocols easily In all types of terminal emulation there are new op tions for screen rollback as well as increased capacity up to about two million lines There is also Hebrew terminal emulation for use with host based Hebrew applications such as ALEPH software see article on page 15 The new terminal emulator also supports auto download and auto upload automatic switching to file transfer mode as well as automatic configura tion by the host see article on p 14 You can now use the mouse during terminal emula tion copy and paste to and from other applications use the mouse to move the cursor by simulating arrow key strokes The latter is useful with full screen host applications that support arrow keys one touch of the mouse button sends the arrow key codes necessary to move the cursor from its present location to wherever the mouse pointer is When using a Western European language in your online session you now have a special Compose Key Alt c for composing acc
75. ocedures for their user com munities especially novices Security Kermit s APC feature is disabled by default that is unless you tell it otherwise This is because we want each user to read about the potential risks and the corresponding safeguards and then turn it on The command is SET TERMINAL APC OFF ON UNCHECKED Turning it ON enables operations that are nominally safe such as file transfer protocol settings and so on without opening up operations that are intrinsically dangerous such as system access or deleting files Please read the APC section of the update notes care fully and then put SET TERMINAL APC ON in your Kermit startup file It s So Easy C Kermit comes with an APC command for sending APCs and some predefined macros that you can use at the C Kermit prompt Send a file or files to the PC Get a file or files from the PC PCSEND filespec PCGET filespec What Is an APC An APC is an escape sequence defined for VT320 terminals which allows the host to pass a command in the form of a text string to a terminal emulator the string is embedded in side the escape sequence like so lt ESC gt _string lt ESC gt where lt ESC gt is the ASCII control character Escape 27 When the terminal emulator is a Kermit pro gram the string can be any Kermit command even a list of commands separated by commas for example lt ESC gt _set file typ bin s oofa zip lt ESC
76. oral court Too good to be true Without this in stant response all the election automa tion could have been compromised Then this official statement is transcribed to the PC This is the point where most of the fraud occurred blank and invalidated ballots were transferred to a chosen candidate Cross checking can t prevent this type of fraud only an attentive monitor can spot it After the transcription a computer report is printed and checked against the original statement If the numbers are equal the file can be transferred Enter Kermit Once the file transfer is authorized the file is encrypted and compressed Then Kermit assumes control making decisions about how to connect to the remote server at the TRE Regional Electoral Court dial up TCP IP or an X 25 connection with or with out a PAD Packet Assembler Disassembler Once the connection is established the TIS software Gauntlet sends a challenge to the calling machine Using her Digital Pathways SecureNet Keys token generator the user types in her PIN and then the challenge The generator produces a number that is sent as an answer to the server If all is OK the Gauntlet firewall opens and the file is transferred Once at the regional machine the federal white votes are dispatched for tabulation at the TSE while the state yellow votes are tabulated locally Small numbers flow in big numbers flow out The results of each ba
77. ormally within 2 4 weeks of receipt but firm delivery schedules or methods can not be guaranteed Prices are in US dollars and include shipping costs When two prices are shown like 100 135 the first price applies to the USA Canada and Mexico and the second price is for shipments to other countries exception if you can supply your Federal Express account number then pay the first price Rush service is available for an extra fee Call 1 212 854 3703 for additional ordering information Telephone and Fax orders are accepted if payment is by Master Card or Visa Use the order form for Fax orders and for payment by credit card be sure to include your signature Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 29 Operating Program Program Released Operating Program Program Released Prefix Tape Machine System Language Version yy mm dd Prefix Tape Machine System Language Version yy mm dd CK F various 4144BSD C 5A190 94 10 04 MP B DEC PDP 11 MUMPS 11 MUMPS 1982 84 04 11 CK F various POSIX Cc 5A190 94 10 04 K11 B DEC PDP 11 RSTS E Macro 11 3 60 89 06 13 CK F various UNIX Sys III C 5A190 94 10 04 K11 B DEC PDP 11 RSX 11 M Macro 11 3 60 89 06 13 CK F various UNIX Sys V R2C 5A190 94 10 04 K11 B DEC PDP 11 RSX 11 M Macro 11 3 60 89 06 13 CK F various UNIX Sys V R3C 5A190 94 10 04 KRT B DEC PDP 11 RT 11 Macro 11 3 62 93 09 22 CK F various UNIX Sys V R4C 5A190 94 10 04 KRT B DEC PDP 11 TSX Macro 11 3 62 93 09 22 EM B various EMACS EL
78. ou can see exactly what the host is sending File Transfer Improvements File transfer recovery is discussed on page 12 Auto matic directory creation is available for incoming files Automatic parity detection during file transfer was also added in this version and along with it the ability to transfer files with IBM mainframes thru non transparent 3270 protocol converters the Doomsday Kermit protocol discussed in Kermit News 5 In addition some exciting new OS 2 specific features were added OS 2 C Kermit has always supported the long file names of the High Performance File Sys tem HPFS and has always been able to distinguish between FAT DOS like and HPFS volumes for the purposes of file access and creation In version 5A 190 however OS 2 C Kermit is able to preserve an incoming file s original long name even when creating the file on a FAT volume by storing the long name in the file s Extended Attributes A file thus created can later be copied to an HPFS system and its long name will magically reappear Of even greater significance is a new method for transferring OS 2 files along with all of their regular and extended attributes including desktop informa tion icons and so on We call this labeled file transfer previously it was available only in VMS C Kermit Labeled transfers can be done directly be tween two OS 2 systems in which case each file will arrive at its destination with all of its
79. ous Murphy dictate this will happen at the worst possible time for example when you are 9 8 megabytes into a 10 megabyte transfer on a sloooooow connection Our three new Kermit releases to the rescue MS DOS Kermit 3 14 IBM Mainframe Kermit 4 3 1 and C Kermit 5A 190 From now on no more worries about broken connections at least not during binary mode file transfers on all of the following platforms DOS MS PC DR etc Microsoft Windows IBM OS 2 UNIX all varieties Digital VMS and OpenVMS IBM Mainframe VM CMS MVS TSO CICS MUSIC Stratus VOS Data General AOS VS Commodore Amiga Microware OS 9 When a file is transferred in binary mode its size does not change it is sent literally without any kind of format or character set conversion Thus if a file is partially transferred we know exactly where in the original file to resume the transmission For the new round of releases the Kermit programs were changed to keep partially received files by default rather than discard them which was the default action previously and the Kermit protocol was extended to support recovery of binary mode transfers When a recovery operation is requested the two Kermit programs negotiate this capability if successful the file receiver tells the sender the posi tion in the source file from which to start sending and then the receiver appends the new material to the end of the partially received file Only one new command
80. pabilities this lets you run bigger programs under Kermit in the extra free conventional memory The Lite version has no network support or ter minal emulation at all including no CONNECT com mand It still includes serial communications the full Kermit protocol implementation and the com plete script programming language Weighing in at only 105K it is perfect for use as an external protocol and script execution engine in BBSs in embedded ap plications and behind custom menus Diskette subdirectories include Dialing scripts for many types of modems Network shims drivers and documentation Key mapping setups and keyboard drivers File transfer and printer utilities Windows files PC fonts and utilities A complete Cyrillic support package A complete Hebrew support package All the utilities you need are on this disk so there is no longer a separate utilities disk Our deepest thanks as always to Joe Doupnik for bringing another new version of MS DOS Kermit to us and special thanks to Dr Fujii for his work on the Kanji features and to Yossi Gil at the Technion in Israel for the fonts to Dimitri Vulis in Brooklyn for the Cyrillic keyboard drivers and to many others too numerous to list for testing and other contributions MS DOS Kermit and SAS GRAPH Users of SAS GRAPH can now view Sixel based color graphics with MS DOS Kermit Starting with release 6 10 of SAS software which is av
81. pecial Na tional Language Support versions of OS 2 e C Kermit can now be used to make SLIP connections coordinating with the SLIP driver over ownership of the port and replacing the system s SLIPTERM pro gram which has limited emulation and scripting cap abilities e System Sounds are now used when installed C Kermit uses the Information Warning and Error sounds If System Sounds are not enabled the regular beep is used e Incoming TCP IP connections are now supported for Kermit protocol operations and for chat mode Version 5A 191 is 32 bit only and works only on OS 2 2 00 and above The 16 bit version of OS 2 C Kermit for OS 2 1 x is frozen at 5A 190 Thanks to Jeff Altman for all of the work that went into OS 2 C Kermit 5A 191 C Kermit for Stratus VOS David Lane Stratus Computer Inc Stratus Computer Inc NYSE SRA is the second largest provider of fault tolerant hardware systems VOS is the proprietary operating system for Stratus hardware Stratus systems are designed to reach and often attain uptimes greater than 99 99 They are used for applications where downtime is ex tremely costly such as stock exchanges banking and airline reservations and where downtime can be deadly such as public safety systems Because of the markets into which Stratus sells VOS is primarily optimized for transaction processing rather than for general terminal users This means that un
82. plus the ability to transfer and replicate entire directory trees between two OS 2 systems e A REXX interface so C Kermit scripts can contain REXX commands and REXX programs executed from within C Kermit may contain C Kermit commands e NETBIOS and Named Pipe task to task communica tion support for peer to peer local area networking e Support for several TCP IP packages in addition to IBM s FTP Software Essex Systems and IP Switch e Improved Digital PATHWORKS networking support OS 2 C Kermit s comprehensive array of communica tions methods is rivaled only by MS DOS Kermit s and it illustrates one of the greatest advantages of Kermit software it is a single common solution for many communications needs You don t have to learn one application for dialing up BBSs another one for dialing up your corporate mainframe yet another one Kermit s user interface and script pro gramming language are portable and consistent over dialup and network connections for hundreds of different computers and operating systems for the Internet and still another one for peer to peer LAN connections C Kermit does it all in a uniform consistent way You only have to learn one applica tion not a big pile of them You only need one com pact application on your disk occupying about a megabyte not three or four using up tens of megabytes This saves you not only lots of disk space but money too When you learn C Kermit
83. r all combina tions of VAX and Alpha AXP hardware with the fol lowing TCP IP products Digital UCX TGV MultiNet Wollongong WIN TCP or PathWay Process Software TCPware and VAX only CMU Tek And of course no TCP IP at all A VAX binary is also available for VMS version 4 4 The TK50 BACKUP format distribution now includes EXE files for all of these The 9 track ANSI C Kermit tapes include them all in hex format Thanks to Mark Berryman Terry Kennedy William Bader James Sturdevant Mike O Malley Hunter Goatley and Tarjei Jensen for assistance with the new release of VMS C Kermit OS 2 C Kermit Take One With the announcement of Warp in October 1994 OS 2 suddenly became a formidable combatant in the desktop operating system wars if it wasn t already C Kermit 5A 190 for OS 2 was released simul taneously with Warp and bears about as much resemblence to earlier OS 2 C Kermit releases as Warp does to OS 2 1 0 Among the many big im provements you will find e Certification by IBM for OS 2 and for LAN Server e VT220 and ANSI terminal emulation added along with numerous other terminal emulation improve ments e File transfer recovery see article on p 12 Page 8 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News e A new file transfer mode that transfers OS 2 files along with all their attributes and extended at tributes either directly to another OS 2 system or for archival on a non OS 2 system
84. ram dials to the XAP facility and acting as the EDI transport sub mits the completed applications automatically and reliably Over 2 million students annually are expected to utilize XAP s software by 1996 submitting their com pleted applications electronically As the availability of modems for students continues to increase XAP Company is planning to receive the predominance of its applications via EDI Embedded within the XAP software will be MS DOS Kermit Lite the special small size version for PCs chosen for its flexible scripting capabilities ease of use and high file transfer efficiency When modem transmission is elected Kermit Lite driven by a cus tom script program dials to the XAP facility and ac ting as the EDI transport submits the completed ap plications automatically and reliably According to an article in Bank Systems Technology October 1994 this system not only replaces the bur densome and notoriously lengthy and complicated paper based financial aid disbursement process with a more streamlined and efficient one but through the newly formed Educational Loan Management ELM Resources aims to create a universal standard for all students schools and banks that will vastly simplify the financial aid process Page 6 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News C Kermit 5A 190 for UNIX VMS OS 2 VOS Frank da Cruz Version 5A 190 of C Kermit the world s most por
85. raphical user interface applications In character based applications information is written to the screen in predictable ways The consistency of character based applications makes it easy to pro gram a screen reader to zoom in on the most salient area of the screen Pressing F7 in WordPerfect for example might cause a screen reader to read line 25 Save Document Yes No _ The same consistencies let print handicapped users navigate through complex programs without having to see the screen In WordPerfect 5 1 line 25 of the document always displays the status line and lines 24 and 25 of the List Files screen always display a list of options 1 Retrieve 2 Delete etc A person with a print handicap can easily get lost in an unfamiliar program By pressing the key that reads Line 25 the WordPerfect user can usually become reoriented Such consistencies do not exist in GUI environments A Windows screen consists of a riot of icons scroll bars pull down menus dialogue boxes and cascading windows A window can assume different shapes and sizes The active window may be minimized or max imized shrunk or expanded placed above below to the side behind in front of or overlapping another window Although keyboard shortcuts exist many functions were intended to be done by positioning the screen pointer and clicking the mouse The mouse was designed to be guided by eye Controlling a mouse is awkward if not impo
86. re reliable signal handling an option for a system wide initialization file TELNET screen size negotia tion Hardware flow control RTS CTS support since it is so important for using today s high speed modems has been added to many of the UNIX ver sions and so has support for higher serial speeds C Kermit for HP UX 10 0 We are pleased to announce that Hewlett Pack ard Company has chosen C Kermit 5A 190 as a standard component of the HP UX 10 0 operating system supporting both serial and TCP IP connections In partnership with HP Columbia University developed tested and documented the new HP UX 10 0 version which is fully aware of the new HP UX file sys tem device names and locking conventions serial speeds and flow control options and so on After you install your HP UX 10 0 package or upgrade just type kermit to start the pro gram or man kermit for further information And if you don t already have the manual Using C Kermit please be sure to fill out and send in the order form that came in your HP UX 10 0 box Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 7 C Kermit for QNX 4 21 As part of the US Postal Service Carrier Sequence Bar Code Sorter project see article on page 23 Columbia University with assistance from QNX Soft ware Systems Ltd Kanata Ontario prepared an en tirely new full featured implementation of C Kermit As the role of UNIX based servers be come
87. roups that we receive lo cally we find Latin 1 in use on Norwegian groups such as no film and no sport diverse and on German groups like de etc finanz boerse daily listings from the Frankfurt and Berlin financial markets and de rec motorrad motorcycles But in other European newsgroups French Dutch etc we found only ASCII no true accented letters in any encoding at all We suspect the Finnish newsgroups such as finet freenet oppimiskeskus akvaariokoulut opetussuunnitelma line continued due to lack of horizontal space use Latin 1 in line with the other Scandinavian countries but alas the Finnish groups are not delivered here possibly due to some kind of buffer overflow Some newsgroups we would have liked to look at were the Brazilian groups in Portuguese and the pl groups from Poland in Polish but these feeds do not arrive here either If these newsgroups use Latin 1 and Latin 2 respectively Kermit would handle them just fine MS DOS Kermit 3 14 comes with ROMAN and EASTERN macros which load Western and East ern European fonts respectively and support character set conversion for all major Western and Eastern European languages Not only that for Western European languages we also provide a Compose Key for entering accented let ters mnemonically with complete independence from the character sets used on the PC and on the host For example no matter what code page is loaded on your PC or w
88. rt or TSE a spe cialized court of law dedicated to supervising all elec tions in the country decided to take on the challenge of automating the process as much as possible and to do it with a single stroke Introducing automation into a nationwide election in a huge country like Brazil the same size as the con tinental USA was fraught with hazards and obstacles First long established regional oligarchies of conservative landowners would resist automation as a threat to their previous control over elections second the state data processing bureaus which usually operate in the black only during election years would be open to automation only if the bureaus could provide and profit from the automa tion instead of the TSE and finally the TSE staffs own lack of experience and know how could threaten the success of the project Numbers While China the USA Russia and India have elec torates comparable to Brazil s none of them ever had to cope with an election involving such large num bers either because their elections are conducted dif ferently or because their legislative and executive elections on both the state and federal level do not coincide as they did in Brazil in 1994 VOTING IS MANDATORY in Brazil for everyone aged 18 to 65 96 million votors starting at age 16 elect their government officials directly not through an electoral college as in the USA The widely anticipated elec tion involved 27 stat
89. s and so on But all is not lost Here is a useful hint if you are transferring text files between computers that have like file systems e g DOS to OS 2 or HP UX to Solaris and you don t need character set conversion then use binary mode This is somewhat more ef ficient than text mode because all conversions are skipped and you can recover interrupted transfers Even when a text mode transfer is interrupted it s now possible to recovery manually by telling MS DOS Kermit or C Kermit to PSEND partially send the file from the point of interruption which you must determine by inspection and to tell the receiv ing Kermit program to append the incoming partial file to the existing file via SET FILE COLLISION APPEND if it is supported If not you can receive the partial file into a separate file and then join the two after wards In any case the part that was successfully transferred need not be transferred again Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 13 ask Su username askg p u s password File Transfer Recovery Demonstration Script Settings for entire session define s 20 define n 7654321 set port coml set modem pp14400 set file type binary set input timeout quit set count 50 goto nomsg LOOP hangup echo CONNECTION BROKEN Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Ne Seconds to pause between each try Phone number Communication port Modem type dial
90. s costs We settled on a system called GNS Global Network Systems by British Telecom It is an X 25 Packet Switching service available all over the world but importantly for us with a hundred PoPs in the UK from which 93 of our field force is just a local i e cheap phone call away Kermit was selected as the communications software of choice it is extremely robust cheap and provides us with the all the scripting functions required Ker mit 3 12 is currently in use at the PC end and Ker mit 5A 190 on a Sun SPARCstation host at head of fice running SunOS 4 1 We tried a number of other protocols X Y and Zmodem for example but be cause field agents are actually dialing into an X 25 PAD we found that these did not work to our com plete satisfaction Each PC in the field is associated with an interviewer who has a five digit interviewer ID We maintain a database on the SPARCstation that contains informa tion concerning the interviewer their location various passwords and the phone number of the local PoP When a machine is sent into the field for the first time and booted the boot process asks the inter viewer for their ID number and then Kermit places a call to a known PoP Having established a link to the PoP Kermit then initiates a transfer of the configura tion file from the host to the PC Thereafter the PC is configured that is it contains a file which has pointers to the local PoP T
91. s ever more important in all spheres of the economy so does com munication with the outside world whether by dialup or network for the QNX operating system which plays a vital role in that project Supporting both TCP IP and high speed serial connections QNX C Kermit is an important addition to the QNX software toolbox and is available in binary form ready to run on the QNX C Kermit diskette on our order form In case you have not heard of QNX before here s a product profile With hundreds of thousands of installations world wide QNX is the leading realtime operating system for the PC You ll find this POSIX certified OS at work in everything from process control applications to financial systems point of sale systems communi cations and medical instrumentation QNX consists of a team of optional cooperating processes that interact with each other through a tiny microkernel just 10K As a result QNX can be scaled down for embedded systems scaled up for large development workstations running X and TCP IP or scaled out for vast fault tolerant networks QNX s networking facility integrates the entire net work into a single logical computer So for example an embedded system can inherit the disk database and other resources of the entire network and the rest of the network can communicate with processes on the embedded system As Dan Hildebrand Senior R amp D Staff Member at QNX Software Systems Lt
92. sabilities to pursue independently their personal vocational and educational goals Ex amples of adaptive technologies include environmen tal control units TDDs Telecommunication Devices for the Deaf large keyboards input devices actuated by infra red pointers eye blinks puffs of air and head sticks voice recognition systems optical char acter recognition systems OCR reading machines text enhancement software refreshable braille dis plays and screen readers This article is about screen readers and why MS DOS Kermit is an ap propriate communication program for use in conjunc tion with this class of adaptive technology The proliferation of graphics based computer environments threatens to wipe out many of the gains made by persons who rely on screen reading technology A screen reader transforms an ordinary PC into a talking computer The voice is heard through a head phone or the system speaker The screen reader pronounces keystrokes or words as they are typed Keystroke commands allow the user to read in dividual characters words lines sentences and paragraphs Some screen reader systems use Alt and Control key combinations for their reading func tions others use a separate keypad All screen read ing systems allow the user to customize and save vo cal characteristics such as reading speed inflection and pronunciation The original screen readers were intended for persons who are blind or
93. site signatures and on their tombstones The 1989 Election In October of 1960 a military coup and subsequent military dictatorships postponed Brazil s democracy and elections for 30 years In 1989 Brazil held its first presidential election after three decades of opres sion This was the first election after the adoption of a new constitution in 1988 the first to have a second runoff election for close races the first to have televi sion coverage the first to have candidates use com puters to handle huge amounts of information and the first to broadcast live debates And it was also the first time the electoral courts would try their hands at automation Cautiously the TSE opted not to dive directly into automation Instead they contracted state owned data processing bureaus to do the data entry of each state s votes Then in Brasilia SERPRO the federal data processing bureau was contracted and regally paid to tabulate this data It was a timid but impor tant first step into the realm of automation and there was no turning back New times new ways to commit fraud The computer introduced new potential and real ways to manipu late election results such as a variation on the the tip of the pen scheme simply alter the numbers during the transcription of the official ballot box results from paper to computer The easiest way to do this without attracting too much attention is to turn blank or invalidated ballots
94. spot the problems most often the modem not switched on We ve taken advantage of both large packets and sliding windows to enhance performance of the file transfers we have also disabled compres sion on the modems themselves since that process was actually leading to significantly slower transfers of the ZIP files some 20 The move away from traditional data collection tech niques pen and paper primarily has been a sea change for the market research industry As well as the considerable technical challenge we have faced a number of difficult management issues scaling down our print department elimination of our key to disk department the changed lines of communication within the business itself Putting on a green hat we ve eliminated seven mil lion sheets of paper a year already we expect this to rise to a savings of twenty million within two years Then of course there was the huge challenge of train ing 600 people most of whom had never used a PC before Kermit has been central to the success of the project thus far and with the continuing developments such as the newly introduced recovery facility it is certain to remain a cornerstone of the system MS DOS Kermit and Screen Reading Technology Computer Access for Persons with Print Handicaps Alan Cantor West Toronto Ontario Personal computers equipped with adaptive technol ogy are making it possible for thousands of in dividuals with di
95. ssible if you cannot see the screen Efforts to develop screen reading programs for GUI environments have been underway for several years Screen readers for GUIs are now available but the graphic user interface itself remains relatively in accessible Windows access is especially problematic because many Windows applications write informa tion to the screen in non standard ways making automatic detection of screen updates difficult The graphical user interface problem is compounded by the proliferation of pseudo GUIs character based programs that emulate the look and feel of GUI software Pseudo GUIs are sometimes even less screen reader friendly than true GUIs The boun daries of a window in a real GUI application can at least be defined determining the position of a pseudo window in a pseudo GUI with a character based screen reader is problematic The latest DOS based screen readers can however handle some of the idiosyncrasies of some pseudo GUIs applications There are many horror stories about persons who rely on screen readers being fired or denied promotion be cause of their difficulties coping with GUIs In 1993 blind students and staff at the University of Toronto were effectively barred from using the on line library catalogue when a new Windows like interface was introduced Students with disabilities and their ad vocates pressured the library for more than a year before the old command lin
96. t able communications software program was released in October 1994 for UNIK all varieties IBM OS 2 and Warp Digital VMS and OpenVMS Stratus VOS new see p 10 Data General AOS VS Microware OS 9 The Commodore Amiga The short list of new features is e File transfer recovery from point of failure binary mode transfers only UNIX VMS OS 2 AOS VS VOS OS 9 Amiga see article on p 12 e Auto upload download configuration anything else via APC mechanism UNIX VMS OS 2 OS 9 see the article on p 14 e Command history recall retry and typeahead e Automatic directory creation for incoming files UNIX OS 2 VMS OS 9 e New faster initialization file containing many new macros including a FAST macro to let you set up and try all the performance features conveniently e Massive improvements for OS 2 see page 7 e The fullscreen file transfer display now includes a percent done thermometer and continuous display of the transfer rate in characters per second e Support for many new OS releases Solaris 2 3 and 2 4 AIX 4 1 Unixware 1 1 IRIX 5 3 new releases of Linux Free Net etc BSD OpenVMS 6 x etc e Numerous improvements in performance error recovery script programming client server protocol character sets dialing etc and over twenty new com mands and numerous new built in variables and functions The full list of changes since the previous release would include abou
97. t 400 entries UNIX C Kermit As the role of UNIX based servers becomes ever more important in all spheres of the economy so does com munication with the outside world whether by dialup or network Even when your UNIX system is on the Internet C Kermit offers features lacking from tradi tional Internet applications particularly automation via script programming and conversion of incom patible character sets UNIX C Kermit 5A 190 runs on 16 bit 32 bit and 64 bit architectures under 2 xBSD 4 2 4 4BSD AT amp T UNIX System III and System V R2 3 and 4 POSIX OSF 1 Plus many and varied releases and incarnations of 3886BSD AT amp T 3Bx systems and UNIX PCs and workstations Amdahl UTS Apple A UX BSDI COHERENT Convex OS Cray UNICOS and CSOS Data General DG UX DEC OSF 1 and ULTRIX ESIX Encore UMAX FreeBSD Harris CX UX Hewlett Packard HP UX all ver sions IBM AIX on RS 6000 PC RT 370 mainframe and PS 2 ICL DRS NX Interactive UNIX Inter graph CLIX Linux Lynx MIPS RISC OS Motorola System V 68 R3 and System V 88 NCR UNIX NeXTSTEP NetBSD Olivetti X OS Pyramid OSx QNX SCO ODT UNIX and XENIX Sequent DYNIX and DYNIX ptx Silicon Graphics IRIX Sun Solaris and SunOS Sony NEWS OS Stratus FTX Tandy XENIX Trusted XENIX UnixWare and many more In addition to file transfer recovery and auto up and download version 5A 190 includes lots of UNIX specific improvements too a faster CONNECT mode mo
98. t give you easy or any control over character sets MS DOS Kermit might not be a WWW navigator or newsreader but it has a distinct advantage it can handle a wide variety of character sets and writing systems simply and easily MS DOS Kermit 3 14 comes with all the pieces you need fonts keyboard drivers key mappings instructions and macros for quick switching for five important writing systems West European East European Cyrillic Hebrew and Japanese And by a stroke of good luck Chinese too Japanese and Chinese require special versions of DOS more about that later The Cyrillic Alphabet Languages like Russian Bielorussian Ukranian and Bulgarian are written in the Cyrillic alphabet named for Saint Cyril 827 868 Feast Day February 14 Apostle with his brother Saint Methodius to the Slavs Saints Cyril and Methodius were Greek mis sionaries to Moravia a powerful empire in the ninth century and now part of the Czech Republic where they and their followers adapted the Greek alphabet to the Slavic languages dropping some Greek letters and adding some new unique ones Approximately 1100 years later in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere several encodings were devised for computer representation of Cyrillic letters each one incompatible with the others KOI 8 KOI 7 Short KOI DKOI ISO 8859 5 Latin Cyrillic Alter native Cyrillic PC Code Page 866 Mainframe Code Page 880 and so on Although MS
99. t was causing Mac Kermit to crash during downloads under System 7 1 or later has been fixed Mac Kermit 0 991 190 has the fix PLUS Alpha Micro From Bob Rubendunst V2 0 of Alpha Micro Ker mit replacing version 1 0 from Feb 1985 for AMOS L 1 3 and above and AMOS 32 systems New features include 8 bit terminal support auto send receive batch sends with random file bypass parity checking CRC error checking statistics AM3000 compatibility March 94 Tape C Burroughs UNISYS B6800 Written in Algol by Tony Appelget Plymouth MN September 94 Tape D HP 3000 MPE Two versions from Tony Appelget one in SPL and one in C September 94 Tape D Nicolet 80 A brand new Kermit program for the British Nicolet 80 series of laboratory computers from Peter McClintock University of Lancaster UK July 94 Tape C Page 12 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News File Transfer Recovery Frank da Cruz Seasoned modem users know well the aggravation of long file transfers interrupted by broken phone con nections The screams of agony the torn out clumps of hair the rent garments only to relive those awful moments when the monthly phone bill arrives The problem is not confined to modem connections either Internet users know only too well the heart break of the broken ftp connection especially that ex cruciatingly slow trans oceanic one Connections break all kinds of connections and the laws of the eponym
100. t will eventually get to the recipient The proof appears in Kermit Specification and Verification to be published in the Oxford University Press book Specification and Validation Methods edited by Egon Borger due in April 1995 After pub lication an electronic version of the paper will be placed on the Kermit archives at Columbia If you re interested in a preprint or if you have ques tions or comments about the paper feel free to con tact me at huggins umich edu Kermit News Number 6 March 1995 Page 3 Announcing MS DOS Kermit 3 14 Yes another new Kermit for your PC The PC marketplace grows and changes constantly and MS DOS Kermit is changing with it MS DOS Kermit 3 14 for PCs with DOS or Windows was released in January 1995 It was prepared by Profes sor Joe R Doupnik of the Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences and Department of Electrical En gineering of Utah State University in Logan Utah USA in cooperation with Columbia University in New York City and Dr Hirofumi Fujii of the Japan National Laboratory for High Energy Physics The new release includes an incredible number of en hancements in every area designed to keep MS DOS Kermit up to date with new PC modem and net working technology The big ones are e File transfer recovery allows interrupted binary mode transfers to be continued from the point of failure for use with C Kermit 5A 190 and IBM Mainframe Kermit 4 3 1
101. the COMx ports were manipu lated Digital rushed a sample PC to Joe who quickly updated MS DOS Kermit for these new machines The updated Kermit software was transferred to Brazil using Kermit itself via long distance phone call Too good to be true Without this instant response all the election automation could have been compromised People may wonder why didn t the TSE try other pro tocols like ZMODEM YMODEM and akin beasts Simple to answer in a nutshell the long answer has been provided above Kermit can be used with 7 or 8 bit lines with leased dial up or PAD lines the scripting language can be used to automate even the most com plex operation smooth operation in MS DOS MS Windows and HP UX environments and superb un beatable performance in all kinds of connections and line conditions Finally if anything bad happened prompt and expert help was just a phone call or an e mail away The Results The election was marred by widespread fraud in Rio de Janeiro But the automation helped detect it al lowed its extent to be assessed and prompted measures to avoid it in round two The time saved by the network was more than 75 in most states the big exception being Rio where bandits blocked entry of votes into the system where they could not be al tered until after the ballots were forged But despite minor disturbances and a few major troubles the election was considered a huge success President Elect Fer
102. tsey Doane Mr Tim Noonan Mr John O Rouke and Dr Jim Thatcher for their thoughtful critiques of this article Page 28 Number 6 March 1995 Kermit News Ordering Information Kermit software is distributed by Columbia University on magnetic tape tape cartridges and certain diskette formats Tapes and cartridges include all source code and supporting files in machine readable form for each Kermit implemen tation and in some cases also binaries encoded in hex or other printable format along with suitable decoding software if needed Diskettes have no source code except when noted on the order form Kermit software programs are collected on six reel to reel 9 track tapes A B C D E and F The programs are assigned to tapes A F as shown in the second column of the Kermit version list as follows Tape A has the MS DOS CP M 80 and Apple II versions Tape F has C Kermit Tape B has the IBM mainframe and DEC PDP 11 versions Tape C has other miscellaneous microcomputer PC and workstation versions Tape D has other miscellaneous minicomputer and main frame versions Tape E contains machine readable copies of various manuals articles the Kermit Digest newsletters a character set aware text to PostScript printing utility and tape utilities Tape and cartridge formats ANSI ANSI labeled ASCII format D variable length records blocksize 8192 9 track half inch reel to reel 1600 bpi Readable by many computer systems incl
103. uding VAX VMS TAR UNIX TAR format blocksize 10240 9 track 1600 bpi Os IBM OS standard labeled EBCDIC format VB variable length records blocksize 8192 9 track 1600 bpi for MVS CMS and other mainframe systems VM CMS users should order the OS format and use one of the included tape reading programs to read the tape on a CMS system instructions are included with the OS tape TK50 TK50 tape cartridge for the DEC MicroVAX or VAXstation VMS BACKUP format Also readable by TZ30 TK70 and compatible drives QIC UNIX Tar format quarter inch tape cartridge Readable on Sun computers IBM RS 6000 SCO systems and other UNIX systems equipped with QIC cartridge drives 8MM EXABYTE 8 millimeter cassette UNIX TAR format DAT 4mm Digital Audio Cassette UNIX TAR format IMPORTANT C KERMIT INFORMATION All the above tape and cartridge formats when ordered in the C Kermit section of the order form page 31 include printably encoded binaries for the AOS VS VOS Amiga and Atari versions of C Kermit The 9 track ANSI format also includes hex format binaries for all VMS configurations The C Kermit TK50 includes all VMS binaries No UNIX binaries are included on any tape or cartridge format you must build UNIX C Kermit from source code C compiler required or order binaries on diskette or place a custom order OS 2 C Kermit should be ordered on diskette NEWS AND UPDATES Our newsletter Kermit News is mailed free of charge about e
104. user interface Why Kermit Was Chosen Kermit was chosen to connect the PCs at the tabulat ing stations to the regional courts because 1 Columbia University s Kermit software and protocol are robust enough to work dependably even when using the poorest telephone lines and in Brazil THERE ARE poor quality telephone lines 2 Kermit software was available for both MS DOS and HP UX 3 Kermit s powerful scripting language could be used to automate most of the logon transfer logoff process This was an important concern since 11 000 people would be using PCs modems and communication software for the first time in their lives It was not realistic to expect them to understand and learn how to transfer files 4 Kermit can also use TCP IP allowing its use in dif ferent communication environments with the same interface and TSE would not be forced to teach FTP to some people and Kermit to others 5 According to different local conditions the line used could be dial up leased or X 25 PAD When an X 25 PAD comes into play NO PROTOCOL BUT KERMIT does the job 6 The Kermit team could be counted on to help out if the need arose And it did TSE needed screens with messages in Portuguese so any Brazilian operator could understand them Joe Doupnik and Frank da Cruz inserted a Portuguese translation and delivered it within a day Then when the new Digi tal Equipment Corporation PCs arrived they be haved strangely when
105. very year or two to all our customers to bring news of Kermit software releases and developments Ordering any Kermit material from us automatically adds you to the subscriber list Kermit News includes an order form to obtain new versions of the Kermit software or call 1 212 854 3703 for inquiries TERMS AND CONDITIONS The Kermit software including source code is furnished without warranty of any kind and neither Columbia University nor the individual authors or publishers nor any institution that has contributed Kermit material acknowledge any liability for any claims arising from the use of Kermit Since source code is available users may fix bugs and make improvements and are encouraged to contribute their work back to Columbia for further distribution Kermit software may be ordered by private individuals corporations academic or government institutions and other organizations for their own internal use but may not be resold or otherwise redistributed to external clients customers or contractors without written permission of the Manager of Kermit Development and Distribution at Columbia University Most Kermit software is copyrighted and not in the public domain Contact us for further information HOW TO ORDER Fill out and return the enclosed order form PREPAYMENT by credit card or check is encouraged an additional ORDER PROCESSING FEE is required if we must send an invoice Orders are shipped by delivery service or US mail n

Kermit News March 1995

Contents

Download Pdf Manuals

Related Search

Related Contents