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     Microreview for December 1995 MICROpendium
     by Charles Good
     --------------
TERM 80 by Jeffery Brown

     My entire column this month is devoted to a new important piece of
     software.

     In these modern times, with more and more TIers using the internet,
     Term 80 is probably going to replace Telco as the premiere terminal
     emulation software for use on a 99/4A.

     Unless you have access to a computer bulletin board system
     specifically designed for use with the 99/4A you really need an 80
     column display to effectively telecommunicate with computers.  All
     internet access providers and most BBS systems and national
     information systems produce only an 80 column text display.  In most
     cases these computer telecommunication networks use the VT100 or the
     ANSI terminal emulation protocol.  The ANSI protocol includes 8
     colors, specifically defined tabs, and other standards for formatting
     text graphics and sound.  Both VT100 and ANSI need an 80 column
     display.  If all you have is a basic 99/4A disk system then the best
     you can normally get in text mode is 40 columns.  Using TELCO and a
     99/4A to telephone my local library's on line catalog or dial into my
     Ohio State University internet account produces a 40 column display
     that is hopelessly confusing.  These systems require VT100 emulation.
     TELCO has "VT100NET" and "VT100VAX", but these don't work with my
     internet account or the library catalog.  The confusion is much more
     than what you get with a word processor where you can sort of get used
     to scrolling left/right and up/down to simulate an 80 column screen.
     Unlike a word processor, when you bring up an 80 column
     telecommunication screen on a 40 column display the cursor is often
     nowhere to be found! It is off somehwere you can't see, and that
     really makes things difficult.

     The new terminal emulation software TERM 80 solves these problems.
     In addition to VT52 emulation, which is the main emulation supported
     by Telco, you get true VT100 emulation and a nice 80 column display on
     a regular 99/4A system.  Internet access needs VT100 emulation.  You
     need no special hardware (no 80 column card, no analog RGB monitor, no
     expanded video memory) to get a nicely formatted 80 column display
     with Term 80.  No other software of any type gives you an 80 column
     text display on a basic 99/4A system.  How is this done? Each
     character is only 3 pixels wide and there are no spaces between the
     characters.  This uses 240 pixels of the 256 pixels available in the
     width of a 99/4A display.  The character set includes upper and lower
     case letters as well as a fairly complete set of foreign language
     accented vouls.  Using special keypresses any upper or lower case voul
     can have an acute ('), grave (`), circumflex (^) or unlaut (two dots)
     over it.  You can also put a (~) over an N and you can make a cedilla
     (a "c" with a squiggle underneath).  Actually the entire IBM extended
     character set is displayable including lines, blocks, mathematical
     symbols, etc.

     Impossible you say!  Nobody could read 3 pixel wide characters on as
     TI monitor!  Well, I can assure you these characters can be read.  You
     can see them for yourself on the video tapes of the April 1995 Lima
     MUG Conference.  The character set is very cleverly designed.  Reading
     it isn't easy, but having a correctly proportioned 80 column display
     makes the effort worthwhile.  You need a composite color or monochrome
     monitor to adequately read this tiny character set.  A TV isn't good
     enough.  I have tried Term 80 successfully on several composite
     monitors.  You may have to mess around with the focusing and color
     controls.  Term 80 lets you turn off the ANSI color display and view
     white on black, which often makes it easier to read text.  If your
     eyeglasses just can't handle the 80 column diaplay you can switch to
     either 64, 54, 40, 36, or 32 columns of text for the input/output
     display.  If you do this you don't lose ANSI colors or VT100
     emulation, but your text display may look funny.  The help screens and
     menus are always in 80 columns.

     All aspects of Term 80 operation are controled by an initial
     configuration, which you only have to do once to match the software to
     your hardware, and by a bunch of 80 column pull down menus.  Many of
     the preconfigured options can be altered in these menus.  To bring
     down a menu press either CTRL or FCTN and a number.  If you can't
     remember how to access a meny you can always press AID.  Because of
     the complexity of Term 80's expanded character set and the many many
     ANSII and other options available it is sometimes necessary to press 3
     TI keys simultaneously to get some things to happen.

     Minimum requirements for Term 80 are a 99/4A, one DSSD drive, 32K,
     RS232 and either a modem or direct serial cable to another computer.
     If you have minimemory or supercart or Gram device (such a Pgram+)
     or an AMS card of any size, they can all be used to significantly
     expand the size of the input buffer.  The current version allows for
     up to 64K of buffering space on an AMS card.  The author states that
     he hopes to completely rewrite Term 80 in its next version so that all
     its modules can reside on an AMS card and that all the rest of the
     memory of the card will be usable as buffering space.

     A ramdisk is nice because Term 80 is kinda slow when run from floppy.
     Term 80 doesn't like Geneves and it doesn't like hard drive long path
     names.  All configuring requires Term 80 system files to be on a
     device named "DSK" followed by one digit.  To get VT100 emulation on a
     Geneve you should use PORT, available I think from Cecure
     Electronics.

     Although you can manually dial if necessary, you will want to use the
     autodialer if possible.  It is very full featured.  You can program in
     pauses within the dialed number (if you have to wait a second for your
     long distance service to kick in, for example), and you can tell Term
     80 to dial any desired sequence of numbers.  Of course you can program
     the autodialer to dial the same number several times, with a user
     defined pause between dialing attempts.  Each number you program into
     the autodialer can have its own baud rate and autologon script.

     Downloads and uploads can be TIBBS Xmodem (uses a TI files header),
     Xmodem CRC, Xmodem-1K (data segments are in 1K chunks rather than 128
     byte chunks), Ymodem batch, and ASCII text.  These data transfers can
     be done very rapidly.  Downloads work nicely at 9600 baud and uploads
     will sometimes work at 19200 baud! That's right folks, the TI RS232
     will support 19200 buad.  This means you can go out to almost any
     computer store and purchase a really fast extermal modem to use on the
     good old TI.  I have seen 14400 external modems for around $100 in
     catalogs and stores.  Term 80 provides the ability to alter RS232 and
     keyboard scan rates so that you can adjust your system for the best
     and fastest performance.  Jeffery Brown tells me his fastest measured,
     upload transfer rate is 1400 cps from his 99/4A cabled to his Amiga,
     which is really fast.

     A very powerful feature of Term 80 is its use of macros. You create
     macros using any text editor and save them to disk.  Later any macro
     can be called up from a menu of available macros just by pressing one
     key from the menu display.  These macros are normally ascii text and
     may be up to 3K in length.  There really is no limit, however, because
     macros can be chained.  Having macros call each other gives the
     potential for unlimited size.  In addition to regular ascii text you
     can program in the following into macros: accii control codes 0-31,
     half second and two second pauses, any high ascii number (even those
     you can't directly type), and an indefinate pause with wait for input
     (similar to INPUT in BASIC).

     Just like other modern software for PCs, Term 80 has a screen saver
     which you can call manually or have it automatically kick in after 10
     minutes of inactivity.  Incoming data or a keypress turns off the
     screen saver.

     What is missing in addition to a couple of file transfer protocols
     (that I am told are almost impossible to implement on a 99/4A) are a
     review buffer, a file editor, and a disk cataloger.  These may be made
     available in future updates.

     In conclusion, Term 80 gives 99/4A owners access to the internet and
     it is very good for TIers to have this option.  Using Term 80 for
     internet access is certainly cheaper than the alternatives, which are
     are purchasing a Geneve and PORT or another type of 80 column PC.

     Term 80 comes in two forms.  There is a demo version which can be
     freely distributed and put into user group libraries and a complete
     version.  Both include a bunch of useful TI utilities written by
     various authors as well as a disk defragmenter and a couple of free
     games written by the Term 80 author.  Send me $1 and I will send you
     the demo version archived on a DSSD disk.  The demo does not include
     the autodialer, or the ability to download and upload.  Some sample
     macros are included.  With the demo version you can manually call a
     BBS and look, but you can't take.

     Since the Chicago show Jeff has released a new, less buggy, demo and
     full version (v3.1.4) of Term 80.  If you previously obtained the demo
     version from me by mail or at the Massachusetts or Chicago faires you
     may want to send me $1 and get the newer demo version.  Sorry for the
     inconvenience.  Believe me, I don't make a profit on these dollar
     disks.

     The complete version is only available directly from the author.  It
     costs $15 + $4 for a mailer and postage US funds (cash is nice, wraped
     in several sheets of paper so you can't tell there is money in the
     envelope) to United States residents or $20 Canadian money plus $3 for
     a mailer and postage if you live in Canada.  To registered users the
     author Jeffery Brown promises support via telephone (not toll free) or
     the internet and mail notification of major updates which will only
     cost media and postage.  By the way, the author is 15 years old and
     has been given permission to take senior level computer courses at his
     local high school.  Like one of my own sons, he probably knows more
     about comptuers than any of his high school computer teachers.
     -------------------
     ACCESS:

     Jeffery Brown (Term 80). 2111 Montreal Rd. #102, Gloucester, Ontario
     K1J-8M8, Canada.  Phone [phone].  Email [e-mail]

     Charles Good. P.O. Box 647, Venedocia Ohio 45894.  Phone [phone].
     Email [e-mail] or [e-mail]