Date: 06/06/90 Time: 23:20EDT Attendees: [DR.EVIL] [PETER-CPM] [[David] D.GOODENOUGH] Minutes: <[Brad] BHARRIS> What term, for what 'puter? Sounds exciting already. Yes... no docs on those two features yet though so I'm not sure what all he has done. Desterm v2.00. It supports SwiftLink, of course! :-) Can it run without the SL? Q-term for CP/M supports SL too, but no chat mode. Yes, DT will work with the user port as before. Hi to all who just entered! No chat? Is there a reason why not? Well gee, I don't THINK it has a chat mode... maybe I'm wrong!! <[Brad] BHARRIS> It used to have a chat mode :) is here. is here. It always had a 'split screen' thing I would call a chat mode. It's fun to see the old C-128 work at 2400 from under CP/M... I was even able to do one-way X-modem at 9600 bps... Dave's still working on it. Hi Ed, RA Hi all! disconnected. <-- doesn't know what he's talking about with Q-Term! Hi new comers! Being able to do 2400 baud under CPM is the shot in the arm CP/M needed;) Hi R.A.!! <[Brad] BHARRIS> Will CP/M work fast enough to take advantage of an MNP modem (9600)? Hi Bill is here. Don't know yet. The modem I/O is not a problem--writing to the 80-column screen is though. If you shut down the text while transferring..I think it would. (I think ^W is for the chat window in Q-Term) RE: Ed!! I would just blank the screen then. Hi Bill. Got knocked off a minute ago Maybe Dave will have some news for us tonight. Bummer, Ed. Welcome to the CP/M RT Conference, all! Peter, any time to look at the Kermit-80 or 28 May 87 BIOS sources yet? Ed Bell = call me Murphy! is here. ;-) Hi Dave! I haven't looked at Kermit yet, and I've been working on the BIOS source when my keyboard behaves (which isn't often). I got a new one on order. Hi David! <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Hi Kent, et al. (If anything can wrong, it happens to Ed) So you've run CP/M at higher than 1200 baud, huh Kent? Hiya, Dave!! Yeh! in bunches! <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> You betcha Bill - it's a sight to see :-) re: cranky SL catridge Hi Dave! Well Bill, what can I do for all these fine people on this rather dreary Seattle evening? <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Cranky? - the main problem I had was figgering which way up to plug it in - a label on top would have been nice :-) Hah! A label costs money!! :-) I ran into that too.... called Noel! <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> yes - but even a Post-It to say "This is the top" would have been nice Just scratch an 'X' on the topside;) A graphic designer at work designed us a nice label for the production units. The production models will have labels, no? Ah, question answered. :) <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Finally guessed that the "label frame" was on top, and didn't fry it. I scratched an X on my topside when things were REALLY going bad! <-- didn't even think of using a post-it. I've known users to plug 1670's in upside down. Labels don't help some people;) Great news, Ed! Did some batch ymo downloads today! <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> How in h**l can you plug a 1670 in, it gets "fat" on top, and won't go in the <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> wrong way round You have to push REALLY hard!!! Kent, would you like to introduce yourself and your product? (It can be done, David. I've seen it and the results;)) Sure. Hi, I'm Kent Sullivan from Dr. Evil Laboratories. I'm here tonight to talk about our new product, the SwiftLink-232. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> The mind boggles :-) - sonds like the operator who couldn't fit the eighth disk of a distribution set into the drive, seems lik e the other seven already in it were jamming it up. SL opens up a new world in Telecomm for the C-64/128 -- high speed. For CP/M on the C-128, it finally allows us to break the 1200 bps barrier. We should be shipping the first units in about 1-2 weeks. We're still waiting on a few components. David Goodenough's Q-Term will be the first CP/M term to support SL!! (take a bw, David!) <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Who, me? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ gets a medal for working with Z-80 interrupts! <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Actually, credit should be due Miklos, since I couldn't have done a thing without his help. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> The Z80 interrupts were OK (sort of) - it kept dying cuz I didn't realise the way the banking is handled, but that's another st ory :-) Well, it's really an ACIA inside-- Asynchronous Communications Interface Adaptor. A UART is similar but not quite the same-- a UART can do both Synchronous and Asynch communication. (most can) <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> UART - Universal Asyn Receive Transmit - you need a USART for Sync (like the Z80 SIO) but I digress .....{ <[Brad] BHARRIS> Do you have many orders yet? I just sent mine in today. Will there be a big backlog? Oops, right. Some seem to be misnamed too... We have several orders in the queue but there won't be a noticeable backlog. <[Brad] BHARRIS> Great! <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Just like BAUD and BPS - 1200 BPS modems actually do 600 BAUD, but again that's a whole other can of worms Will drivers be done for other terms already out..both commercial and PD? Well, let's see. For CP/M we would like to support Kermit-80. Need help there still. Don't know about Mex or IMP. Bill, any clues there? For C-128 mode, both Desterm 128 v2.00 and Dialogue 128 support it. Not yet, Kent. I still have feelers out, though. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> I guess a sharp programmer could probably derive an IMP patch from the stuff I put together for QTERM. My next project is to ha ve _ONE_ QTERM patch that can change the device it talks to on the fly - the SL or the KERNEL RS232 code. Anyway of getting BobsTermPro to work with it? For C-64 mode, Ed's BellTerm will support the cart (almost done) and Phil Kemp's Terminal/One will soon. Also C-64/128 Kermit. How fast can the 64 get cranked up to, Ed? Well, BTPro is pretty heavily copy-protected. I looked into it once (both 64 and 128) so that will be a problem. W/o a Null Modem, Ican't really say. Bob Lentini is out of the 64/128 market as far as I know. His program is behind the times these days, anyway. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Pity there's no way of porting DesTerm (or a subset of it) to the 64. Now that would be a mean term prog. I can't wait, Ed. Yes, Bob's Term Pro only 'does' XMODEM , but the newest version of Desterm sounds very good. We have done the max-- 38.4 Kb for file transfers on the C-64. On the C-128, I can stream a text file to the screen with no character loss using DT 2.00. at 38.4 Kb. (and of course, also send files) I thought I just read Desterm 2.0 doing 57,6 on a FIDO net??? <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Wow - 38.4 from a 64. It takes an 8MHz Z80 for QTERM to be able to do 38.4 xmodem. I'm suitably impressed. I *read* it on a FIDO net Yes--with the HART. A competitor... we know something about it but don't have one. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> That's quite possible (DesTerm @ 57.6) - it's a real sharp program. Ohhh! And Desterm is for the C128. Matt said last time I talked with him that the HART was unstable at 57.6. Maybe he fixed it. Geoff Welsh was talking about 115 baud the last time I heard from him. whew! The HART uses an Intel 8250-- Bryan (our hardware engineer) thinks his design is much compicated because of that... I think SL will be far c heaper. Is that Kbaud, Ed? Yep. The 6551 we are using can do 115.2 Kb max... but I don't think the 64/128 can keep up over 57.6 at all... Sorry! Explain what you mean. He is talking about 115000 baud. (theory) errr... bps 57.6K is quick enough;) Well Brad, what do you plan to use your SwiftLink for? (BTW, David: one patch for both C-128 ports sounds great) <[Brad] BHARRIS> For one thing, it will eliminate the need for any disk transfer programs to get files from the clone to the Commodore! Right! We thought people would use it for that. We are giving away a simple ASCII and X-modem term program for the C-64 that will do the 3 8.4 Kb max. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> It occurs to me that there Just don't hold your breath waiting, it's likely to be a bit of a mess by the time it's done. (Noel Nyman wrote it for those of you who know him.) David, what are your feelings on above 2400 for Q-term by the time SL ships? <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> the [it occurs to me that there] shouldn't have been there - QTERM in split window mode doesn't handle long lines gracefully. He is doing 38,4 on the C64.? I am kind of anxious to be able to test that! Brad, do you have a C-64 orr C-128? <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> The main problem is not the driver - it'd probably do 9600 BPS Xmodem just fine. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> It's the verdammt slow screen - you'll have seen how slow ROGUE is doing a screen redraw. I had no trouble sending a file at 9600 w/ q-term, but receiving choked. <[Brad] BHARRIS> Even better, since it will do over 9600, I can use the Commodore to do its own downloading, and take full advantage of MNP Level 5. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Humm - even with 128 byte packets? Brad: great! Kent, have you had any problems with saving to a 1541 doing 2400? <[Brad] BHARRIS> I've got a 128D - best of both worlds. I'd still like to see Zmodem for us 64/128 users. yes, I think that's what I was using. To get the transmit working, I had to do a CONF 40col=off... it was that close. No problems saving as long as you turn the ACIA interrupts off correctly... we confused our developers about what to do initially. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> ouch - that ought to have worked - the interrupt silo is 256 bytes, plenty big enough to scoop a 128 byte packet into. It shoul d lose characters. I'm surprised no one has done a 64/128 ZMODEM. Brad: I have a 128D too. Love it! I have no probs w/saving to a 1541 at 2400! Really, Ed? The 41 could keep up? No change in buffers, Ed? I think I may have seen 6502 assembler Zmodem sources somewhere... maybe not though. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> should _NOT_ lose characters - I can't type tonight :-( Wait. I'm not talking about streaming! Right, Dave. We meant what you knew!!! ;-) <[Brad] BHARRIS> Ed, do you use JiffyDos? Not yet. :( <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> I dyslexic get once in a while :-) But Bill j does. uses JiffyDOS. Ya, Jiffy sure does make the drive dance! thinks CMD is one of the few good companies left for the 64/128! <[Brad] BHARRIS> What a combo JD and the SL will be! Wherever did you see 6502 Zmo source. I have done some work w/it but a long way to go You should see a file transfer with Desterm to a RAMdisk... oh my does it fly. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> What are you working _FROM_ Ed? If you find that source again, send it to me in mail, would you? scratch, if that is what you mean! Sure... I think I may have been imagining it... Me too doc! I've seen it too, Kent..I know it exists somewhere. DT can do better than 1500 cps at 28.4 Kb. oops, 38.4 Kb. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Wow - I cheated for the Xmodem and Kermit in Q, copied someone elses C, and then hand translated to assembler. It's usually a l ot faster doing it that way :-) <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> 28.4 KBPs is about 2800 CPS I think that DT to/from a RAMdisk might be faster than a 1541! ;-) <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> _THAT'S_ 3800 CPS Kent, will the SL cartridge work OK in an Aprospand exdender, with the REU? Matt said 3700 cps on the nets. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Sounds about right. I have the above configuration. It all seems to work most of the time... but the Aprospand and the REU don't always seem to get along--weir d problems sometime. I hope so Bill. I ordered one today! ED.BELL> I heard the Aprospand has trouble w/SOME C128's. (Yes, matt told me that too... but I couldn't get it that fast... maybe my Mac doesn't really send at 38.4 when it is supposed to?) I think the REU works best when it's closest to the computer. Yes, I agree, Bill. <[Brad] BHARRIS> I've read that the REU has to be the first cart due to critical timing. Yeh. Plugged in! ;-) Thats right, Brad. Is that for DMA or using RAMDOS, or both/ Maybe the Amiga does do 38.4 truly... and not the Mac? Mainly for the DMA. I only use that for my 80 col module... Matt uses his own RAMdisk driver... don't know what it is built on/around. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> An Ozzie Exec w/ a Z80H can do 38.4 w/ QTERM, so any good 68K machine _OUGHT_ to be able to ..... Dave, will Q-Term have a Chat Window and does it keep up with a d/l to the 1571 at higher speeds? <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> QTERM split screen works, although I don't know how it'd do on a 128 at 2400. I'll have to try it, Dave. Want me to log off and back on now? <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> I need an interrupt driver on my 803 here to avoid losing about 3 to 4 chars, and that's just at 1200 BPS. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> As for the D/L to a 1571, you'd probably want to set the Xfer size (0x01cd) <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> to about 2, to prevent timeouts. OK, sure. Have you tried it with the 81? Can you safely double that for a 1581, David? <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Split screen sight work at 2400 if the total throughput wasn't too great. I did a bunch of Kermit downloads at 2400 bps with no trouble using the defaults. I'll be right back! <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> I don't know Peter, we only have a pair of 1571's here. Again, the thing to try is to twiddle it and see what happens. We will keep your seat warm , Kent. has left. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Kermit is a _LOT_ more forgiving on timeouts - QTERM asks for a 10 second timeout <[Brad] BHARRIS> I have IMP set up to do 16K to the 1581 and it seems to do just fine with Xmodem. In that case, it should be no problem with an '81. I would imagine that the REU would be the 1st choice for a D/L drive. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Hummm - maybe QTERM would get away with a 4 or 8K xfersize. It would depend on the far end Xmodem. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Agreed Bill - I have even had Greg Chesson's "g" protocol (a streaming thing) working on a 128 from M: <[Brad] BHARRIS> Genie seems pretty relaxed about timeouts. It is for me, Bill..I always use it then dump to an '81 when time permits. I s that Ymodem-G? <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Then 4 or 8 would probably work OK. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> No - it's the protocol used by UNIX for UUCP transfers -gets about 100 CPS with a 64 byte packet size. If everyone went to 256 byte packets it'd probably give about 115 to 118 CPS at 1200. Ah, OK Dave, thanx! <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> No - strike that - it's about 108 CPS at 1200 <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> 70 bytes sent per 64 data, so it's about 10% lost for data overhead. Ed, will Bellterm do color graphics in this newset version? I don't think Ymodem G is such a good idea Bill. >>wink<< is here. Re, Kent [David] D.GOODENOUGH> Ok - Kent - hows it working? hhh Bell Term will do color grafix for the old version Bill, but not ANSI, yet. I never used 'G' . Hey! 1 mistake kills a transfer! Hi Kent, welcome back. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> QTERM split screen??????? It's working so far. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Ugh - Ed, that's kinda messy. Dr. E: Any chance of a passthru connector for REU use in the future from ya? Except, what I'm typing is showing up in both windows? <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> do a ^O H Yeh, it is for very sterile environments. Is this what I want? yes, I think so. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Yes - the half duplex causes your typed stuff to appear in the lower window. A pass through would be great..I would definately want one. Ed: a pass thru would be way too expensive-- $$ for more gold fin- gers, big board, and custom cart shel. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> So as soon as you do the ^O W, follow it with a ^O H I think a LOT of people are interested though... The custom cart shell would really be the killer. Why even have a shell? It's really out of the question... unless we make the cart cost as much as the oold BI-80 80 column card-- $150. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> To give it some strength I'd imagine Dave, is the backspace delete key be fixed for the 128 version? :) Keep people from breaking it! yeh! <[Brad] BHARRIS> To keep little fingers out of places they don't belong. For 29.95 it's a real bargan, Kent!! hehehe Yes Dave, it would be nice to have the BS and DEL swap-able. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Oh - delete doesn't work No it doesn't. I'll cook up a KBMAP to fix it, and mail it to you - patch it into QTERM with ZSM And Z PATCH (thanks, Bill!) It would sure keep them from plugging it in upside down too;) Peter: great point! ;-) <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> David: it seems to be keeping up fine! Is the cartridge port notched? I forgot? <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Mail me how you want BS and DEL to work, and I'll do something for it. I don't remember. No, its not. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> No it isn't I don't think, half a minute I'll lokk at the 128 here. The user port is, I think. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> afk The User Port and the cassette port are. Does every conference have a stenographer? What does he/she do? (how?) Dr. E: There has been some discussion on making a null modem. Any specs? The REU isn't keyed, either. :( <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Nope, the only useful thing is that the slot where the edge connector plugs in is slightly offset to the bottom. I am interested if I can ever find time (bt to bed) Only if the meeting leader (thats me;)) activates, Kent. It essentially records everything said here then send me the minutes of the meeti g in mail. Yes. 7 (GND) straight thru. Swap RxD and TxD (2 &3). Swap 6 & 20 (DTR and DSR). We will be posting a transcript in the Libraries. You get all that Bill? >>grin<< Or did the stenographer? Both;) I got it! We may be able to get away without DTR and DSR... we'll see. Excellent! I'll try all the usual swaps, too. Just 2&3 and GND should suffice..thats how mine is made. David: the only trouble I see with chat is that sometimes if I am at the 80th column in the input window, it doesn't scroll- it wraps around Just wondered cuz of the unusual hookup of this cart & modem. <[Brad] BHARRIS> Will a standard clone-type null-modem cable work to connect to the serial port? And the fact that I have never made or used one. We have pull up resistors in my prototype on 6 and 20, but it wasn't working exactly right. We want to see what's up on a production model. You can always add DTR & DSR. brad: don't know. "Standard null-modem cable" is an oxymoron! (i.e. there reallty isn't such a thing, unfortunately) No, Brad..not on a 128..no way to plug it in for one;) <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Yes - there are some oddnesses in the way the split screen behaves when you type into the very last column. I guess I should tr y to fix it one of these days. Right now I have a loose 't' as the first char on the ---- split line as a byproduct of some oddness. Dave, will you be posting the final Q-Term in the CP/M Libs? <[Brad] BHARRIS> I'm talking about from the cart output to a clone, rather than to a modem. Brad: a null-modem cable like I described above (which most are) will work for your clone. You'll need to check the genders to get that rig ht... you'll need a female on the SL end. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> I should, and I'll send it up to Q as well. What I'd suggest is roll with what is currently there, and I'll try to get the "bot h" device patch going,and U/L that (and send a copy to Kent). That way it would work, Brad. Great, Dave. Thank you!! <[Brad] BHARRIS> I'll play with it when the cart arrives. David, I didn't see your reply (if you have had a chance to type it yet) to what status you think Qterm will be in when the SL ships. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> OK - sounds good. With the current version in place, I'd only need to U/L the source for the revised patch I guess (plus the to ols to install it) <[Brad] BHARRIS> Well folks, I have to call it a night. Y'all take care. Qterm will be on-disk (free) with SL... Speaking of 'little spots', Kent, would you like to become an 'official' Product Supporter for our CP/M Geneie area? G'nite, Brad. Night, Brad! <[Brad] BHARRIS> has left. By Brad! Nice chatting!! It's only 8:00 here! boo!;) Might not be a bad idea... what would that entail? <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> I just looked at my UUCP spool directory, and there's nothing waiting for you, so there must be a note on the way to you. Somew here here I have the list of things to look at, but I can't put my finger on it right now. I gotta go too. It is 11:09 here and my neighbor is building an ark. arggghhh! Not much else, Kent. I can set up a special message area for you in this RT. Night, Ed! G'nite, Ed! Bye ed! (Boy, people here don't mess around when they say they're leaving!! :-) hehehe At least they say goodnight before they leave;) Some don't even do that! <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> I'm so swamped w/ getting CP/M UUCP going I can't remember what I Was going to do to the cart - the fast screen stuff won't mak e it in the near future. Ok. Why don't you look for that list. If you can't find it I'll tell you again what I suggested. I think most of it will be trivial. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> Probably the best thing to do :-( (i.e. E-mail it again) i can tell you right now if you want (I have a hard copy in-hand) <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> half a minute - let me turn on a catch file Now is always the best time <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> OK go ahead 1) init the cart on boot to turn on DTR (latest CP/M system doesn't do it) 2) 4800 bps (esp. since 9600 will be unreliable for the near future) <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> DE02 - bit 0 if memory serves <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> I can test 4800 against my 803 here. 3) CTRL-O "." (break) -- command register 4) CTRL-O "," (hangup -- also DTR) 5) RTS/CTS handshaking if you want to bother 6) CTRL-O "d" (in the future?) That's it, except for faster screen routines. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> 6 is in the works right now Great! <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> And the disable on exit to prevent system freeze when you turn off the modem <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> {OK - got all that Right!!! hey David, would you be able to make a short .COM that people could run to init the cart? So it won't lock up if they toggle thei r modem but haven't run Qterm/ That would be REALLY useful! <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> You could do that with a chat script easier: call it init, and just have it contain one single line with a '!q' on it, and say QTERM INIT. QTERM would enter and immediately exit. not a bad idea... I'll put that in the docs... but the .COM would be nice because people could put it on other disks too (qterm is bigger ob viously) <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> But the small program would be as easy I guess. <[David] D.GOODENOUGH> I'll set to and write the init program and UUCP it to you. Great! Since I have the source now, all you'll have to send is the patch code for Qterm too... Night all. Kent, Thank you for joining us, tonight. You're welcome. Thanks for having me! Night Dave, Peter! === End of Steno notes. ===