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User Guide - MAI PC-Link

1. The program will then display the following message and prompt MAI PC LINK n n Gated Enter letter for media to be installed to or Uninstalled from Use H for hard disk or F for floppy disk __ Press H CR to select hard disk The program will then display the following message and prompt MAI PC LINK Diskette Installation 2 0 3 Diskettes MUST NOT have a write protect tab Please enter DRIVE letter and hit return Product diskette refers to the original product package diskette Product Diskette Drive Input The last line of the above message is asking you for the drive where the Distri bution Diskette can be found This will normally be A CR You will then be prompted with the follow ing message Hard Disk Drive Output 2 4 This will typically be drive C CR The screen will then display the following message Verify Product Diskette in Drive Hit RETURN to continue The copy protection program will then veri fy that you have the original distribution diskette in the drive indicated After verification has been completed success fully the following message will be displayed MAI PC LINK maximum install count is 0001 After this install 0000 install s will be available Enter Y to continue or N to quit then hit RETURN Press Y CR to continue with installation or press N CR to discontinue The screen will then display the following message Processing
2. 7 3 M6340 entering a backslash followed by three digits This string is not terminated by a carriage return 2 Prefix Most modems require a dial prefix to tell them to get ready to accept a telephone number to dial You may send an special unprintable characters by entering a backslash followed by three digits This string is not terminated by a carriage return when output to the modem 3 Number This is the number that the modem Ts to dial Special characters may be en tered as above This string is terminated by a carriage return when output to the modem 4 Hang Up This is the sequence required by the modem to disconnect Special characters may be entered as above 5 Wait Period Time for MAI PC LINK to wait or the modem to make a connection with another modem PRINTER SETUP MAI PC LINK allows you to select the specifications for the printer you will be using The options are 1 Printer Type Both serial and parallel prints are supported Note that if you specify a serial printer you must have at least two serial ports to be able to print If COM1 is to be used as a link for the host then COM2 will be used for serial printing and vice versa For serial printers the baud rate data parity and stop bits are all user definable not required for parallel printers M6340 7 4 26 3 UPDATE AutoLineFeed You may specify if your printer is to receive a line feed after every carriag
3. In other words the file to be sent must have commas as field separators and may or may not have quotation marks around text fields John Smith S1000 123 West 12th 324 8951 123 or John Smith S1000 123 West 12th 324 8951 123 are examples of record types that may be sent If you enter the host file type as DIRECT you will be asked for the field number to be used as the key In the example above if 1000 is to be the key you would enter 2 as the key field The key field will default to 1 if no value is entered If a direct file already exists on the Basic Four records will be added to it If a key is sent which already exists in the file THE OLD RECORD WILL BE OVERWRITTEN Automatic file creation if a named hostfile does not exist on the Basic Four it will be created automatically If the file already exists it will be overwritten SERIAL or INDEXED files or records will be added to it DIRECT files Program files will be automatically created at installation time If a program already exists on the Basic Four with the same name it will be overwritten 4 3 M6340 Note Automatic file creation is NOT available for Basic Four operating system levels 4 2A and lower For these 0 S levels files must be created through the Basic Four Utilities before data can be sent to them In order to protect DIRECT files from unauthorized usage a security system has been included on your MAI PC LINK host progr
4. Prefix Number Hang Up Wait Time USE Enters the modem initialization string required if any You may send unprintable control charact ers in the following format nnn where nnn is a 3 digit decimal number You can also enter the character to pause for one second Enters the modem dial prefix You may send unprintable control char acters in the following format nnn where nnn is a 3 digit number You can also enter the character to pause for one second Enters the phone number to be dialed e g 112 604 688 8271 You can also enter the character to pause for one second and enter an unprintable string Enters the Hang Up sequence You may send unprintable control characters in the following format nnn where nnn is a 3 digit number Can also enter the character to pause for one second Time for MAI PC LINK to wait for modem connect B 21 M6340 CONFIGURE MENU continued COMMAND USE Update Updates the configuration file on the DOS current directory not data drive with the present setup This will be a permanent change so you will be prompted as to whether you want to Cancel or Replace this command Reset Resets your current configuration setup to the version stored in your configurations file on the Personal Computer disk This will destroy all temporary changes that have been made M6340 B 22 FORMAT MENU This menu allows the selection of a format that will
5. K 8 Action Try increasing the Timing factor in the Configure screen If this does not work compare the applicable host program line by line with the original version supplied on the Host Programs diskette to see if any lines have become damaged in any way If there are damaged lines use the Configure Install option and reinstall the program from the Host Programs disk to the host Error in Setting Output Transparency Reason Action These messages may occur in previous releases of PC Link Contact your MAI Basic Four dealer Error in transmission Reason Action During a SEND an error was reported by the host or communication has broken down An accompanying error message will give more information related to this error Take action depending on accompanying error message If all cable connections etc seem OK try again Error reading Procedure file Reason Action When Recalling a previously saved SEND procedure an error in reading that procedure file from the PC disk has occurred This is a hardware oriented type of problem drive door open corrupt file or bad disk If the disk is bad or the file is corrupt then the procedure file is lost and it will have to be re entered Do not continue to use a disk that is bad as the potential is great for loss of more information K 9 M6340 Error writing file Transmission ended Reason Action During a RECV a
6. for the data you wish to transfer File does not exist Reason The LocalFile name entered in a SEND procedure does not exist on the PC in the current Drive Directory or full pathname if entered Action Ensure that you are referring to the correct Drive and Directory and that a file with the name entered in the LocalFile setting exists File transfer terminated by operator Reason The ESC key on the PC was pressed during the file transfer Action Restart the transfer if you wish File transmission aborted Reason The ESC key on the PC was pressed during the file transfer Action Restart the transfer if you wish K 11 M6340 File Type not detected Reason At the start of a RECV PC Link has checked for the presence of the HostFile on the host computer PC Link either cannot find the file or the descriptive information about the file was not communicated properly to the PC Action Check all cable connections etc Ensure that the file exists on the host remember that the host file name is case sensitive Help not available Reason The Fl key was pressed to activate HELP But the HELP files PCLINK HLP and PCLINKDX HLP were not available in the current Drive Directory Action Copy the HELP files into the current Drive Directory if you wish to use HELP there Host Data filename is too long Reason The HostFile name entered in a SEND or RECV procedure is too long greater than
7. move the cursor below the current last field The window scrolls to allow more fields if necessary There are many options in Receive The following describes simple receive procedures A simple file receive is done as follows 1 Enter Terminal Emulation mode and check that you are in command mode on the Basic Four The prompt should be gt M6340 4 12 10 ll Use F10 to return to the MAI PC LINK command mode and select Receive from the main menu Select the HostFile option from the Receive menu Then enter the name of the desired Serial Direct Indexed or String file on the Basic Four Select the Local File option from the Receive menu Then enter the name of the Personal Computer file that is to receive the data from the Basic Four If desired enter the Format that is to be used in writing the Personal Computer file If necessary enter the columns specifications by selecting Columns Select any other desired options from the Criteria menu If desired save the Transfer Procedure you have just defined using the Save option Return to the main Receive menu and select Go The data transfer will start with the transferred lines and a count being displayed in a window at the bottom of the Receive screen Note that if any essential information is omitted from the Transfer Procedure you will be prompted for it when you give the Go command This feature can be used with partially defined procedures th
8. on the PC that can be termi Path names Reason Action nated releasing memory for use If these function key definitions are critical to you you may want to con sider obtaining more memory for your PC not required on 13XX series These options are for use if your host computer is either a 2000 series or a 7000 8000 or 9000 series Do not enter anything in this option PC Filename Host Filename and Program required Reason Action Go was selected in a SEND procedure before all three of the above required pieces of information were entered Enter the missing information and retry PC Filename Host Filename Host Program name required Reason Action M6340 Go was selected in a RECV procedure before all three of the above required pieces of information were entered Enter the missing information and retry K 20 Please enter terminal mode and LOG OFF Reason You have not logged off the host system prior to exiting from PC Link Action You must log off If this still fails contact your MAI Basic Four dealer Printing terminated after three errors Reason During Slave Printing if PC Link has trapped three errors from the printer it assesses that there is not enough confidence in the printer link to continue Action Check all cables and eliminate possible sources of electrical interference Print line truncated at 200 characters Reason During a R
9. program is called MKDIR Don t forget to use upper case letters if the program was created as upper case When you have entered the filenames you will see the 8 3 M6340 M6340 program lines being transferred When the transfer has been successful press ESC to return to MAI PC LINK main menu Enter T ERMINAL E MULATE mode and type RUN MKDIR This creates a direct file called DIRECT which you can use to learn the file receive process This file has 9 records of 6 fields each Once the file has been created press F10 to return to MAI PC LINK You can now try receiving the file DIRECT in a variety of formats with the R ECEIVE option of the main menu Here are several examples a Receiving an entire file in PLAIN format o Enter the H OSTFILE name as DIRECT o Enter the L OCALFILE name as DIRECT o Start the transfer with G O o A file called DIRECT PLN will be written to your default data disk with the fields separated by commas b Receiving selected fields in Lotus Import format o Select R ECALL from the receive menu and select the procedure PEOPLE from the displayed disk directory o A complete Transfer Control Proced ure will be recalled from the disk and displayed in the Receive defini tion windows 8 4 o The procedure can be activated with the G O command from the main Receive menu o When activated this procedure will transfer the entire file from the Basic Four to the PC in
10. 16 CONFIGURE MENU continued COMMAND USE Comm Port Sets the number of the communica tions port used by MAI PC LINK in conversation with host computer One Specifies COM1 as the communica tions port Two Specifies COM2 as the communica tions port Timing Defines the speed of data transfer 1 200 The default timing factor is 50 If the BASIC FOUR system is slow this factor may be increased so that the PC will wait longer for responses from the Basic Four You may experiment with the Timing factor to find the optimum transfer rate for your system under various conditions Flow Control Controls the flow of data from the Basic Four to the PC None No flow control is used Xon Xoff Xon Xoff protocol is used This is the standard Basic Four VDT setting DTR Lowers DTR to control data flow MAY NOT BE USED WITH A MODEM Both Both DTR and Xon Xoff protocols are used MAY NOT BE USED WITH A MODEM Note that when using a modem DTR flow control may cause the modem to hang up either Xon Xoff or no flow control should be used B 17 M6340 CONFIGURE MENU continued COMMAND PC Drive Directory RecordFile FastStart AutoDial M6340 USE Sets up the system defaults for MAI PC LINK Defines the data drive directory where MAI PC LINK will look and store all files that you use This can be temporarily overridden dur ing the entry of a file name by pre appending a drive specifica tion to a
11. 42 characters in length when appended to the Data Path setting as entered in the Configure screen Action Re enter using a shorter Path and or HostFile name M6340 K 12 s Host Error handler failed Reason Action During a RECV an error was reported by the host and picked up by PC Link How ever the usual descriptive information about the error was not received by PC Link from the host Try again with the Timing factor in creased It may have been as simple as interference during communication in Host Error Reason Action which case a repeated attempt may prove successful Or it may be something more serious occurring at either end of the link but most likely at the host end See if it occurs during a RECV of other files You can also check for corruption in the host program RECV Error handler failed An error was reported by the host and picked up by PC Link However the usual descriptive information about the error was not received by PC Link from the host Try again with the Timing factor in creased It may have been as simple as interference during communication in which case a repeated attempt may prove successful Or it may be something more serious occurring at either end of the link but most likely at the host end See if it occurs using other files You can also check for corrup tion in the host program involved K 13 M6340 Host file does not exist
12. Basic Four computer being linked Defines the program installed on the host computer which prepares and transfers data to the Personal Computer The default name is RECV For 2000 and 8000 series systems the default program path is assumed unless another path is given Defines the program installed on the host computer which receives data from the Personal Computer The default name is SEND For 2000 and 8000 series systems the default program path is assumed unless another path is given B 19 M6340 COMMAND Host continued Paths Program Data Printer Parallel Serial Baud AutoLF Setup M6340 CONFIGURE MENU continued USE Sets the default program pathname for 2000 and 8000 series systems Sets the default data pathname for 2000 and 8000 series systems Select to use a parallel printer Select to use a serial printer note that 2 serial ports are required one for MAI PC LINK communication and one for the printer Select serial printer parameters If this set to YES the printer is in a mode where it automatically inserts a line feed after every carriage return Enters a printer control string e g to compress print You may send unprintable control charact ers in the following format nnn where nnn is a 3 digit decimal ASCII character code e g to send an ESC to the printer enter 027 B 20 CONFIGURE MENU continued COMMAND Modem Initialization
13. Directory contains too many entries to fit on the screen Action Enter a wildcard when prompted for the a filename i e PLN or enter the filename itself if you know it K 23 M6340 Too many help screens Reason This message should not appear in PC Link If it does a corrupt PC Link program file is indicated Action It is necessary to contact your MAI Basic Four dealer for further instructions Transmission error File transmission ended Reason PC Link attempted several times to RECV information from the host and failed each time There is some breakdown in communication Possible causes include hardware failure electrical interfer ence very busy host Timing Factor too low This message is usually accompa nied by another more informative message Action Try again with the Timing factor increased Most often this will take care of the problem Check all cable connections etc Unable to calculate size of PC file Reason During host program installation PC Link was unable to calculate the size of the program file on the PC host pro grams disk This is usually indicative of a hardware problem drive door open corrupt file or bad disk Action Exit PC Link and use the DOS CHKDSK utility to ensure disk integrity M6340 K 24 Cc a Unable to create program file on Host Reason Action During host program installation for some reason PC Link was unable to aut
14. Lotus Import format c Experiment with deleting and or moving some of the transferred fields col umns using the R ECEIVE C OLUMNS menu Each time you select G 0 from the main Receive menu a file will be transferred according to the specifica tions displayed in the COLUMNS window d Try changing the format of the PC file created during a transfer using the R ECEIVE L OCAL FILE F ORMAT menu Each time you select G O from the main receive menu a file will be created in the format indicated in the LOCALFILE window e Try receiving a selected range of keys from the Hostfile using the R ECEIVE C RITERIA R ANGE menu Enter GRAHAM as the start key and LINCOLN as the last key to transfer When you acti vate this procedure with G 0O from the main menu only records with keys that are alphabetically between the selected key values will be transferred If you have transferred the STUDENT REC file to the Basic Four using SEND above you may use the procedure STUDENT to receive it back to the PC 8 5 M6340 VIEW If you wish to practice with the VIEW ruler enter the V IEW option Select R EAD D ata then enter the filename STUDENT REC You will see the file on the screen Now select R EAD R ULER then enter the ruler name STUDENT Select E DIT and you will see a sample ruler appear on the screen This ruler i can be used to S ELECT certain records to be written into various formats This ruler can
15. PC manufacturers to manage the com puter resources i e CPU disk drives printer keyboard CRT and internal memory etc Data Terminal Equipment The hardware that is connected to a modem or other communications equipment for receiving and transmitting from to a remote computer A PC is generally set up to be DTE Data Carrier Detect pin 8 on RS 232 connector Data Set Ready pin 6 on RS 232 connector Data Terminal Ready pin 20 on RS 232 connector The imitation of terminal opera tions for the purpose of commun icating with a host computer A 3 M6340 Full Duplex Host Half Duplex Local Connection Modem Null Modem On Line Parity M6340 Simultaneous bidirectional transmission of data between two points The primary computer that is accessed by other computers for information computing power and other computer resources Two way transmission of data between two points however only one point is allowed to transmit at a time A direct connection between computers using a cable rather than a communications link and modem Modulate demodulate The commun ication equipment used by each computer that enables communica tion over a telephone line Cable connection of a terminal to a host computer using RS 232 connectors Pin 2 transmit pin on the host must be connected to pin 3 receive pin on the term inal and vice versa On Basic Four terminals Pins 4 and 5 are jumpe
16. RETURN key H 2 o For 8000 Series from the prompt type UTILITY or from the gt prompt type UTILITY o For 2000 Series from the Command Interpreter prompt type menu If you are unsure about the use of the UTILITY programs refer to your MAI BASIC FOUR System User Guide o Select SYSTEM and on the next menu select Display Memory Device Usage or TASKS o You will receive a display of status of the system including which terminal control tasks are enabled You will see a display which indicates the number of 256 byte pages of memory that are allocated to each task Also indicated is the number of pages of mem ory that are not currently being used o If your port task is listed on the screen and it has memory allocated to it then it is enabled There must be some other problem In this case you should proceed to the next item below o If your port task does not appear at all on the screen then your oper ating system is not configured to allow that task to be enabled In this case you will have to call MAI to reconfigure your operating system o If your port task is listed on the screen but it does not have memory allocated to it then it is not ena bled In this case you should pro ceed to the following paragraph for the necessary steps to enable it H 3 M6340 M6340 d On 1300 series to start a terminal control task you must use the system control terminal
17. also be used to set up a Receive procedure by selecting C OLUMNS R ECALL from the RECEIVE menu NOTES M6340 8 6 APPENDIX A DEFINITION OF TERMS Acoustic Coupler An electromechanical piece of equipment that has two rubber cups that allow insertion of a telephone handset The acoustic coupler translates computer sig nals into audio signals that can be used by a telephone line ASCII Acronym for American Standard for Computer Information Inter change The standard defines that each numeric byte corres ponds to a specific character for example the letter A corresponds to the computer decimal 65 Asynchronous A method of communicating data between computers that does not require that the information be sent in packets and at a cons tant pace Asynchronous communi cation is relatively easy to implement but less efficient than synchronous communication It is also the most widely used method on most personal computer links Auto Answer A modem feature that detects an incoming phone call and answers automatically Auto Dial A modem feature that initiates phone calls using touch tone or pulse dialing A 1 M6340 Baud Boot Carrier Control Characters CTS Data Bit DB 25 M6340 Approximately the speed at which the computer can transmit and receive data in bits per second on its serial port It is actu ally the modulation rate or num ber of times the carrier signal is modulated per
18. as well as a number of other Microsoft products are the most popular examples of a series of programs that use this format Multiplan does not allow you to directly import SYLK format into a spreadsheet but instead you must create an external link relationship to the SYLK worksheet in order to extract data from it You may load an entire SYLK file into Multiplan as your workfile by using the following command sequences Transfer Options Symbolic Transfer Load filename E 3 M6340 where filename is the name of your SYLK file All SYLK files created by MAI PC LINK have the extension SLK which must be manually appended to the filename re quest in Multiplan For more information concerning the formation of external links and other features concerning Multiplan please consult the corresponding sections in the Multiplan manual 7 MULTIMATE To load Multimate formatted data created by the MAI PC LINK Multimate Document or Merge format option choose Function 1 Edit an old document from the Multimate main menu Initially Multimate will display a list of possible files from which to load data If your file is not listed check to see that Multimate s default data drive accessed through Other Utilities Menu Drive Defaults is the one on which your file resides M6340 Eng APPENDIX F TRADEMARKS Lotus 1 2 3 is a trademark of Lotus Development Corporation dBase I is a trademark of Ashton Tate Multimate is a tra
19. be used to write transferred data to the Personal Computer disk COMMAND Worksheet Import Lotus m dBase II III IBM Basic DIF SYLK USE Selects a format loadable into LOTUS 1 2 3 Column widths must be defined using the Receive Columns option File name exten sion is WKS Selects a format loadable into Lotus 1 2 3 using its Import Numbers command File name exten sion is PRN Selects a format loadable into dBase II or dBase III using its APPEND DELIMITED option File name extension is TXT Selects a format readable by Personal Computer Basic using its READ command for sequential files Extension is DAT Selects Software Arts DIF format File is directly loadable into Visicalc as well as many other software packages Extension is DIF Selects Microsoft s Symbolic Link format File is directly loadable into Multiplan and many other software packages Extension is a SLK 3 FORMAT MENU continued COMMAND USE Mul timate Selects a format loadable into Multimate Either document or a merge format is available Extension is DOC Fixed Selects MAI PC LINK Fixed which writes data into fixed width columns Column widths must be defined using the Receive Columns option Extension is FIX Plain Selects MAI PC LINK Plain format Serial files are received line by line unchanged Direct and indexed files are received record by re cord with commas inserted between the field
20. create the file prior to the transfer Currently unsupported output format Reason Action This message should not appear in PC Link If it does a corrupt PC Link Program file is indicated Contact your MAI Basic Four dealer for further instructions Cursor Positioning Stack Overflow Cursor Positioning Stack Underflow Reason Action These messages should not appear in PC Link If it does a corrupt PC Link program file is indicated Contact your MAI Basic Four dealer for further instructions K 5 M6340 Desired Help information is not available Reason Action You are at a menu or a screen in PC Link for which there is not a context sensitive link Change to a different menu call up HELP and use the Help Index to select a HELP screen appropriate for your need Did not receive acknowledgement from Host Reason Action PC Link attempted several times to send information to the host and failed to receive an acknowledgement each time There is some breakdown in communica tion Possible causes include hardware failure not being at the BASIC Command Mode prompt when initiating a file transfer or a very busy host Timing Factor too low Try again with the Timing factor in creased Most often this will take care of the problem Check all cable connections etc If initiating a file transfer check to see that there are no active GOSUBS by typing DELETE at the B
21. field separators When the Receive option is selected from the main menu a Receive control menu is displayed along with a series of windows showing the currently selected file receive options see Figure 4 2 The information displayed on this screen for a given data transfer can be saved in a disk file to use again This information is called a Data Transfer Procedure The components of a Data Transfer Procedure include 1 DESCRIPTIVE INFORMATION o Procedure Name up to 8 characters Used as name of the file to store the transfer procedure setup information The file extension is automatically given as PRC Procedure Description up to 60 characters of text describing purpose of procedure optional 4 9 M6340 edure ile CLocalFile Criteria Columns Go ecall Name a dete transfer Neme s Student i Description Sample Receive Procedure HOST FILE File STUDNT Type Automatic Tuition MAL PC LINK FUS B 54AMF 94 18 6588 FFReceivedF FHGAITTAGAA TT ARAeaTTaTeaTas Figure 4 2 A Sample Receive Screen 2 HOST FILE INFORMATION o File file on BASIC FOUR containing desired data up to 42 characters with pathname if applicable o Type host file type Direct Indexed Serial String automatically displayed after transfer is activated with G0 at other times the type is Automatic If a Direct file is being received the security system SAFE HST must have been installed and the Host file
22. if you encounter difficulties see the appropriate User Guide pages GETTING CONNECTED To run MAI PC LINK the asynchronous port of the PC should be connected to the Basic Four with a stand ard MAI cable A female female adapter cable will be needed to allow the cable to be plugged into the PC The Basic Four port should be configured and enabled as it would be for a standard VDT or EVDT STARTING MAI PC LINK SESSION To start MAI PC LINK type MAI PC LINK The program will run from a hard disk or a working copy floppy diskette as long as the INSTALL program has been used Refer to Section 2 for Installa tion Uninstallation Procedures MAI PC LINK s menu system design allows you to select an item from a menu either type the first letter of your selection or use the left right arrow keys to move the cursor to your selection shown by highlighting and press ENTER To exit from a menu press ESC or select Q uit or E xit when available MAI PC LINK s on line HELP system can be accessed by pressing Fl shift Fl while in emulation mode Enter C ONFIGURE and check to see that the default settings apply to your system Settings most likely to require attention are J 1 M6340 Communications If you are not using COMI Port Terminal If you wish to emulate an EVDT Host System If you are connected to a 2000 or 8000 series computer If you are communicating through a modem it will be necessary to change the Communicati
23. or is too small Reason During host program installation the destination program file was not present or was created without enough room for all the program lines to fit This message is usually followed by another message indicating failure of the install Action Erase the destination program file create one with at least as much space as is indicated in the User Guide for that particular program file Host Program name is too long Reason The Program name entered in a RECV pro cedure is too long it is greater than 42 characters in length when appended to the Program Path setting as entered in the Configure screen l Action Re enter using a shorter Path and or HostFile name Host program failed to start Reason When PC Link attempted to RUN the applicable host program RECV the appropriate responses were not received from the host computer The host pro gram may be corrupted or communication may have been garbled by interference This error is also generated by not receiving the response in time or by receiving an incorrect response M6340 K 14 Action Try increasing the Timing factor in the Configure screen If this does not work compare the applicable host program line by line with the original version supplied on the Host Programs diskette to see if any lines have become damaged in any way If there are damaged lines use the Configure Install option and reinstall the program from the Host Pro
24. please wait While this message is displayed the com puter is installing the protected version of MAI PC LINK onto your hard disk This process may take a minute so be patient and DO NOT interrupt the transferral pro cedure After the program has been instal led the screen will display the following message MAI PC LINK has been successfully installed 2 5 M6340 This message indicates a successful instal lation of MAI PC LINK onto your hard disk If any error conditions were encountered an appropriate error message will be dis played Please note the content of the error message and contact your dealer for technical assistance Installing MAI PC LINK onto a Floppy Diskette You should install MAI PC LINK onto a floppy dis kette if your personal computer is equipped for a floppy diskette s You should always run from the working copy that you create by doing this type of install and store your original MASTER DISK in a safe place for backup You also may uninstall MAI PC LINK from that floppy disk This is important if you start to experience hardware types of problems with that working copy Installation is a simple process performed through a series of prompts The following procedure guides you through the process of installing MAI PC LINK to a blank formatted 360K double sided double den sity floppy diskette CR represents pressing your RETURN key 1 Insert your original MAI PC LINK distri bution d
25. printers and asynchronous or synchronous communications A 5 M6340 Session SG Stop Bit Synchronous RS 232 TD Protocol Upload M6340 A non stop work session between the user and the terminal Signal Ground pin 7 on RS 232 connector The method to signal the modem the end of a block of data being transmitted A method of communicating data between computers that requires that data be sent in packets and at a contant pace An industry standard method of serial asynchronous communica tion which specifies voltage le vels and signal characteristics Devices are interconnected via standard 25 pin connectors Transmitted Data pin 2 on RS 232 connector A set of rules for how informa tion is exchanged over a com puter network To send a file or information from a smaller computer to a larger computer A 6 APPENDIX B MAIN COMMAND MENU FOR MAI PC LINK The MAI PC LINK main menu option commands are explained in the following paragraphs A page reference where applicable is provided for any subsequent sub menus or instructions contained elsewhere in this manual PAGE COMMAND USE REFERENCE Terminal Selects terminal emulation 3 2 control menus Send Selects menus to control 4 2 sending Personal Computer files to the host computer Receive Selects menus to control 4 8 receiving Host computer data onto the Personal Computer View Visual PC File reformatter 5 1 Configure Selects m
26. problem occurred when the PC was trying to write to the destination Drive Directory This is usually hardware related such as a floppy drive door being left open or a disk error Exit from PC Link Use the DOS CHKDSK utility to see if the disk is OK or insert a new disk Failed to confirm after 5 tries Reason Action PC Link attempted several times to RECV information from the host and failed each time There is a breakdown in com munication possibly caused by hardware failure electrical interference or very busy host Timing Factor too low This message is usually followed by another message indicating termination of the transfer Try again with the Timing factor increased This will usually resolve the problem Check all cable connections etc Failed to send End of File to Host Reason Action M6340 The End of File marker sent to the host was not responded to as expected The destination HostFile may not be large ae or communication may have broken own Check the size of the host file Enlarge it by a small amount and try again Check all cable connections K 10 Fields must be defined for Fixed Worksheet formats Reason Go was selected in a RECV procedure into a PC file format of Fixed or of Work sheet without specifying at least one field in the Field section of the Receive screen Action At the Receive menu select the Fields option and enter the field information
27. the Basic Four according to your specifications and data will be sent to it If the file already exists an error message will be displayed M6340 8 2 c RECEI To pr the P RECV enter NAME EXAMPLE 3 Information is to be sent to a new DIRECT file on the Basic Four Enter the PC filename the host filename the key field key size record size and the number of records All of this information is REQUIRED to properly create the new file After the file has been created records will be sent to it using the specified field as the key If the file already exists an error message will be displayed VE actice receiving a file from the Basic Four to C be sure that you have first installed the program on the Basic Four From the main menu T ERMINAL E MULATION l Start MAI PC LINK by typing PCLINK 2 On operating system levels 4 2A and lower use the Basic Four utility program to create the following files TYPE SIZE KEY SIZE RECORD SIZE DIRECT Direct 10 records 20 char 200 char MKDIR program 10 pages Soe When the files have been successfully created enter BASIC COMMAND mode You should see the gt prompt 3 Press F10 to return to MAI PC LINK and press Q UIT to return to the main menu Enter C ONFIGURE I NSTALL The PC pro gram is called MKDIR HST Remember to pre append a drive or directory if this program is not on MAI PC LINK s default drive as displayed on the screen The Basic Four
28. the Local filename RECEIVE Files may be received to the PC in various formats and using various criteria The required entries are Host filename Local filename and Local file format J 3 M6340 NOTES M6340 J 4 APPENDIX K PC ERROR MESSAGES kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk This is an alphabetical list of the error messages displayed by the PC Link program from the PC end The list does not include error messages generated by the host program Ke ke de ke ke ke kekeke keke kek k k kkk kek kek k deok kekeke k k kk kk kk kkk kk kk kok kk kk kk Bad Format Reason Action This message should not appear in PC Link if it does a corrupt PC Link pro gram file is indicated Contact your MAI Basic Four representa tive for further instructions Can t do Record and Capture at the same time Reason Action Can t edit Reason In Emulation Record to Disk ALT R and Print Capture were selected at the same time This cannot be done Toggle off one of the two functions strings longer than nn characters When prompted for a string of charac ters a string was entered that contains too many characters to be used for that Action particular purpose Enter a smaller character string K 1 M6340 Can t open Communications Port Reason Action PC Link was unable to access the Com Port specified in the Configure screen Check to see that there is
29. the one plugged into port 0 On the system control termi nal in command mode type a command in the following syntax START P TN Where P is the number of pages of memory to assign to your terminal make sure that there are enough pages of free memory available in any one memory bank or you will receive from the BASIC FOUR an error message number 33 Insufficient Memory Capacity N is the number of the port that your Personal Computer is connected to For example START 10 T5 will start Task 5 with 10 pages of memory assigned to it If you receive error messages in response to this command you may have one of these problems o Your BASIC FOUR operating system may not be configured to allow this port to be enabled as described above You can tell that this is the problem if your task number does not appear at all on the system status screen described above If this is the case you will have to ask MAI to reconfigure your operating system o You may have made a mistake in the amount of available memory H 4 o You may not have typed the command in upper case letters If the above still does not work then the port to which you are connected may not be set to 9600 Baud or it may not be connected inside the Basic Four computer The best way to check if this is the problem is to connect the Personal Computer to a port that is known to work with a normal BASIC FOUR terminal If the Personal Compu
30. utility to verify the integrity of the disk Unable to open replaced output file xxxxxxxx Xxx Reason When the selection for Replace was made PC Link was unable to open this file This implies a full disk or another type of hardware error on the PC Or Reason When the prompt for NewName filename entry was given PC Link was unable to Open this second file This implies a full disk or another type of hardware error on the PC Action Insert a new disk and try again Unable to open output file xxxxxxxx xxx Reason When an output filename entry was made PC Link was unable to open this file This implies the file does not exist or is bad Action Check for the file s existence in the Drive Directory being accessed If it is there exit PC Link and use the DOS CHKDSK utility to verify the integrity of the disk M6340 K 26 lt 5 Unable to re open com port Reason Action After completing the DOS application PC Link attempted to re establish com munications with the host and failed for some reason Check the cables serial board etc Unable to start host program XXXX Reason Action When PC Link attempted to LOAD the applicable host program SEND or RECV into the workspace on the host the appropriate responses were not received from the host computer The host program may not be present on the host computer or in the designated path on the 2000 or 8000 type Basic Four host s
31. 2 port 1 is the default The IBM asynchronous communication card or equivalent has a male type DB 25 connector The terminal ports on the back of the BASIC FOUR have female type connectors There fore to directly connect the PC to BASIC FOUR you have two options 1 Use a standard BASIC FOUR cable from the BASIC FOUR computer to your work location This cable will have male type connectors on both ends so it will not plug directly in the Personal Computer You will need a short adapter cable with female type DB 25 connectors at each end If you are going to assemble this cable yourself you will need two female DB 25 connectors and about one to two feet of cable with at least four leads in it The connectors are assembled to the cable as follows Female female Connector Connector Pin Pin Plug into s2 1 Plug into cable from 2 2 Personal from Basic 3 3 Computer Four computer 7 7 Asynchronous Comm port The other pins on the connectors are not used M6340 2 12 If you are going to buy this cable specify a one to two foot long DB 25 cable assem bly with female connectors at each end wired 1 2 3 7 with no crossovers 2 Use a custom cable directly from the BASIC FOUR computer to your work location In this case you will need a four lead cable with a male DB 25 connector at one end and a female DB 25 connector at the other end long enough to reach from the BASIC FOUR computer
32. ASIC prompt If there are active GOSUBS use the END command to de activate them Disk file is empty or nondisplayable format Reason Action M6340 An attempt was made to load into the View window a PC file that was empty or was not in an ASCII text type format Check the file in question for these characteristics Disk full writing record file Reason Action In Emulation during either a Record to Disk ALT R or a screen Snapshot to Disk F8 the disk receiving the Record File named in the Configure screen has become full Use a floppy disk with more space on it or erase some files that are present Error defining function key Error in re defining key Reason Action During Emulation of an EVDT if an invalid escape sequence for defining or re defining one of the function keys is received by PC Link from the host PC Link will display one or both of these messages The sequence may have become damaged in transmission from the host or the host may be sending an invalid sequence Try it several times checking cable connections and checking for electrical interference If this does not work find out the exact escape sequence being sent by the host Error in communicating with modem Reason The response expected from the modem was not received for some reason This could be due to 1 a control sequence entered in one of the modem settings in the Configure screen no
33. CEIVE AND VIEW SESSIONS 5 3 M6340 NOTES M6340 5 4 lt lt SECTION 6 USING DOS COMMANDS AND RUNNING OTHER PROGRAMS FROM MAI PC LINK Version 2 3 of MAI PC LINK has the ability to remain resident in memory while you return to DOS or run another program This feature gives you the added flexibility of not having to exit from MAI PC LINK while you execute DOS commands or run other programs EXECUTING DOS COMMANDS FROM MAI PC LINK You may use this option by selecting DOS in the top menu and then selecting Commands The only require ment is that the file COMMAND COM is either in the default directory or can be found in the DOS path If MAI PC LINK cannot find this file execution will be terminated and MAI PC LINK will again appear on the screen If the file COMMAND COM is found then MAI PC LINK is terminated but remains resident in memory and DOS is reinstated By typing EXIT at any time in DOS you may return to MAI PC LINK EXECUTING OTHER PROGRAMS FROM MAI PC LINK MAT PC LINK gives you the ability to load and run other programs while it terminates and remains resident You may use this option by selecting DOS in the top level command menu and then selecting Execute You will then be prompted to enter the program to run must have an EXE or COM extension and then the argument for the program if any For example suppose you want to run an editor called EDIT and that the name of the file you want to edit is T
34. EATE The files are defined as follows No of Record Filename Type Keysize Records Size PASSWD DIRECT 3 30 50 ACCESS DIRECT 45 100 445 You will see a menu of the following selections A ADD FILE TO ACCESS LIST R REMOVE FILE FROM ACCESS LIST D DISPLAY ACCESS LIST Q QUIT To add valid accessible file names to the system select A add file to access list Enter the exact names of the DIRECT files to which users may have access and select R Read only W Write only or B Read and Write A selection of Read means that the system users will be able to receive data from the specified file to the PC but will be unable to send data to it A selection of Write means that the system users will only be able to send data to the file A selection of Both means that the users will be able to both send data and receive data from the specified file Take care when assigning Read Write status to files if a DIRECT file already exists on the Basic Four and data is being sent to it existing records can be overwritten The named files need not exist on the Basic Four in order to be added to the list Including a nonexistent temporary file name will give users the opportunity to practice DIRECT file creation To remove valid DIRECT filenames from the system select R REMOVE file from access list 4 5 M6340 To display valid DIRECT filenames select D DISPLAY access list You will be shown a list of the file names which hav
35. ECV of a serial spool file with SpoolFilter on a line exceeded 200 characters in length and has been truncated Action Ensure that no record in the serial spool file is longer than 200 characters Program installation unsuccessful Reason During host program installation there was some failure or the install was terminated by the user pressing the ESC key This message is usually preceded by another message indicating the cause of the failure of the install Action Refer to the accompanying message and take corresponding action K 21 M6340 Records truncated at nnn characters Reason During a RECV one or more records exceeded the maximum receivable record length Those records will be truncated in the LocalFile on the PC Action Ensure that no record to be received exceeds the maximum record length Size error old Version Procedure must be re entered Reason When Recalling a previously saved SEND procedure the procedure file is a different size than that used by the current version of PC Link This occurs when you have received an update but are trying to use the old procedure files Action The procedure will have to be re entered There is no selected data to save Reason In View you must have selected at least one record to save to the output file Action Use the S key or ALT S key combination to select records to be included in the output file This file exists also
36. EMARKS eeceoeveeeeeeeeeeeevnean eee F 1 LIMITATIONS eseeeeeveseeesneeneee ene G 1 SETUP PROBLEMS I E E E E H 1 CONTROL MNEMONICS e eeeseeeeeeeees I 1 QUICK START PROCEDURES IE E E E E E E J l Getting Connected J l Starting MAI PC LINK Session J l File Transfer cscs cswecicsceweeee UlZ Installation iccccccnsoc ewes 0 2 Send sveeseceebesuseurwees Seaesase Us J 3 K Receive eeeseaoeoeevseeeovoeveseeneee2828206808 PC ERROR MESSAGES v vi a S SE SE E E E E E M6340 PREFACE The MAI PC LINK User Guide provides information for transferring files to and from MAI Basic Four and PC systems as well as instructions to run the MAI PC LINK programs The major topics covered in this manual are Section 1 Introduction Section 2 Getting Started Using MAI PC Link Section 3 Terminal Emulation Section 4 File Transfer Section 5 Selecting and Reformatting Data with View Section 6 Using DOS Commands and Running Other Programs Section 7 Summary of MAI PC Link Configuration Settings Section 8 Sample Send Receive and View Sessions Appendices WARNING This equipment generates uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions manual may cause interference to radio communications as tem porarily permitted by regulation It has not been tested for compliance with the limits for Class A Computing Devices pursuant to Subpart J of Part 15 of FCC Rules w
37. ESTFILE Normally it would be run from PC DOS with the command EDIT TESTFILE To run it from MAI PC LINK you would enter the program name as EDIT and the argument as TESTFILE 6 1 M6340 MAI PC LINK should be able to run almost any kind of EXE or COM program provided your PC has adequate memory and that the program does not affect the communications port NOTES M6340 6 2 SECTION 7 SUMMARY OF MAI PC LINK CONFIGURATION SETTINGS m MAI PC LINK provides you with the ability to customize the default configurations used in the program By selecting Configure in the top menu you are given the option of changing Communication parameters PC internal defaults Basic Four defaults Foreground and background screen colors Modem setup Printer setup ooooccdoco and saving these settings for future use In the following sections we will outline how to select and save the settings that you want Figure 7 1 shows an example of a typical configuration screen MENU ommunications Modem Host Printer Install Updete eset Quit Change the Personal Computer Default values PC DEF AUL TS Fest Start No Statline On Color BLACK Beck Fore WHITE WHITE T DEFAULTS System 1300 Recv Program RECV Send Program SEND Date Path n a Program Path n a DrivADirec A N RecordFile HARMONY REC Auto Dial No Terminal YTD COMMUNICATIONS Baud 9600 Date 7Port 1 Flow Xon Xoff Peri
38. Four SEND To practice sending a file from the PC to the Basic Four be sure that you have first installed the SEND program on the Basic Four refer to Section 4 1 Start MAI PC LINK by typing PCLINK From the main menu enter T ERMINAL E MULATION E 2 Enter BASIC COMMAND mode you should see the gt prompt 8 1 M6340 3 Press F10 to return to MAI PC LINK and press Q UIT to return to the main menu Select the S END option 4 Enter the L OCAL file name as STUDENT REC Remember to pre append a drive or directory a if this file is not on MAI PC LINK s de fault drive 5 Enter the H OST file N AME as STUDNT Be sure to use upper case letters if the file was created on the Basic Four in upper case Enter the file T YPE as Indexed 6 Select C reate and enter the number of records as 10 and the RecordSize as 200 7 Start the transfer with G 0 The file STUDNT will be created on the Basic Four and records from STUDENT REC will be sent to it The SEND examples below demonstrate various situations EXAMPLE 1 An INDEXED file TEST exists on the Basic Four To send data to it enter the PC file name and the host file name No other information is required The existing TEST data if any will be overwritten EXAMPLE 2 Information is to be sent to a new INDEXED file on the Basic Four Enter the PC file name the host file name the record size and the number of records The file will be created on
39. HOW TO USE THIS MANUAL In writing this manual we tried to introduce each feature of MAI PC LINK as a separate section However in an effort to reduce redundancy cross references will be made We have also included several appendices which provide summary or additional information Appendix A A glossary of common computer and communication terms Appendix B A summary of the command menus available in MAI PC LINK along with a brief description of their use Appendix C Information on copy protection and how it affects your use of MAI PC LINK Appendix D A list and description of the files included on your master MAI PC LINK diskette Appendix E Tips on how various application packages can use the data files reformatted by MAI PC LINK Appendix F Trademarks Appendix G Limitations Appendix H Help with set up problems Appendix I Basic Four Terminal Control Mnemonics recognized by MAI PC LINK MAI PC LINK INSTALLATION UNINSTALLATION MAI PC LINK programs are provided on floppy diskette which you may transfer and install 1 onto your hard disk into a directory or 2 to another floppy diskette using the following installation proced ures The complete set of MAI PC LINK programs can then be uninstalled back to floppy by executing the uninstall procedures if you wish to use MAI PC LINK M6340 2 2 on a different personal computer or reformat your hard disk MAI PC LINK Installation You cannot r
40. Horizontal Position x y Horizontal and Vertical Position BS Backspace CE Clear Screen To End of Page CF Clear Foreground 1 CH Cursor Home CL Clear Line ECR Carriage Return GS Clear Screen I 1 PC LINK RESULTING ACTION Display next data at absolute horizontal position defined by x Display next data at position x of vertical line y Moves the cursor back one space erasing the previous character Clears the screen from the cursor to the end of the page Replaces Foreground Characters with Spaces Positions the Cursor at Home and Sets Fore ground Mode Replaces all charact ers between the Cursor and the end of line with blanks Cursor Drops one line moves to position 0 Clears all characters from the video screen positions the cursor to home and sets mode to Foreground M6340 MNEMONIC MNEMONIC NAME RESULTING ACTION DC Delete Character Deletes the character at cursor and shifts characters to the right of the cursor one position to the left Writes a space in the last position of the line or field Starts Foreground if Background was in effect rES ESCAPE Sends an ESC to the terminal which treats it as a lead in code The next character de fines an action code for the VDT Ic Insert Character Moves all characters at and to the right of the cursor one space right The next char acter output or input occurs at the space at the cur
41. MAI Basic Four MAI PC Link User Guide MAY 1986 006340 000 M6340 EAR E AE This manual includes original works of authorship and proprietary information protected by copyright and trade secret laws The Copyright Act of 1976 provides for civil liability anc severe criminal penalties for unauthorized copying or disclosure of protected works Posses sion and use of this manual is restricted and subject to the terms of the MAI Basic Four Inc license agreement for this manual Agreement You shall not publish reproduce or transmit in whole or in part this manual in any form or by any means whether elec tronic mechanical photographic or otherwise You shall not disclose or fail to make your best efforts to prevent the inadvertent disclosure of this manual to any third party except to your employees on a need to know basis which employees you shall bind in writing to the terms of the Agreement and be responsible for their compliance therewith If you fail to act in accordance with this notice and the Agreement your license to this manual will be immediately and automatically terminated and you may expose yourself to civil and criminal liability D Copyright 1986 MA Basic Four Inc All rights reserved MAI and BASIC FOUR are registered trademerks of MAI Basic Four Inc MAI Basic Four inc 14101 Myford Road Tustin CA 92680 714 731 5100 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ao SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION SECTION 2 GETTING S
42. PLotus WKSISEE Figure 5 1 The View Menu 5 1 M6340 To use View type V at the main menu to display the View menu Then select the desired Personal Computer file using Read from the View menu and then Data from the Read menu Type in the name of the file and press ENTER The file will be displayed in the viewing window You are automati cally returned to the View menu now select Edit The Columns Ruler will appear in the viewing screen and the data selection commands will be displayed at the top of the screen The Ruler can be moved over the display with the Personal Computer arrow keys To designate a column for selection type either T or N over it Use T for columns to be formatted as text and N for columns to be formatted as numbers As you type the letters will appear in the columns ruler For example a typical report with selected columns might be as shown in Figure 5 2 The Ruler is defined to select the NAME column and format it as Text and select the AGE GPA and Tuition columns and format them as Numeric MARK Columns Ruler Enter TEXT text NUMBER or CLEAR ruler Line Col Choosing Rows Enter SELECT UNSELECT Alt by Pace or Esc to exit 2 66 STUDENT LIS NNNN NINNNNN TUITION a000 2000 MAI PC LINK SDAT 34AMG 94 19 8594 Viewt FFTTETETTGTAELER EG PLotus WKSEGTTE Figure 5 2 A Sample View Screen M6340 5 2 J After selecting the columns you can select the desired rows u
43. RECT SERIAL INDEXED or STRING If you select DIRECT you will be asked for the field number to be used as the key The key field will default to 1 If the file does not already exist on the Basic Four you may enter file specifica tions so that MAI PC LINK can automatically create your files operating system levels 4 2B and higher Select C reate R ecord Size and enter the size of the records in bytes to the created 1 512 Next select N umber of Records and enter the maximum number of records to be allocated for the file 1 32 767 Remember to leave room for possible expansion If you are creating a DIRECT file you must also select K eysize and enter the size in bytes of the key field 2 56 Select the Local File name by typing L and enter the name of the Personal Computer file to be sent to the Basic Four If the file is not on the default data disk then the drive letter should also be entered as part of the file name Note that if the file is on the default data disk it can be selected from the displayed directory using the arrow keys to highlight the file name and then pressing ENTER Start the data transfer by typing G for Go If the named host file does not exist an attempt will be made to create it If any necessary information is missing i e 4 7 M6340 Record Size or number of Records an error message will be displayed Also if a file already exists and an attempt is made to create it b
44. TARTED USING MAI PC LINK Hardware Requirements cccccces How to Use this Manual cccccece MAI PC LINK Installation Uninstallation cecccccvcccccccece MAI PC LINK Installation lt Hard Disk Terre REeET Se Floppy Diskette w ccccccece Uninstalling MAI PC LINK KENEHI Transferring MAI PC LINK Support FileS eccccccccccece Special Concerns for IBM AT or Compatibles sseocoooo High Density Diskettes A High Density Drives s s so DOS Backup Restore Hard Disk Getting Connected cscccccccceee Using a Direct Connection to the Host eeoeeveeveveeeeeene eee 2 12 Using a Remote Connection to the Host eeveoeoveeanveeonen0 2 13 Using an Acoustic Coupler Modem ccccee 2 14 Using a Direct Line Modem weccccccccsccces 2 15 Starting MAI PC LINK eesvseeveee eee 2 16 The Help System eenevveeavenee0 2 17 cal me t O 0O Ww WW t ad pd ad jd jand Ree OO TOR BP PO AO N MNN PO PO 1 pt O SECTION 3 TERMINAL EMULATION Starting Terminal Emulation a Keyboard USage esssecseesoooooo FA iii M6340 TABLE OF CONTENTS continued Page SECTION 4 FILE TRANSFER Installation of Transfer ProgramS so lt s0in 0 000s eee si ceceses 4 1 Sending PC Data Files to the Basic FOUP svcvcccccicsvcscoseces 4 2 Receiving Basic Four Data Files 4 8 SECTION 5 SELECTING AND REFORMATTING DATA WITH VIEW SECTION 6 USING DOS COMMANDS AND RUNNING OTHER PROGRAMS Executing DOS Commands from MAI POSLINK sv
45. acted For a Direct or Indexed file the first field in each record is normally field 1 However if keys are also being downloaded selected by the Receive Cri teria Keys Include option then the key of each record becomes field 1 and the first real field becomes field 2 B 11 M6340 RECEIVE COLUMNS EDIT MENU continued COMMAND Position Width M6340 PAGE USE REFERENCE Position and Width define which 4 12 part of the field width you wish to transfer Position specifies the position within the field of the first character you wish to access and Width specifies how many characters to include For example assume a simple Basic Four file containing 3 lines of one field each GLO001 GL9807 GL0503 Since the GL is repeated you decide to transfer only the numeric portion of the field Your column definition would look like Field Position Width 1 3 4 In other words you wish to retrieve information from field 1 starting in position 3 of the field and taking 4 characters Using this column definition the PC would receive 0001 9807 0503 Note In order to retrieve an entire field specify a Position of 0 and a Width of 0 B 12 RECEIVE COLUMNS EDIT MENU continued PAGE COMMAND USE REFERENCE Position and Width must both con tain zeros or both contain non zero numbers Otherwise an error will occur A field will be ignored if you attempt to access a field th
46. ams diskette THE PROGRAM SAFE HST MUST BE INSTALLED AND RUN ON THE BASIC FOUR BEFORE SENDING DATA TO DIRECT FILES If the DIRECT file information is not set up you will be unable to send information to Basic Four DIRECT files from the PC or receive information from DIRECT files On 1300 series Basic Four 210 310 410 510 610 and 730 the program file SAFE 15 pages long must be created using the Basic Four utility program Instal1 SAFE2000 HST on the 2000 To install the security program start MAI PC LINK by typing PCLINK From the main menu press C ONFIGURE I NSTALL Enter the PC file name as SAFE HST remember to pre append a drive or directory if the program is not on the default drive e g B SAFE HST Enter the host file name as SAFE You will then see an increasing count of line numbers being transferred to the Basic Four Any errors or re tries will be displayed Once the installation procedure has been successfully completed exit the CONFIGURE menu by pressing ESCAPE then enter T ERMINAL E MULATE On 8000 and 2000 systems enter BASIC mode Type RUN SAFE The first time you run this program you will be asked if you wish to create the 2 files ACCESS and PASSWD required for the security system On operating system levels 4 2B or higher the program will automatically create the M6340 4 4 files for you On levels 4 2A and lower you must create the files manually through the Basic Four utility CR
47. an asynchron ous board in the PC and refer to its manual to ensure that it is properly configured for the address of either COM1 or COM2 If there is more than one such board in the PC make doubly sure that they are not configured for the same COM Port address Cannot prepare host computer to receive program Reason Action During a host program installation the appropriate responses were not received from the host computer when PC Link at tempted to clear the workspace on the host This is caused either by not receiving the response in time or by receiving an incorrect response Prior to starting any install procedure if you go into Emulation ensure that you are in Command Mode with the BASIC promopt gt displayed and there are no active GOSUBS etc If this was not the problem then try increasing the Timing Factor in the Configure screen If the problem still exists contact your MAI Basic Four representative Character Verification Error Reason Action M6340 During the transmission of characters to the host a character was not echoed back properly to the PC There is some interference in the communication line Check for possible causes of electrical interference and b again a short time later K 2 Config file write error Reason Action PC Link was unable to Update the Configuration file This is usually a hardware problem drive door open not enough room
48. annot be located the user is simply returned to the operating system 2 Protected program files may be copied to backup or archive diskettes with the DOS COPY command Use of DISKCOPY will result in a read error on the master diskette These backup copies will not execute unless C 1 M6340 3 4 M6340 they are re copied onto the MAI PC LINK diskette they were copied from or the original MAI PC LINK diskette is in the system as described above To use MAI PC LINK protected program files on a hard disk system simply transfer the files to the hard disk When starting MAI PC LINK make sure the original diskette is available as described above If the orig inal is found the program will continue execution from the hard disk drive No modification is made to your operating system or BIOS Basic Input Output System The protection system does not limit you to specific hardware configurations If you experience soft errors restore the files using the DOS COPY command from the backup copy created above This process will eliminate most soft errors In the unusual event that these errors should per sist and disk space permits rename PCLINK EXE to UNUSED BAD and transfer the backup copy of the PCLINK EXE file back to a dif ferent area of the original MAI PC LINK If the above procedures do not clear disk errors you may continue to utilize pro tected program files from a backup disk ette The only requirement i
49. at are saved for future use Information such as the HostFile name Personal Computer File name or Format can be omitted which will cause the user to be prompted for them at run time This allows complex information such as colummn field specifications to be 4 13 M6340 defined and saved for re use but ensures that the user must enter all pertinent data when the procedure is run Two sample transfer control procedures have been provided with MAI PC LINK See Section 8 SAMPLE SEND RECEIVE AND VIEW SESSIONS for practice with these procedures NOTES M6340 4 14 SECTION 5 SELECTING AND REFORMATTING DATA WITH VIEW MAI PC LINK provides the ability to view select and reformat the data from a file using the View option in the main menu see Figure 5 1 View is designed to work with data in fixed position columns such as are produced in many types of computer reports such as those that would be captured for local printing It allows the user to load a Personal Computer file into MAI PC LINK for viewing and then paint the columns and rows on the screen that contain the desired data Then the selected data can be written to another file in numerous Personal Computer formats The column selection specifications can also be saved as the basis for column selections in a receive control procedure MENU eed tdit format ve it Read a data file or procedure MAL PC LIMK FDEF7SSAMERE IO ESELSEViewSEPRILESPAEAETHE LE
50. at does not exist e g a file contains 5 fields and you ask for field 7 or if you attempt to access a position within a field that does not exist e g a field contains 3 characters and you attempt to start at position 8 of that field However the difficulty may be overcome by specifying an original field length longer than necessary Name An optional description field 4 12 name of up to 16 characters used for documentation purposes only Type Field type can be Numeric or 4 12 Text Insert Insert one blank line below the 4 12 current line Delete Delete the current line 4 12 Move Move the current source line 4 12 Specify the destination line by using the up and down arrow keys B 13 M6340 VIEW MENU This menu is selected by the View option from the main menu It allows viewing selection and refor matting of data from a downloaded file that has been written to the Personal Computer disk PAGE COMMAND USE REFERENCE Read Data Enters the name of the Person 5 2 al Computer datafile that is to be processed and causes it to be loaded into MAI PC LINK Ruler Enters the name of a previously 5 3 saved data selection ruler to be used on the current data file Edit Enters edit data selection mode 5 2 Activates the Columns Ruler and causes the selection options to be displayed at the top of the screen Format Selects a menu allowing a 5 3 choice of Personal Computer file formats for selected
51. be written to the Personal Computer file It also allows specific control over whether fields are to be formatted as text or numeric data In the case of serial files it is used to select the parts of each line that are to be captured and formatted Note that a set of colummn specifications are applied to each line or record of data transferred Lines with specified numeric fields that do not contain valid numeric data are completely rejected The parts of a colummn specification include 4 11 M6340 o Field for Serial files this is always 0 and for Direct or Indexed files this specifies the field number in the record to be extracted field numbers exceeding the number in the current record are rejected o Position the position within the field of the first character you wish to access o Width the number of characters in the field that you wish to retrieve Note To retrieve all characters in a field enter Position 0 and Width 0 o Name an optional descriptive field name of up to 12 characters used for documentation pur poses only o Type field type can be Numeric or Text o Insert Insert one blank line below the current line o Delete Delete the current line o Move Move the current source line Specify the destination line by using the up and down arrow keys The Up and Down arrow keys are used to move the field edit cursor up and down in the columns edit window To add a new field
52. clude formats readable by Lotus 1 2 3 Multi plan etc See page reference at right for more details Specifies starting Line Number 4 11 Serial files Index Indexed files or Key Direct files Records preceding this location are not downloaded Specifies the last Line Number 4 11 Index or Key to be transferred Records after this location in the file are not downloaded Exits to Criteria menu Names the program on the Basic 4 11 Four that is to be activated to prepare and send the data to the Personal Computer This is usually the standard MAI PC LINK program RECV but for Special purposes the user can supply another program that uses Standard MAI PC LINK protocols Does not download keys from Direct files B 8 RECEIVE MENU continued PAGE COMMAND USE REFERENCE Range Keys continued Include Downloads keys from Direct files and appends them to the beginning of the data line as the first field SpoolFilter 4 1 On Used to receive serial files which contain printer control mnemonics Files may be Basic Four spooler files or other files which contain printer control Off Used to receive normal text files Columns 4 11 Edit Activates the Columns fields selection menu and window Recall Recall a columns ruler as de fined in the View system Go Starts file transfer from Host computer to Personal Computer The lines of data transferred will be seen in a window in the lower ha
53. could be useful if you are using a hard disk with a large number of directory entries You may also specify another drive for MAI PC LINK to search for your current file this works for additional directory assistance as well e g A by itself as a filename entry will give you the entire A Drive directory list Press the ESC key to quit at any time or F1 Help for on line help B 27 M6340 M6340 NOTES B 28 APPENDIX C INFORMATION ON COPY PROTECTION MAI PC LINK diskettes are copy protected using a method which is designed to minimize any inconven ience to users resulting from copy protection With this copy protection method unlimited backup of programs is possible programs can be run from a hard disk no operating system modifications or specific hardware are necessary Replacement Diskette It is very unlikely that you can damage the master diskette so badly that you cannot run MAI PC LINK from a backup disk as described below However should this occur contact your MAI Basic Four dealer for a replacement copy USING PROTECTED PROGRAMS 1 Protected programs will only execute properly if the MAI PC LINK diskette is available when the protected file is run A drive is searched to determine if the proper MAI PC LINK diskette is available If the diskette is not found the B drive is then searched If the proper diskette is there the program continues normal execution If the proper diskette c
54. data Options include Lotus 1 2 3 Multiplan etc Save Data Enters the name of a Person 5 3 al Computer file into which the selected formatted output data is to be written and causes the data to be written to the file M6340 B 14 VIEW MENU continued PAGE COMMAND USE REFERENCE Save continued Ruler Enters the name of a Person 5 3 al Computer file into which the currently defined column definitions will be saved for later use Quit Exits to MAI PC LINK main menu B 15 M6340 CONFIGURE MENU This series of menus is selected by the Configure command on the main menu Configure allows you to set up the printer communications modem and systems defaults used by MAI PC LINK You may customize MAI PC LINK to your specific hardware and peripherals and save this configuration to use instead of the MAI PC LINK defaults COMMAND USE Communications Defines the communications link Baud Sets the baud rate data transfer rate for communicating with the host computer 300 19200 Indicates the speed in bits per second Parity Sets the type of parity checking to be done None No parity checking Odd Parity is odd standard MAI VDT Even Parity is even Data Sets the number of data bits for communications 5 6 7 8 Indicates the number of bits to be used for data Stop Sets the number of stop bits for communications 1 2 Indicates the number of bits to be used as end of character markers M6340 B
55. demark of Softword Systems Multiplan is a trademark of Microsoft Ltd Visicalc is a trademark of Software Arts Ltd IBM is a trademark of International Business Machines Inc Compaq is a trademark of Compaq Computer Corporation Columbia is a trademark of Columbia Data Products Inc Corona is a trademark of Cordata Inc Epson is a trademark of Epson Corporation F 1 M6340 NOTES M6340 F 2 APPENDIX G LIMITATIONS Listed below are some of the current limitations on MAI PC LINK Version 2 3 File Transfer View Visual Data Reformatter Transferred records must be no longer than 750 characters There is currently a limitation to the size of the data file to be loaded If a file is too big it will be truncated to fit into memory The maximum length of data lines that can be loaded into View is 512 characters Longer lines will be truncated G 1 M6340 NOTES M6340 G 2 APPENDIX H SETUP PROBLEMS A If you are communicating through a modem you may encounter one of the following problems l MAI PC LINK cannot communicate with modem Possible Causes o MAI PC LINK baud rate is set incorrectly o Modem is not connected to the serial port o If more than one serial port is present the wrong serial port is connected o The serial port is not IBM PC compatible o The cable linking the PC to the modem is wired incorrectly o Modem is not of the correct type MAI PC LINK can
56. e been entered into the system along with the access codes assigned to them To exit from the SAFE program type Q To transfer a file to the Basic Four follow these steps 1 Enter Terminal Emulation mode and check that you are in command mode on the Basic Four The prompt should be gt 2 Use F10 to return to the MAI PC LINK menus and select Send from the main menu see figure 4 1 3 Select the HostFile entry from the Send menu by typing H and N and enter the name of the Basic Four file that is to receive the data The name can be up to 42 characters long including path name On 8000 or 2000 series computers you may pre append a path name or accept the default as CocaF ile Hostile Program Go Clear Qut N Choose file on host computer to receive data Er SEND Local File STUDNT REC Host File STUDNT Host Type Serial Direct Key Field nja Key Field Size FOR CREATION ONLY Record Size 200 Number of Records Host Program MAL PC LINK PDE9 50AME 7 12 8S5E 8 PSends FETERTAFESERT TRE REL EREEECAPSERTE Figure 4 1 A Sample Send Screen M6340 4 6 set up in the Configure menu For systems running Basic Four operating system levels 4 2A or lower the Basic Four data file must already exist and must be large enough before the transfer takes place If necessary it can be created with the Basic Four utility program Select T ype and then choose the type of file you will be sending to on the Host DI
57. e is not listed then you should check that Lotus default data drive defined with the Worksheet Global Default Directory command is the one on which your file resides It is important to note that the Lotus Import command will write its import data over top of any information whose cells are required to contain the incoming data formulae included You may optionally E 1 M6340 M6340 set global protection to ENABLE with the Worksheet Global Protect Enable command which will not allow you to write over any cells marked as protected by the Range Protect command See your Lotus 1 2 3 manual for more details on using the command mentioned dBase In order to access your dBase II formatted data created by the MAI PC LINK Import dBase format option you must first create a dBase data file with fields cor responding to the size type and position of the data that was reformatted This may mean that you must create a temporary file in which to import the data and then update your master database with a simple dBase program or a series of commands see the dBase COPY command The following example imports data from the file STUDENT TXT created by MAI PC LINK into the dBase file STUD DBF eUSE STUD eAPPEND FROM STUDENT DELIMITED DIF DIF Data Interchange Format is a standard symbolic format that allows trans fer between many different programs on microcomputers Visicalc is probably the most widely know
58. e return If the printer appears to be double spacing then turn auto line feed OFF If the printer keeps printing on the same line then turn auto line feed ON SetupString You may wish to initialize the printer to a desired state by output ting a setup string For example on the Epson FX100 decimal 15 will set the printing to condensed print mode To do this in MAI PC LINK type 015 a back slash followed by three digits You may also create a string like this 027 015 Esc 15 If selected will update MAI PC LINK default configuration settings file DEFAULTS CNF to the currently active settings RESET If selected will reset MAI PC LINK s current active configuration settings from the file DEFAULTS CNF Refer to Appendix F for trademark information for this product 7 5 M6340 NOTES M6340 7 6 SECTION 8 SAMPLE SEND RECEIVE AND VIEW SESSIONS Ji Several sample files are included on your distribu tion disk for you to practice SEND and RECEIVE procedures o STUDENT REC A short file containing student records which can be sent to the Basic Four and then received o STUDENT RUL A VIEW ruler for use with STUDENT REC o STUDENT PRC A RECEIVE procedure for use with STUDENT REC o MKDIR HST A Basic Four program which can be installed on the a Basic Four and then RUN to create a direct file called DIRECT o PEOPLE PRC A RECEIVE procedure for use with the DIRECT file created on the Basic
59. ed M6340 2 14 Using a Direct Line Modem If you plan to use a direct line modem it must first be connected to the PC serial port refer to the owners manual for the modem for details Also ensure that the modem telephone jack is plugged into the wall socket Next start MAI PC LINK refer to the next section on your PC and step into the Configuration menu Set the communications para meters to the desired state e g if your modem is set to work at 1200 baud then set MAI PC LINK to communicate at 1200 baud If your modem supports auto dialing and or auto answer and it requires an initialization string to set it up select Modem then Initialization from the menu and enter the desired string when prompted If your modem re quires a dial prefix for auto dialing select Dial Prefix and enter the desired string when requested Both of these user definable strings support special characters if required refer to Section 8 for Configuration setup Example To enter Control E you may enter either E 005 the backslash must be followed by 3 decimal digits Or Finally you may enter the default telephone number by selecting Number on the menu and entering the number as requested If your modem requires a special hang up sequence select Hang Up and enter the sequence Note read the modem owners manual to determine which strings are required and which characters are allowable When this has been completed you may start you
60. enus to change con 7 1 figuration of MAI PC LINK including communications parameters printer setup modem control system defaults and installation of BASIC FOUR programs located on Personal Computer disk B 1 M6340 MAIN COMMAND MENU continued PAGE COMMAND USE REFERENCE DOS Keeps the MAI PC LINK program resident in memory while exe cuting DOS commands or loading and running another program Exit Exits from MAI PC LINK to DOS The use of the sub menus selected by these commands is described in the following sections M6340 B 2 em This menu is main menu COMMAND Emulate Record File Printer Set Dial Hang Up Self Test Quit TERMINAL EMULATION MENU selected by the Terminal command on the PAGE USE REFERENCE Enters terminal emulation 3 1 mode you can exit from this mode with the F10 key Changes name of Personal B 18 Computer disk file into which Recorded or Screen Snapshot information is written Sends the printer set up B 20 string to the local printer The set up string is set with the Configure menu Sends a dialing sequence to B 18 an auto dial modem The dial ing sequence is set with the Configure menu Hangs up the modem B 21 Puts the serial port into Self Test mode If Self Test is en abled all characters typed dur ing Emulation will be echoed back to the screen allowing verifica tion that the serial port is func tioning correctly Note that
61. es In addition to emulation of an MAI 7270 Terminal features of MAI PC LINK include o A printer connected to the Personal Computer can print data sent from the BASIC FOUR to the local printer slave printing o An image of the current terminal screen can be either printed or recorded to a file o A record of all activities can be either printed or recorded to a file o Over 50 pages of on line help screens are available by pressing SHIFT F1 Help function key The help provided is sensitive to the current requirements of the user o The bottom line on the screen is used to display the status of the terminal including caps lock number lock local printer echo the time and date and other pertinent information Before using MAI PC LINK Terminal Emulation review the default options listed in the Configure menu Refer to Section 7 for full details Options that will most likely need your attention are 3 1 M6340 o The correct communications port on the PC Defaults to port one but can be reset to port two with the Configuration menu o The default data disk drive directory Initially assumed to be drive directory A but should be changed to the usual location of data disks on your system On a Personal Computer with two floppy drives this would probably be B On an IBM XT it would probably be C o The baud rate Initially set at 9 600 as on a normal direct connect Terminal If you are using a modem it will pr
62. ety Make more memory available or break the input file into smaller pieces Invalid Baud rate Reason Action M6340 An invalid baud rate has somehow been incorporated in the LocalPrinter setting in the Configuration This indicates that there is corruption in either the Configuration file DEFAULTS CNF or in the PC Link program Exit from PC Link and start again Update the Configuration file if the error continues contact your MAI Basic Four dealer for assistance K 16 t m Invalid drive directory in defaults Reason Action During startup PC Link checks the availability of the default Drive Directory on the PC that is entered in the Configuration file DEFAULTS CNF As shipped this entry contains A Therefore if you have installed PC Link and are running it for the first time on a drive other than drive A you will get this warning Go into the Configure menu and ensure the Drive Directory is where you want it to be typically C followed by the directory name where you have installed PC Link if you are on a hard disk Then select the Update option and select Replace if prompted The next time you start PC Link it will not give you the same message Memory Allocation Error Reason Action These are serious PC hardware errors relating to the dynamic use of memory Exit from PC Link re boot your PC and perform the same function again If the erro
63. euctducaeseetecselenscen Dal Executing Other Programs from MAI PC LINK weccccccccccccnccccee O 1 SECTION 7 SUMMARY OF MAI PC LINK CONFIGURATION SETTINGS Communications Settings cccesee 7 2 PC Defaults sw sccsace see ceeanes ee 7 2 Host DefaultS ccs sews ssawede cess 7 3 Modem Setup wcccccccccccccscccseese 7 3 Printer Setup scsesuncesdcecesicac 7 4 Update cccccccccccccccccccccccce 7 5 7 5 Reset eeeseeoespseeec eevee eae eon ee ene 808 SECTION 8 SAMPLE SEND RECEIVE AND VIEW SESSIONS Send eveeesevreereeeeeeseeeeeeeaeneeeen 8 1 Receive eeeeeoaoeveaeeeneseeveeeeoe B eeoesve 8 3 8 5 A View eeeseeeceaoseseosoeoseaecasneosvneee02 80086 APPENDIX A DEFINITION OF TERMS cccsccccce i p ni M6340 iv APPENDIX B APPENDIX APPENDIX APPENDIX APPENDIX APPENDIX APPENDIX APPENDIX APPENDIX APPENDIX TABLE OF CONTENTS continued MAIN COMMAND MENU FOR MAI PC LINK Terminal Emulation Menu ecee B Send Menu sv isdedeeey esse wevawsee B Receive MENU lt wssccsseeee eee eeace B Receive Columns Edit Menu B View MENU sccsawi ek 65cs 066kwsesee B Configure Menu ccccccccccccccce B Format Menu escsessssossssoooo B Data Entry and Edit cccccccccee B Personal Computer File Selection B INFORMATION ON COPY PROTECTION Using Protected ProgramS ee C 1 MAI PC LINK DISKETTE CONTENTS D 1 USING MAI PC LINK REFORMATTED DATA eeoseeeesevneeneeeseeeene es eese E 1 TRAD
64. file name Note The configuration file must always be in the current default drive or current sub directory for DOS 2 0 Defines the file on the data drive directory see Drive Direct ory above to which data is sent during Record mode Alt R or screen snapshot FI while in Terminal Emulation If you specify the name of an existing RecordFile and choose to replace it then it will be emptied Otherwise all data is appended to the end of existing RecordFiles If this is set to YES when MAI PC LINK is started the next time you will proceed directly into Terminal Emulation mode If this is changed the configurations must be Updated in order for the change to take effect If this is set to YES when MAI PC LINK is started the next time you will automatically dial the ModemNumber and then proceed to Terminal Emulation mode If this is changed the configurations must be Updated in order for the change to take effect B 18 CONFIGURE MENU continued COMMAND Statline Terminal VDT EVDT Color Screen Background Foreground Host System Receive Send USE If this is set to Yes then the status line will be displayed at the bottom of the screen Changes the type of terminal being emulated Emulates a VDT type of terminal Emulates an EVDT type of terminal Selects the screen colors Selects the desired background color Selects the desired foreground color Selects the type of
65. grams disk to the host Input file has not been specified Reason In View a function was selected that requires a file to be loaded into the View window first Action Select the Data option and load the input file you wish to reformat Insufficient disk space Reason During a RECV the current Drive Directory has run out of room Action Use a floppy diskette with more space available or terminate the transfer Insufficient disk space File is not usable Reason During the writing of the output file in View the end of the available disk space was reached Action Change disks or change Drive Directory and retry K 15 M6340 Insufficient information for creation of file on Host Reason Action During a SEND procedure using automatic data file creation not all information required to create the data file on the host computer was entered Enter the missing information and retry Insufficient Memory Reason Action PC Link requires additional PC memory for records to be loaded up into the View window There is not enough memory on the PC left to load the file in its entirety Make more memory available or break the input file into smaller pieces Insufficient memory File truncated Reason Action PC Link requires additional PC memory for records to be loaded up into the View window and there is not enough memory left on the PC to load the file in its entir
66. he current Drive Directory exists matching the name that was entered Enter a new name or change the Drive Directory setting N K 18 No file has been specified Reason Action No output filename was specified when the prompt for one was displayed Enter a filename No disk space available Reason Action A function requiring new space on a disk on the PC has been used and a search of the disk indicates that there is no room left on that disk Insert a new disk and try again Not enough memory to use View Reason Action Not enough Reason Action PC Link requires more PC random access memory to store records loaded into the View window and there is not enough available You may have other programs memory res ident on the PC that can be terminated releasing memory for use If these function key definitions are critical to you you may want to consider obtaining more memory for your PC space on the disk to store file View has estimated the size of the output data file and has determined that there is not enough room on the destina tion disk to store the file Change disks or change Drive Directory and retry K 19 M6340 Out of memory defining keys Reason Action PC Link requires more PC random access memory to store additional function key definitions and there is not enough available You may have some other programs memory resident
67. he following TRANS A C cr typical hard disk TRANS A B cr typical floppy disk The corresponding batch file on the HOST PROGRAMS disk is called TRANSH BAT Place the HOST PROGRAMS disk in drive A and type the following TRANSH A C CR typical hard disk TRANSH A B CR typical floppy disk Perform these two procedures to transfer the necessary files to your hard disk Special Concerns for the IBM AT or Compatibles High Density Diskettes Users who are installing a floppy working copy must A use a formatted double sided double density disk Refer to Appendix F for trademark information for this product M6340 2 10 ette as the target disk The messages Install terminated Error Code 6100 or 8304 will be display ed if the target diskette is high capacity 1 2 Mb High Density Drives Any floppy disk that was previously made by or written to using a high capacity drive may be unusable on a normal capacity disk drive There fore if the distribution disk will be used to install on machines with regular drives run INSTALL from the low density drive If the working copy is to be used on regular drives in addition to high density drives make the working copy in a low den sity drive If the IBM AT has only one low density drive use it for a one drive install specifying that drive letter for both Product and Target disks DOS BACKUP AND RESTORE HARD DISK Files which are critical to the operatio
68. hich are designed to provide reasonable protection against such interference Operation of this equipment in a residential area is likely to cause inter ference in which case the User at his own expense will be required to take whatever measures that may be required to correct the interference vii viii SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION WELCOME TO MAI PC LINK We are pleased that you have selected MAI PC LINK as your DS 500 personal computer PC to Basic Four minicomputer link We trust you will find that it is the most user friendly and powerful product of its type and that it will aid you in becoming more productive and cost effective WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT TO DO WITH MAI PC LINK One of MAI PC LINK s principal features is to pro vide you with standard MAI BASIC FOUR 7270 VDT or EVDT terminal emulation That is your PC micro coupled with a licensed copy of MAI PC LINK will provide you with the ability to simulate the opera tion and use of a standard VDT or EVDT But that s not all MAI PC LINK will allow you to transfer files and reports from your host BASIC FOUR mini computer to your PC and reformat them into a number of popular PC micro formats such as those used by Lotus 1 2 3 dBase II Multimate Wordstar and Multiplan You can select a whole file or you may choose to receive only the lines and fields that are of interest to you MAI PC LINK will do the rest Now you can use data from your BASIC FOUR to do what if calculatio
69. hould respond with one or more lines of information on the screen and then the prompt symbol gt If neither of these steps has been successful turn to Appendix H SETUP PROBLEMS KEYBOARD USAGE Because the PC keyboard is different from the BASIC FOUR keyboard different keys on the PC represent the various BASIC FOUR function keys A keyboard overlay is available to help specify keyboard usage in Emulation mode MENU Emulate Record ile Disl HengUp PrinterSet Selffest Quit Commence terminal emulation MAL PC LINK PUS 88 49AME 04 18 3500 FF Terminal sgeseserregzessergzaeeeseress Figure 3 1 The Emulation Menu 3 3 M6340 The following Basic Four keys correspond to the following PC keys Basic Four Key CTL I CTL II CTL III CTL IV Function Keys Fl F9 F10 F11 F12 F13 F14 F15 F23 F24 F25 F26 F27 F28 BREAK PC Key Fl or F2 or F3 or Scroll Lock F4 or Num Lock Alt 1 Alt 9 Alt 0 zero Alt Alt Alt lt Alt Num Lock Ctri 1 Ctrl 9 Ctrl 0 zero Ctri Ctrl Ctrl lt Ctrl Num Lock Ctr Scroll lock The following special keys are also available PC Key Shift Fl F5 F6 M6340 Function Emulation Help Screen To return to Emulation Mode press ESC Start print capture When this key is pressed any data printed to the slave printer attached to this terminal will be appended to the current Record File The de fault record fi
70. iles SEND and RECV These programs are distributed on the MAI PC LINK diskette and can be installed onto the Basic Four by using the Install option in the Configure menu The steps are as follows l If your Basic Four is a 1300 series 210 310 410 510 610 or 730 use the BASIC FOUR utility program to create the program files SEND and RECV These should be program files with a length of 20 pages This step will be unnecessary on 8000 and 2000 series systems Start MAI PC LINK enter Emulation mode and Sign on to the BASIC FOUR in BASIC command mode If you are on an 8000 series or 2000 SyS tem after logging on type BASIC to enter BASIC mode You should see the gt prompt Press the F10 key to return to Command mode and press the ESC key to return to the main MAI PC LINK menu Type C to select the Configure menu and then I to select the Install option 4 1 M6340 5 10 Enter the Local File name as RECV HST for Basic Four 2000 systems the file name is RECV2000 HST If your data drive is different from the drive where the HOST PROGRAM disk is located then you must pre append a drive letter to the local file name e g if your HOST PROGRAM disk drive is in drive A then enter A RECV HST as your Local File name Enter the Host File name as RECV Be sure to use upper case letters if your host program has been created in upper case After a short pause you will see an accelerating nu
71. iskette into drive A 2 Make the A drive the default drive This may be done by typing A CR 3 Start the installation program by typing INSTALL CR 4 The program will then display the following message and prompt M6340 2 6 a 5 MAI PC LINK INSTALL UNinstall Procedure Enter letter for media to be installed to or UNinstalled from Use H for hard disk or F for floppy disk on Press F CR to select floppy disk The program will then display the following message and prompt MAI PC LINK Diskette Installation 2 03 Diskettes MUST NOT have a write protect tab Please enter DRIVE letter and hit return Product diskette refers to the original product package diskette Product Diskette Drive Input The last line of the above message is ask ing you for the drive where the Distribu tion Diskette can be found This will normally be A CR You will then be prompted with the following message Target Diskette refers to the diskette created by Install this diskette must be formatted Target Diskette Drive Output This will typically be drive B CR 2 7 M6340 7 The screen will then display the following message Verify Product Diskette in Drive Hit RETURN to continue ae The copy protection program will then verify that you have the original distribu tion diskette in the drive indicated After verification has been completed successful ly the following message will be dis
72. isplayed If this was the case when the error was reported then try increasing the Timing factor in the Configure screen If this still does not work contact your dealer Could not send character Reason Action In Emulation PC Link could not output the particular character for the key being pressed This indicates a communication link problem Check all cable connections Check the asynchronous communications board Could not send control data to host Reason M6340 The appropriate responses were not received from the host computer when PC Link attempted to inform the applicable host program SEND or RECV of the descriptive parameters of the file transfer The host program may be cor rupted or communciation may have been garbled by interference This error is also generated by not receiving the response in time or by receiving an incorrect response Action Try increasing the Timing factor in the Configure screen If this does not work compare the applicable host program line by line with the original version supplied on the Host Programs diskette to see if any lines have become damaged in any way If there are damaged lines use the Configure Install option and reinstall the program from the Host Programs disk to the host Create file through Terminal Emulation Reason Action PC Link was unable to automatically create the data file Use the Business BASIC utility to
73. le is called PCLINK REC but this can be changed using the Record File option in the Terminal menu Stop print capture 3 4 PC Key F7 F8 F9 F10 or ALT X ALT R ALT L Function Screen snapshot to printer Writes an image of the current emulation screen to the current list device Screen snapshot to disk Appends an image of the current emulation screen to the record file Clear screen Return to command mode Toggle recording to disk When Record is enabled all information that is displayed on the emulation screen is also appended to the re cord file on the disk You can tell that recording is enabled by a blinking Record in the status line The default record file is called PCLINK REC but this can be changed using the Record File op tion in the Terminal menu Note that if the Basic Four is sending screen formatting characters during recording you will not get a perfect representation of the screen in the record file Toggle listing on printer When List is enabled all information from the emulation screen is also written to the current list de vice You can verify that listing is enabled by a blinking List in the status line 3 5 M6340 NOTES M6340 3 6 SECTION 4 FILE TRANSFER INSTALLATION OF TRANSFER PROGRAMS ON THE BASIC FOUR The commands that send and receive data between the Basic Four and Personal Computers require the pres ence of two programs on the Basic Four in the f
74. lf of the Personal Com puter screen Field separators if any are shown as small bright box Recall Recalls a previously saved trans fer procedure for later use B 9 M6340 RECEIVE MENU continued PAGE COMMAND USE REFERENCE Go continued Clear Resets the current transfer procedure to the default values for all options Quit Exits to MAI PC LINK Main menu M6340 B 10 RECEIVE COLUMNS EDIT MENU Columns fields Specifications This part of a Transfer Procedure is used if only part of each transferred line or record is to be written to the Personal Computer file It also allows specific control over whether fields are to be formatted as text or numeric data In the case of serial files it is used to select the parts of each line that are to be captured and formatted Note that a set of column specifications are applied to each line or record of data transferred Lines with specified numeric fields that do not contain valid numeric data are completely rejected Up and Down arrow keys are used to move the field edit cursor up and down in the columns edit window To add a new field more the cursor below the current last field The window scrolls to allow more fields if necessary PAGE COMMAND USE REFERENCE Field The number of the field that 4 12 you wish to access For ser ial files this is always 0 for Direct and Indexed files this indicates the field number within the record from which data is to be extr
75. mber as the number of lines are transferred If the installation has been completed suc cessfully a message indicating this will be posted at the bottom of the screen or you will be informed of transmission errors if they occurred Repeat steps 5 through 8 for the hostfile SEND and the Personal Computer file SEND HST SEND2000 HST for the Basic Four 2000 You are now ready to use the Send and Receive options SENDING PC DATA FILES TO THE BASIC FOUR The current version of MAI PC LINK supports sending uploading ASCII files from the Personal Computer disk to Serial Indexed or Direct files on the Basic Four The Personal Computer file must contain lines of text or ASCII data terminated by a carriage return or carriage return linefeed characters This is the type of file that can be produced by text editors such as IBM s EDLIN and Personal Editor as well as by many other software packages including word processors and spreadsheets With Send an entire file in this format can be automatically M6340 4 2 transferred line by line into a Basic Four file The lines in the original file correspond to lines or records in the transferred file Note that before this feature can be used the program SEND must be installed on the Basic Four as described above Sending to DIRECT files it is possible to send to DIR ties on the Basic Four from Plain and Delimited formats MAI PC LINK formats PLN PRN DAT TXT
76. n of MAI PC LINK have been marked as read only Therefore if the hard disk is not to be reformatted users may perform a DOS BACKUP and RESTORE without damaging the protected programs or support files by specify ing RESTORE P The P option will cause DOS to prompt you before trying to RESTORE read only files You SHOULD NOT restore any MAI PC LINK files that are marked as read only If you plan on reformatting your hard disk then you MUST UNinstall MAI PC LINK from the hard disk before reformatting Failure to do this even if you have performed a complete DOS BACKUP will result in the loss of your hard disk install and you will have to operate MAI PC LINK from your original distribution master GETTING CONNECTED MAI PC LINK can connect your PC micro to your host BASIC FOUR mini in two ways The first and simp lest method is often referred to as a direct link That is the PC and the host are connected directly by a cable The second option is usually referred 2 11 M6340 to as remote connection Here communication can be done using the telephone lines Each mode of con nection is described in detail in the following sections Using a Direct Connection to the Host If your micro and your host computers are to be A located in the same building you may use a direct link MAI PC LINK requires the Personal Computer to be connected to the MAI BASIC FOUR computer through the PC asynchronous communications port 1 or port
77. n of the popular programs that support this format and so the exam ple importation of data given is directed to the Visicalc user Visicalc users may load in DIF files created by MAI PC LINK by using the following command sequence Storage Load filename Columns where filename is the name of the DIF formatted file Visicalc has no way of protecting formulae that might be over written by this data import so be careful that there is enough space allocated for the incoming data E 2 5 IBM PC Basic You may use data in IBM Basic by selecting MAI PC LINK Import IBM Basic format To access this data from a Basic language program use a program with a similar algorithm to the following example 10 OPEN 1 STUDENT DAT 20 IF EOF 1 THEN GOTO 99 30 INPUT 1 A B C 30 PRINT A B C 50 GOTO 20 60 END This example program reads in an import file line by line allocates the data to variables A B and C and then prints them Out In this example file there are two numeric items followed by one text item on each line record It is important to make sure that the fields variables assig ned to the various fields are in the cor rect order and are of the right type Note that all files created by MAI PC LINK in Basic import format have the DAT file extension SYLK SYLK Symbolic Link Format is another industry standard interface data format supported by many popular software packages Microsoft s Multiplan
78. name must have been entered into the access list 3 LOCAL FILE INFORMATION o File file to receive data from host computer up to 8 characters long file name extension automatically supplied based on format o Format format to use for data written to Personal Computer file formats include Lotus Import Lotus Worksheet DIF SYLK DBase II delimited Plain format same as host file M6340 4 10 Fixed fixed width columns note that some formats require Columns specifications as described below 4 TRANSFER CRITERIA o Start of Range first record to transfer from a file For indexed files this would be an index for direct files this would be a text key and for serial files it would be a line number o End of Range index number text key or line number of last record to transfer from file all records outside this range are rejected o Transfer Keys switch enables or disables whether the keys of a direct file are to be transferred as the first field in each line of transferred data Direct files only o Program the name of the program installed on the host computer which allows the PC to receive files The default program name is RECV o Spool Filter switch enables or disables use of special filter for serial files containing printer control mnemonics 5 COLUMNS FIELDS SPECIFICATIONS This part of a Transfer Procedure is used if only part of each transferred line or record is to
79. nds A sample ruler for practice with View and Receive A sample Receive procedure definition for use with the DIRECT file created with MKDIR A file transfer program for use in transferring MAI PC LINK host programs and sample data files to your hard disk APPENDIX E USING MAI PC LINK REFORMATTED DATA Data may be reformatted during a Receive data trans fer or by selecting data with the columns ruler in View Reformatted data may then be used in various spreadsheets word processors data bases and inte grated software packages available for microcomput ers The following descriptions indicate how to complete the transfer of data into these other programs with reference to the ways in which a number of programs import external data this is documented poorly for most software packages 1 Worksheet To load your Lotus 1 2 3 formatted data created by the MAI PC LINK Worksheet format option use the 1 2 3 File Retrieve command Initially Lotus will display a list of possible files from which to import data If your file is not listed then you should check that Lotus default data drive defined with the Work Sheet Global Default Directory command is the one on which your file resides 2 Lotus To load Lotus 1 2 3 formatted data created by the MAI PC LINK Import Lotus format option use the 1 2 3 File Import Numbers command Initially Lotus will dis play a list of possible files from which to import data If your fil
80. not automatically dial the modem Possible Causes o Modem is not an autodial modem o MAI PC LINK baud rate is set incorrectly o Modem is not connected to the serial port o Wrong serial port selected o The serial port is not IBM PC compatible H 1 M6340 3 o The cable linking the PC to the modem is wired incorrectly o The modem initialization dial prefix or number strings may be incorrect o Modem is not of the right type MAI PC LINK will not hang up the modem after a successful call was made Possible Causes o Modem is ignoring the PC s DTR line some modems are switch selectable for DTR MAI PC LINK connects to the remote modem but cannot communicate with the Basic Four Possible Causes o The cable connecting the remote modem to the Basic Four is incorrectly wired o The Basic Four port is incorrectly configured continue reading B If you have problems starting emulation 1 M6340 The port to which your Personal Computer is connected may not be enabled To determine if it is enabled perform the following a Determine the number of the port that you are connected to on the BASIC FOUR You can do this either by looking at the back of the BASIC FOUR for the channel number that your cable is plugged into or by asking the system manager b On another BASIC FOUR terminal run the system utility program o For 1300 Series from the gt prompt type RUN and press
81. ns on your favorite spreadsheet or to create a database for your automated mailing list program MAI PC LINK can also send PC micro files to your host BASIC FOUR to update files or to share your data with other users The possibilities are limited only by your imagination 3 Refer to Appendix F for Trademark Information for these products 1 1 NOTES 1 2 Cc SECTION 2 GETTING STARTED USING MAI PC LINK HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS To use MAI PC LINK certain hardware is required as a minimum You are required to have 0 An IBM Personal Computer XT AT Compaq or another IBM Personal Computer compatible computer with at least 256K of memory and at least one floppy disk drive MS PC DOS 2 0 or greater Either the IBM Monochrome Display or the IBM Color Graphics Display or equivalent An IBM or equivalent asynchronous communica tions interface card MAI PC LINK uses either communications port 1 COM1 or 2 COM2 A parallel or serial printer connected to the Personal Computer not required if local printing is not required A cable to connect the Personal Computer to the BASIC FOUR computer or a modem for remote con nection refer to Section 2 GETTING CONNECTED for specific connection requirements An MAI BASIC FOUR minicomputer MAI 2000 MPX 8000 or 1300 series running Level 3 7 or higher operating system Refer to Appendix F for trademark information for these products 2 1 M6340
82. o matically create the program file on th host Try increasing the Timing Factor and re attempt If this fails use the Business BASIC utility to create the program files prior to the Install Program file parameters are given in the User Guide Unable to find file command com Reason Action COMMAND COM must be located on the default Drive Directory to use the DOS selection in PC Link Copy COMMAND COM to the default Drive Directory Unable to open com port Reason Action PC Link was unable to access the Comm Port specified in the Configure screen Check to see that there is an asynchron ous communications board in the PC refer to its manual to ensure that it is properly configured for the address of either COM1 or COM2 If there is more than one such board in the PC make sure that they are not configured for the same COM port address Unable to open appended file xxxxxxxx xxx Reason Action When the selection for Append was made PC Link was unable to open this file This implies a bad file or another type of hardware error on the PC Insert a new disk and try again K 25 M6340 Unable to open input file AXXXXKXX o XXX Reason The input file cannot be opened by PC Link The file may not exist it may be corrupt or the disk may be bad Action Check for the file s existence in the Drive Directory being accessed If it is there exit PC Link and use the DOS CHKDSK
83. obably need to be reset to 300 or 1200 o The MAI Basic Four system type MAI PC LINK has been optimized for the various types of BASIC FOUR computers and will perform best when set to the appropriate type o Printer characteristics If you will be using the List ALT L option to print BASIC FOUR screen data on the Personal computer printer or are doing local printing STARTING TERMINAL EMULATION After the Personal Computer is connected to the BASIC FOUR and MAI PC LINK is running you should verify correct operation of the Personal Computer and MAI PC LINK by communicating with the BASIC FOUR while in Terminal Emulation mode Place the keyboard template that you received with MAI PC LINK above your keyboard as a guide to the locations of the special BASIC FOUR control keys and function keys Select Terminal mode from the MAI PC LINK main menu by typing T The Emulation Control Menu will appear see Figure 3 1 Select Emulation by typing E The screen will clear except for the status line at the bottom of the screen The Personal Computer now functions as an MAI VDT terminal Press ENTER and you should receive a response from the BASIC FOUR This could be the usual prompt character or if a program is currently M6340 3 2 running on the terminal port that you are connected to you should receive the normal response from that program If you get any other response press the ESC key on the IBM PC keyboard The BASIC FOUR s
84. on disk bad disk etc Ensure there is enough space on the disk to store the Configuration file If there is exit from PC Link and use the DOS CHKDSK utility to verify the integrity of the disk Config file read error Reason Action PC Link was unable to read the Configuration file This is usually a hardware problem drive door open not enough room on disk bad disk etc Ensure that the Configuration file is there DEFAULTS CNF If it is exit from PC Link and use the DOS CHKDSK utility to verify the integrity of the disk Configuration file size error using default values Reason Action PC Link was unable to use the Configura tion file This is usually due to upgrading to a newer release of PC Link and leaving the old configuration file there The values displayed on the Configure screen will be default values internal to the PC Link program You should check them and update them if necessary before attempting Emulation or file transfers K 3 M6340 Could not reset host computer Reason Action The appropriate responses were not received from the host computer when PC Link attempted to clear the workspace on the host This is caused either by not receiving the response in time or by receiving an incorrect response Prior to starting any SEND RECV or Install procedure if you go into Emulation ensure that you are in Command Mode with the BASIC prompt gt d
85. ons Baud rate and to enter the Modem dialing sequence Once MAI PC LINK has been configured to your re quirements you may wish to save the new settings by selecting U DATE To check that you are communicating with the Basic Four exit from the Configuration menu and select T ERMINAL If you are using a modem select D IAL Select E MULATE You will see a blank screen with a status line at the bottom Pressing ESC should elicit the normal terminal response for your system You may now use the PC as you would an MAI terminal See page 14 of the User Guide for function and motor bar key usage on the PC keyboard Pressing F10 will return you to the main MAI PC LINK menu FILE TRANSFER Installation In order to transfer files to and from the Basic Four the programs SEND and RECV must be in stalled on the Basic Four To transfer to and from DIRECT files on the Basic Four the program SAFE must also be installed on the Basic Four On 2000 and 1300 series computers these programs must first be created with a length of 20 pages each M6340 J 2 Select C ONFIGURE I NSTALL To install SEND enter the PC file name SEND HST SEND2000 HST for the Basic Four 2000 Then enter the host file name SEND When the file has been transferred repeat the procedure for RECV and SAFE SEND To send a data file to the Basic Four the file must have first been created The required entries for a SEND procedure are the Host filename and
86. ou uninstall MAI PC LINK from that hard isk After performing an install to a floppy disk your original diskette is still executable But you are not allowed to install on any other floppy or hard disks until you uninstall MAI PC LINK from that floppy disk Uninstalling steps are as follows 1 If you are uninstalling from hard disk ensure you are in the directory that MAI PC LINK was originally installed in 2 Insert the original distribution diskette into drive A 3 Make the A drive the default drive see install procedures 4 Start the UNinstall procedure by typing INSTALL U cr 2 9 M6340 The U tells the INSTALL program that this is to be an Uninstall operation The procedures and screens will be according to the Installation procedure previously described At the end of UNinstalling you will have an install count of 0001 and will be able to install again Transferring MAI PC LINK Support Files It is important to notice that running the installa tion program does NOT transfer any of MAI PC LINK support programs or files to the target disk It is still necessary to copy these files to your hard disk We have included a batch file on the MASTER disk call TRANS BAT which will transfer all the appropriate files for you To use this program ensure that you are in the correct directory on your target disk Place the original MAI PC LINK MASTER diskette in drive A Make drive A your default drive and type in t
87. played MAI PC LINK maximum install count is 0001 After this install 0000 install s will be available Enter Y to continue or N to quit then hit RETURN Press Y CR to continue with installation or press N CR to discontinue 8 The screen will then display the following message Processing please wait While this message is displayed the com puter is installing the protected version of MAI PC LINK onto your floppy disk This process may take a minute so be patient and DO NOT interrupt the transferral proce dure After the program has been installed the screen will display the following message MAI PC LINK has been successfully installed M6340 2 8 This message indicates a successful instal lation of MAI PC LINK onto the floppy disk If any error conditions are encountered an appropriate error message will be display ed Please note the content of the error message and contact your dealer for tech nical assistance Uninstalling MAI PC LINK There may be times when you want to uninstall MAI PC LINK from your hard or floppy disk With this version of MAI PC LINK you are allowed to install and uninstall as many times as you like However you may only have MAI PC LINK installed onto one hard disk OR one floppy diskette at any time After performing an install to a hard disk your original diskette is still executable But you are not allowed to install on any other floppy or hard ae until y
88. puter as described in the installation instructions MAI PC LINK supports the transfer of data from Serial Direct or Indexed files onto the Personal Computer in a range of formats Data can be selectively transferred by specifying a file key range or file index range and the desired field numbers and their formats either numeric or text PAGE COMMAND USE REFERENCE Procedure Name Enters name of transfer pro 4 9 cedure up to 8 characters Also used as the file name if the procedure is saved on the a Personal Computer disk Descript Enters a description up to 4 9 60 characters long of the file transfer procedure helpful when identifying for recall procedures which have been saved for future use Host File Enters the name of the host 4 10 Basic Four file to be sent to the Personal Computer For 2000 and 8000 series systems the file is assumed to be in the host data path unless another path is given Type Automatically displayed after 4 10 transfer as Direct Indexed a Serial or String if activated N by GO other times the type is Automatic If a Direct file is being received Host filename must have been properly entered B 7 M6340 COMMAND Local File Format Criteria Range Start Range End Range Quit Range Program Range Keys Reject M6340 RECEIVE MENU continued PAGE USE REFERENCE Selects a menu allowing choice 4 10 of Personal formats for data re ceived Options in
89. r link session by exiting the Configuration menu and selecting the Terminal option If you wish to use the autodial feature select the Dial option MAI PC LINK will use the autodial feature of the modem to connect to the remote host If a connection is made the modem connection indicator should go on Refer to Section 8 for further details 2 15 M6340 STARTING MAI PC LINK MAI PC LINK may be started from either a floppy drive or a hard disk depending on your preference The only requirements are that l The drive that is to run MAI PC LINK is the N default drive and MAI PC LINK is in the default directory on that drive 2 And for floppy systems the original MAI PC LINK diskette is in one of the drives during startup to verify that it is a licensed copy MAI PC LINK does not need to be connected to your host BASIC FOUR in order to run although in that case a link session cannot be attempted until a connection is installed To start MAI PC LINK type PCLINK After a brief pause a logo will appear Press any key to advance to the main command menu see Figure 2 1 You are now in Command Mode In Command Mode MAI PC LINK is controlled through a i MENU Terminal Send Receive View Configure Dos Exit Emulate a terminal MAI PC LINK IDE FB4BAMEFA 1E ESFFFIBASICSHPEFTATTFITIGALATTETEATILTITITE Figure 2 1 The Main Menu M6340 2 16 series of menus with a user interface similar to Lotus 1 2 3 A menu item can eithe
90. r be selected by typing its first letter or by moving the cursor using the left and right arrow keys and then pressing ENTER note that numeric lock key must be off to use the cursor keys To return to a previous menu press the ESC key or select Quit if it is available At any time in Command Mode help text is available by pressing the F1 Help key The Help System The help system is identical in format to that used by Lotus 1 2 3 It may be accessed by pressing the F1 Help key while in Command mode or Shift F1l in Terminal Emulation mode A help screen related to the current menu is displayed If more help is desired any of the highlighted fields in the help screen can be selected with the Personal Computer arrow keys Pressing ENTER will provide more help on that item Press ESC to return to Command mode Press backspace to back up to the previous help screen 2 17 M6340 NOTES M6340 2 18 s SECTION 3 TERMINAL EMULATION MAI PC LINK allows you to replace an MAI BASIC FOUR Terminal with an IBM PC or close compatible giving it access to any program on the BASIC FOUR minicomputer The PC connects to a normal BASIC FOUR output channel via the same cable as is used by an MAI 7270 Terminal and operates up to a data rate of 9600 bits per second No special hardware is required other than possibly an adapter cable to make the connectors compatible refer to Section 2 for more information on the connection procedur
91. r if you have a black and white screen and wish to experiment with different intensities you may do so by selecting the Color option and choosing the desired foreground background and screen colors M6340 7 2 Any one of these may be changed to meet your requirements HOST DEFAULTS yo The host defaults are t l System Selects the type of Basic Four system being used 2 Receive Selects the program residing on the Basic Four which allows files to be received onto the PC 3 Send Selects the program residing on the Basic Four which allows files to be sent to the Basic Four 4 Paths Select any pathnames to be used for 2000 and 8000 series systems MODEM SETUP i MAI PC LINK provides you with the ability to initialize your modem send out the dialing prefix sequence and then automatically dial the phone number desired As in outputting the printer setup string you can send special characters to the modem by first entering a backslash followed by 3 digits e g enter 010 to enter a decimal 10 Refer to Section 2 for further details on using an autodial modem with MAI PC LINK You may also specify a pause in any of the strings by entering a which results in a pause of 1 second e g to wait for the modem to respond to the strings output to it The modem options are 1 Initialization Some modems require an initialization sequence for setup You may send special unprintable characters by
92. r occurs again exit from PC Link and use your PC s System Diagnostics program s to check the PC Modem appears to still be connected Reason Action After a Hangup has been attempted this is a warning that the control signals coming back from the modem to the PC indicate the local modem is still con nected to the remote modem If repeated attempts still result in the display of this warning turn the modem off and on This will definitely break the connection K 17 M6340 Name too long Reason Action Not enough Reason Action A Host Data Path or Host Program Path with a length of greater than 42 characters including Program name if applicable was entered in the Configure screen Enter a shorter Path name space on the disk to store file PC Link has checked the space available on the PC s default drive and has determined that the file to be RECVed will not fit there Clear some space on the drive use a floppy diskette with more space avail able or change the destination drive of the file transfer No dial sequence has been entered i Reason Action An attempt has been made to Dial via modem when there is no dialing sequence entered in the Configure screen Enter the information necessary in the Modem section of the Configure menu No files found of type xxxxxx xxx Reason Action M6340 When prompted for a PC filename no file on the PC in t
93. red as are pins 6 and 20 The local computer or terminal has established ongoing communi cation with the host computer A method to detect possible errors in the data received during data transmission In this method a bit is added to keep the sum of the bits in a byte either Even or Odd before the data is transmitted When A 4 A Parallel Port Path Remote RD RI RTS Start Bit Serial Port the receiver gets the byte it will check the parity bit to verify successful transmission The parallel port is a connector in the PC for a parallel printer or other peripherals that use parallel I O Data is transmit ted 8 bits 1 byte at a time A DOS command that searches directories for a specific com mand or batch file after it searches the working directory e g PATH d pathname d pathname A controller that connects to its host mainframe via a modem or other data link as opposed to a local controller which is wired directly to the mainframe Received Data pin 3 on RS 232 connector Ring Indicator pin 22 on RS 232 connector i Request To Send pin 4 on RS 232 connector The method to signal the modem that the following transmission is normal data Used in asyn chronous communications to tell the receiver that the following bits are data bits The serial port is a connector on the PC for peripherals or devices that used serial 1 0 Can be used for serial
94. refer to the modem owners manual for details Next start MAI PC LINK refer to the next section on your PC and enter the Configuration menu Set the baud rate to match the setting of the modem and BASIC FOUR e g if your modem is set to work at a baud rate of 1200 set MAI BASIC FOUR to communicate at 1200 baud refer to Section 8 MAI PC LINK is now ready to start remote communications session so exit the Configuration menu and enter Terminal Emulation mode Refer to Section 3 for details Dial the desired number on your telephone and wait for an answer A distinct high pitched whine indicates a modem on the other end is ready to connect Immediately plug the phone headset into the rubber cups on the modem and wait for an indica tion of a connection most modems have a light that goes on when a connection is made Your link ses sion can now begin When you have finished your link session and wish to hang up the modem you may either remove the telephone handset from the rubber cups and hang it up as usual or you may step out of Terminal Emula tion mode by pressing ESC and select the Hang Up option in the menu This causes MAI PC LINK to lower DTR so that the modem will think that the PC is not ready Note that if this method is used you l must ensure that your modem supports it Some mo dems have switches that either force the modem to listen for DTR or ignore it Check that the connect indicator is OFF when this method is us
95. request terminated Reason When the prompt for NewName filename entry was given this second file also existed on the PC Action Re select the function and enter a name that does not exist or select Replace to overwrite the old file M6340 K 22 Timeout on character receive Reason During a RECV no character was received from the host within a reasonable amount of time when one should have been re ceived If this occurs PC Link assumes the communication link has broken down somehow Action If all cable connections etc seem OK increase the Timing factor and try again Timeout on checksum receive Reason During a RECV error checking informa tion was not received by PC Link from the host There may have been a break down in communication probably hardware oriented or in versions of PC Link up to 2 35 The particular combination of host computer operating system level and how heavily loaded the host is may have produced an unusually slow response from the host This latter case has T only appeared in some 13XX series and has been rectified in PC Link Version 1 00 Action Ensure that the communication link is still active by checking all cables etc and by going into Emulation and seeing if you still get a response If all seems OK try again with the Timing factor increased Too many files to show truncating directory Reason When using the file selector utility the current Drive
96. required for Serial Indexed or String files For DIRECT files the field number is to be used as the key Defaults to 1 Not required for Serial Indexed or String files Not required if the file already exists on the Basic Four If a new DIRECT file is to be created this defines the size of the key Value must be 2 56 Not required if the file already exists on the Basic Four If the host file is to be created this defines the length of the records in the file Value must be 1 512 Not required if the file already exists on the Basic Four If the host file is to be created this defines the maximum number of records in the file Remember to leave room for expansion Value must be 1 32767 Names the program on the Basic Four that is to be activated to receive data from the Per sonal Computer This is usually the standard MAI PC LINK program SEND for special purposes the user can supply another program that uses standard MAI PC LINK protocols B 5 M6340 SEND MENU continued PAGE COMMAND USE REFERENCE Go Starts file transfer from Personal Computer to Host computer The lines of data transferred will be seen in a window in the lower half of the Personal Computer screen Quit Exits to MAI PC LINK main menu M6340 B 6 RECEIVE MENU This series of menus is selected by the Receive command on the main menu Note that to use Receive the program RECV must have been installed on the gm host com
97. s Extension is PLN MAZAN R 94A DATA ENTRY AND EDIT The same method is used for the entry and editing of all data in MAI PC LINK Edit mode In this mode a prompt is displayed at the top of the screen along with further descriptive information on the follow ing line Default data may be displayed on the entry line If the default data is the data you want press ENTER to accept it To blank the default value and start again press ESC To quit data entry press ESC a second time Keys available in Edit mode are Keys Use Left Right arrow keys Move edit cursor left or right in the data line Home End keys Move the cursor to the beginning or end of the edit line Escape key Press once to blank the data line press again to escape from Edit mode Backspace key Deletes character to left of cursor and moves cursor left one space Letter number Normal data entry Characters character keys are inserted into the data line at the cursor position Other characters are pushed right Data scrolls to the right if necessary for large data items Enter key Accepts currently displayed data and exits from Edit B 25 M6340 PERSONAL COMPUTER FILE SELECTION MAI PC LINK uses an enhanced method of file selection based on the format used by Lotus 1 2 3 Three methods of file selection are provided 1 In many cases there will be a default file name that you will want to select with the ENTER key 26 By pres
98. s that the original MAI PC LINK diskette must be available in a disk drive as described above C 2 APPENDIX D MAI PC LINK DISKETTE CONTENTS When you receive your authorized copy of MAI PC LINK the following files should be contained on your distribution diskette FILENAME PCLINK EXE PCLINK IDF PCLINK HLP INDEX HLP DEFAULTS CNF INSTALL COM SEND HST RECV HST _ SEND2000 HST RECV2000 HST DESCRIPTION MAI PC LINK main program file Used by the installation pro cedure These are your MAI PC LINK help system files which reside on your DOS default drive during execution of MAI PC LINK for the on screen help facility to be available The configuration default file used by MAI PC LINK to record your current custom setup Your hard disk install uninstall programs The Basic Four programs which must be installed on the host with the Install program command before advanced Send and Receive will work For Basic Four series 2000 the appro priate files XXXX2000 XXX must be used D 1 M6340 FILENAME SAFE HST SAFE2000 HST MKDIR HST STUDENT REC STUDENT PRC STUDENT RUL PEOPLE PRC TRANSH BAT M6340 DESCRIPTION The direct file security program required for access to Basic Four DIRECT files A BASIC program which will create a sample Direct file on the Basic Four host A sample student data file that will aid you in learning how to use Send Receive and View comma
99. second A hardware or cold boot would require turning on and off the computer A software or warm boot would require restarting the operating system e g Control Alt Del on the PC results in a reloading of the operating system Continuous frequency upon which Signals may be superimposed The digitized data is transform ed into the continuous frequency by the modem for communication over the phone line Used by the communication equip ment to control data transmis sion The control character is actually embedded within the data stream being transmitted Clear To Send pin 5 on RS 232 connector The smallest unit in data pro cessing Each bit can assume only a zero or one value By grouping the bits various coding schemes can be used to identify letters numbers and symbols Standard 25 pin connector A 2 DCE Disk Drive Download DOS DTE DCD DSR DTR Emulation Data Circuit Equipment Modems and other communication equip ments are DCE s They are used primarily as the interpreter and controller between computer to computer computer to terminal and computer to peripheral com munications equipment A modem is generally set up to be DCE The hardware that can do read write operations on a floppy disk or a fixed disk To send a file or information from a larger or remote computer to a smaller or local one Disk Operating System A type of operating system used by many
100. sing the S key Each time you type S the ruler steps down one line and the previous line occupied by the ruler is highlighted Only data in the highlighted lines will be written to the disk when Save Data is selected To Unselect lines move the Ruler to them with the arrow keys and press U Each time you type U the line underneath the Ruler is unhighlighted If necessary the screen will scroll over a large data file like a window When the desired areas are highlighted they can be written to the disk in a selected format To choose the format select Format from the View menu and choose the desired format from the Format menu To save the formatted data to the Personal Computer disk select Save from the View menu and then select Data from the Save menu Enter the name of the file to receive the data and press ENTER The data will be written to the disk The selected columns can be saved for later use or for use in a transfer procedure by using the Save Ruler command sequence from the View menu A ruler can be restored using the Read Ruler sequence from the View menu Note that when fields are to be formatted as numer ic the Z and characters are ignored Also numbers in brackets such as 1500 are converted into negative numbers such as 1500 to be compatible with spread sheets Sample data files have been provided on the dis tribution diskette for use with VIEW Refer to Section 8 SAMPLE SEND RE
101. sing the space bar you will be provided with a file directory from which you can select a file by highlighting 3 You can type in a file name as in normal edit mode 4 You can type in a wildcard file name to display a list of files from which the desired one can be selected For example if you enter s all files starting with s will be displayed If you have previously recalled a file of that type during this run of MAI PC LINK then this will be your default file name If there is a default then it will be displayed and you will be required to either hit ENTER which means select this file again or press the space bar which means get directory assistance Directory assistance gives you a list of all of the relevant files on the default data drive directory You will now be in file directory selection mode where you may move around the list of filenames with the cursor keys and the Home and End keys to highlight a filename If the file that you want is listed on the screen simply move the highlighting cursor on top of it and hit ENTER to select You may enter a file name by typing any alphanumeric character which will immediately place you into Edit mode in defining a file name entry You may optionally type in DOS file directory mask with s and or as the filename entry and this will give you additional M6340 B 26 gt PERSONAL COMPUTER FILE SELECTION continued directory assistance this
102. sor position Resets mode to fore ground LD Line Delete Removes line where the cursor is positioned rolls all lines below it up one line in serts a blank line at the bottom of the screen and sets the mode to foreground LES Line Feed Outputs a line feed carriage return M6340 I 2 AJ MNEMONIC MNEMONIC NAME LI Line Insert ps Start Protect Mode PE End Protect RB Ring Bell RC Read Cursor SB Start Background SF Start Foreground TR Transmit Screen RESULTING ACTION Inserts a blank line at cursor position rolls all lines below it down deletes the bottom line on the screen and sets Fore ground mode Begins display protec tion Prevents cursor from entering a previ ously protected posi tion and prevents screen scrolling Cancels PS ending the protection mode Causes beep on VDT Provides current cur sor position coordin ates Should be used with or followed by an INPUT directive Echo is suppressed for the remainder of the INPUT directive and is re stored afterward Begin Background mode Marks Background char acters as protectable though does not begin protection Begin Foreground mode Sends data from screen to the input variable M6340 NOTES M6340 1 4 APPENDIX J QUICK START PROCEDURES This outline is designed for the experienced PC and Basic Four user If you have not had much exposure to a Personal Computer or a Basic Four or
103. t recognized by the modem 2 electrical interference trashing the communication lines or 3 a hardware problem in the modem itself or in external modem cases within the serial board in the PC connected to the modem K 7 M6340 Action Retry the action If there is still an error check all connections try to eliminate sources of electrical interference and check the modem serial boards for damage Error in releasing lineselected Error in releasing inelength Error in release line Reason Action These are serious PC hardware errors relating to the dynamic use of memory Exit from PC Link re boot your PC and perform the same function again If the error occurs again exit from PC Link and use your PC s System Diagnostics program s to check the PC Error in cunning DOS command or program Reason Action PC Link could not execute the DOS application properly Another message may accompany this message to indicate the detailed reason Refer to the accompanying message and take action based on it Error in starting Host program Reason M6340 When PC Link attempted to RUN the applicable host program SEND the appropriate responses were not received from the host computer The host pro gram may be corrupted or communication may have been garbled by interference This error is also generated by not receiving the response in time or by receiving an incorrect response
104. ter works with this port but not with the one that you are trying to enable then your port probab ly has a hardware problem You should ask an MAI service representative to check that your port is connected internally and it is set at a rate of 9600 baud If you are using a Columbia or Corona Personal Computer then you may have to Switch lines 2 and 3 of the DB 25 connector plugged into the Personal Computer This may also be necessary for some other non standard Asynchronous communication cards plugged into a Personal Computer The Personal Computer asynchronous port may not be operational or may be switched to the wrong port address switch selectable on some expansion boards Try the self test mode that is available in the Terminal menu This makes the currently selected serial port echo characters back directly to MAI PC LINK Enter emulation mode and type a normal character like K If the K is not echoed back to the screen then some thing is wrong with the serial card Note that some serial cards are not truly IBM PC compatible and require that certain pins e g DSR data set ready be held high Refer to Appendix F for trademark information for these products H 5 M6340 If none of the preceding steps is successful call the dealer from whom you purchased MAI PC LINK for assistance M6340 NOTES H 6 APPENDIX I BASIC FOUR TERMINAL CONTROL MNEMONICS RECOGNIZED BY MAI MNEMONIC MNEMONIC NAME x
105. terminal emulation is not possible when Self Test is ON Exits to MAI PC LINK main menu R_2 MEZAN SEND MENU This menu is selected by the Send command on the main menu Note that to use Send for data file transfer the program SEND must have been installed on the host computer as described in the instal lation instructions The current version of MAI PC LINK supports the transfer of ASCII files on the Personal Computer into BASIC FOUR serial and indexed files Future versions will support transfer from other Personal Computer formats into other types of BASIC FOUR files PAGE COMMAND USE REFERENCE Local File Enters the name of the local 4 10 Personal Computer file to be sent to host computer The file is assumed to be on the default data drive directory set by Configure initially drive A unless another drive is given in the file name Host File Name Enters the name of the host 4 10 Basic Four file to receive data For 8000 and 2000 series systems the file is assumed to be in the default host data path unless another path is given To print on the Basic Four line printer enter LP The printer must be available and on line Type Type of file on the Basic Four 4 10 DIRECT SERIAL INDEXED or STRING 2000 systems This value will default to SERIAL M6340 B 4 s COMMAND Key Field Create Key Size Record Size Number Program SEND MENU continued PAGE Ea REFERENCE Not
106. to your work location It should be wired as follows Male Female Connector Connector Pin Pin Plug into l 1 Plug into cable from 2 2 Personal from Basic 3 3 Computer Four computer 7 7 Asynchronous Comm port Using a Remote Connection to Your Host If you will be connecting your PC directly to the BASIC FOUR you can skip ahead to the section on starting MAI PC LINK If you wish to link with the host BASIC FOUR at a remote location you may do so by communicating over a telephone line A modem will be required at each end Due to the standard hardware setup used by the BASIC FOUR minis and the PC micros the modems must be of the asynchronous type Either acoustic or direct wire modems may be used but the modems must be capable of handling 1 start bit 7 data bits 1 stop bit and 1 parity bit Any standard baud rate may be used but the modems at each end must match the baud rate set up on the BASIC FOUR Some of the modems that will work are listed below 2 13 M6340 1 Hayes or Hayes compatible 2 Racal Vadic csceeeeee 3451 PA direct line auto dial 3 Racal Vadic sesseeoo 3451 P direct line manual dial 4 Racal Vadic sseeeesos e3455 direct line manual dial 5 Anderson Jacobsen se 1234 A acoustic manual dial Using an Acoustic Coupler Modem If you wish to use an acoustic modem for your link session you must first connect it to the serial port on your PC
107. ty Odd Stop 1Timing 50 Initialization Sequence ATHWIS Dialing Prefix Sequence AT OT Phone Dialing Sequence 9 555 3434 Wait Time 30 s Hang Up Sequence ATH INTER SETUP Printer Type Parallel Baud NJA Data N A Auto Line Feed Yes Parity N A Stop N A Setup String MAT PC LINK POPO TO EEE PEE P EE APS 8 Figure 7 1 A Sample Configuration Screen 7 1 M6340 COMMUNICATIONS SETTINGS To change the communications settings select the Communications option and then choose the setting you wish to change The timing factor allows you to alter the length of time the PC will wait for responses from the Basic Four If you experience transmission errors try increasing this number PC DEFAULTS MAI PC LINK uses six internal default settings They are as follows 1 Drive Directory Specifies the default drive and directory to be used for selecting and retrieving PC files 2 Record File Names the files to be appended to when recording the emulation session to disk 3 FastStart If yes MAI PC LINK will go immediately to terminal emulation upon loading 4 AutoDial If yes MAI PC LINK will automatically dial the modem number upon loading 5 StatusLine If no MAI PC LINK will not display the status line normally located at the bottom of the screen 6 Terminal Selects the type of MAI terminal to be emulated 7 Color If you have a color screen o
108. un MAI PC LINK from the MASTER DISK You can only run MAI PC LINK from a working copy created by the installation procedure The following options are open to you Option 1 You can install MAI PC LINK from the MASTER DISK to either i a hard disk or ii a formatted double sided double density floppy diskette Once installed no further installs ae left until you perform an uninstall Option 2 Option 2 You can uninstall MAI PC LINK from the working copy created via Option 1 above back to the same MASTER DISK it was created from Once uninstalled you can install it again refer to Option 1 Each of the above options is elaborated upon in detail below Installing MAI PC LINK onto a Hard Disk You can install MAI PC LINK onto your personal computer s hard disk and into a subdirectory Additionally you can uninstall MAI PC LINK from your hard disk if you want to install MAI PC LINK onto a different hard disk or if you need to reformat your hard disk Installation is a simple process performed through a series of prompts The following procedure guides you through the process of installing MAI PC LINK onto your hard disk In the following description CR represents pressing your RETURN key 1 Insert your original MAI PC LINK distribution diskette into drive A 2 3 M6340 M6340 4 Make the A drive the default drive This may be done by typing A CR Start the installation program by typing INSTALL CR
109. y entering file information an error message will be displayed and the existing file will not be recreated After a delay of several seconds lines of the file will be seen being displayed as they are sent along with a line count 8 If there is an error in the transfer process an error message will be seen in the status line accompanied by a single beep 9 Upon completion of a successful transfer a beep is sounded and a message indicating success is displayed A sample file has been provided on the distribution disk for testing file transfer Refer to Section 8 SAMPLE SEND RECEIVE AND VIEW SESSIONS to practice this file transfer RECEIVING BASIC FOUR DATA FILES MAI PC LINK currently supports transfer of ASCII data files from the BASIC FOUR To receive files the Basic program RECV HST included on the master MAI PC LINK diskette must be installed on the BASIC FOUR as RECV see beginning of this section for installation procedures You may also select automatic data reformatting A into M6340 4 8 o Lotus Worksheet format WKS o Lotus Import format PRN o dBase II and dBASE III delimited format PRN o PC Basic sequential file format TXT o Visicalc format DAT o Multiplan format SLK o Multimate internal format DOC document or merge o Fixed format FIX which places data from fields left justified in columns o Plain format which receives lines PLN from data files unchanged with commas as
110. ystems This error is also generated by not receiving the response in time or by receiving an incorrect response Ensure that the applicable host program is available to be LOADed If this was the case when the error was reported then try increasing the Timing factor in the Configure screen If this still does not work contact your dealer Unlicensed Host Computer Unlicensed Reason Action Terminal Port These messages may occur in very old releases of PC Link Contact your MAI Basic Four dealer immediately for further instructions K 27 M6340 Warning Reason Action M6340 Printer not ready output ignored PC Link has determined from the state of the communication link to the LocalPrinter that the printer is not available to receive data from the PC Check all cable connections Ensure that the printer is turned on and is On Line If you are not going to use the LocalPrinter during the PC Link session then ignore the message and continue NOTES K 28

User Guide - MAI PC-Link

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