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SimpTerm - A Simple Amateur Radio
Communications Program
Jim Lynch
October 27, 1993
Contents
1 Introduction 2
2 Quick start 3
3 Display description 4
3.1 Receive window : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 4
3.2 Status line : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 4
3.3 Transmit window : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 4
4 The Initialization file 5
4.1 Keyboard assignments : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 5
4.1.1 Keyboard macros : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 5
4.1.2 Assigning files to function keys : : : : : : 7
4.1.3 Assigning functions to function keys : : : : 7
4.2 Definition variables : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :10
4.3 Color Configuration : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :18
4.4 Command line options : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :18
5 Station logbook 19
6 Selective calling feature 20
7 License 21
8 Trouble shooting 21
9 Error messages 21
10 Final notes 23
1
11 Bugs 23
12 Futures 23
1 Introduction
SimpTerm is a simple terminal program designed to be used with
almost any tnc or tu on the market. Features of SimpTerm are:
o Split window operation.
o Macro key definitions.
o User customizable Help screen
o Most of the non-ascii keys can be used as function keys
o Optional scroll back feature on the receive window and trans-
mit windows
o Simple status display in the middle of the screen
o Capturing of data to a disk file
o Access DOS commands without dropping communications
connection
o Control of the com port definitions from command line, init
file and keyboard.
o Works on 8088 as well as 80486 and everything in-between.
o Status line
o Small enough to work well on resource tight platforms, like
laptops.
o Selcal functions, limited unattended operation.
o Times can be in GMT or local time.
o A station logging function.
o User selectable color scheme
o Function keys and control keys can be assigned to a macro
string, cause a file to be uploaded or call a function within
the program.
2
There are loads of programs that are tailored to specific tnc's and
there are dozens of good terminal programs that can control any
tnc in a "dumb" (that's a technical term) manner. This program is
an attempt to provide the average ham with something in-between.
It has a lot of features, but not so many as to make use of the pro-
gram or the tnc hard. It requires you to know the commands of
your tnc, but also gives you the flexibility that only direct commu-
nications with a tnc can provide.
Statistics:
Author: Jim Lynch
Call: K4GVO
Address: 128 Carrollwood Dr. Fayetteville, GA 30214
internet address: jwl@cray.com
packet address: k4gvo@wgabbs.ga.usa or check the white pages
If you write, please enclose a sase. If you don't I reserve the
right not to answer.
SimpTerm was developed with:
o Turbo C 2.0
o C/Windows Toolchest, from Mix Software
It was developed on a Toshiba T1000SE, but runs on my 386sx
with a VGA color monitor just fine.
2 Quick start
Edit the simp.ini file and change all references from K0QWG to
your call. Make sure the line that starts with "COM" looks ok for
your setup. If you have any problems understanding that line, see
the discussion on the COM directive later in this document.
Now execute the program. You will see an intro screen followed
shortly by a message instructing you to hit any key. Do so and
you should see the screen split into two windows with a status line
between them. If you press enter, you will should see the prompt
from your TNC appear in the top window. If you don't, then a
number of things could be wrong. See the trouble shooting section
of the manual for additional help.
3
Now press the F1 key. You should see a new window appear
listing some of the function keys that are currently assigned to
functions and what those functions do. Press any key to close the
help window. Press the F3 key. You should have a screen that
displays small windows of different colors with a number assigned
to each. Also you should see a menu near the bottom center of the
screen.
The menu is used to change the colors of the receive, transmit,
status and logging screens. See the section on configuration for
details. Press ESC to return the normal display if you like the
default colors.
Enter your tnc commands as you would normally do with a
dumb terminal. If you have the echo turned on, you will see the
commands as you type on both screens.
Take a look at the simp.ini file and read the section on the
initialization file details. You should be able to customize this file
fairly easily.
3 Display description
There are three displays on the main screen. These are the trans-
mit, receive and status windows.
3.1 Receive window
This is the top window. Data coming back from the RS-232 port
will be displayed here. That is usually the output from the other
station. If you have the echo turned on you will also see the com-
mands that you typed.
3.2 Status line
The screen is divided into two separate windows with a status line
between them. This status line contains information about the
current configuration of SimpTerm, the status of the selcal features
and other interesting information.
3.3 Transmit window
This is the bottom window. It displays what you are typing and
some of the error messages reported by SimpTerm.
4
4 The Initialization file
The initialize file (init file) is used to load the keyboard macros,
assign keys to files, specify initial com port settings, specify a
"preload" file for customizing your tnc each time you start SimpTerm
and to define a number of other options. The default init file name
is simp.ini. This file must be in the directory from which you
started SimpTerm.
4.1 Keyboard assignments
Keys can be assigned to macros, functions or be used to initiate
file uploads.
A full listing of the keys that can be assigned are described in
the keys.doc file found in this distribution. They take the form of:
KEY_{modifier_}keyname
The modifier may or may not be necessary, hence the curly braces,
meaning the stuff inside the braces isn't necessary, but might be
important. The modifier is one of the following:
SHIFT (or SHFT in one case) designates the key must be de-
pressed with the shift key held down.
CTRL designates the key must be depressed with the control key
held down.
ALT designates the key must be depressed with the alt key held
down.
A few examples of valid keys are:
o KEY_ALT-X
o KEY_CTRL_P
o KEY_F10
o KEY_SHFT_TAB (this is the only SHFT, the rest are SHIFT)
o KEY_SHIFT_F4
4.1.1 Keyboard macros
Keyboard macros are strings that can be assigned to many of the
keys on your keyboard. This lets you assign frequently used char-
acter strings to a single key to save keystrokes. For instance, you
5
might want to assign your call to the F1 key and your name to the
F2 key and your QTH to the F3 key. That way when you were
talking to someone (with your fingers, that is) you would just type
"Hi, this is <F1>, <F2> in <F3>" and your computer would fill
in the right stuff. <F1> in the above example means that you hit
the F1 key, not that you typed the string "<F1>". Bear with me
you old timers, I want to make sure the newcomers don't give up
on us.
To define a macro you need to place the key name (yes, it must
be in upper case) in column one, followed by a space, followed by
the macro replacement string.
A simple example based on the earlier discussion would be:
o KEY_F1 K4GVO
o KEY_F2 Jim
o KEY_F3 Fayetteville, GA
Now when you punch <F1> <F2> <F3>
K4GVO JIM Fayetteville, GA
will get sent to the tnc. I hope you were connected to someone,
'cause sending that garbage to the tnc in command mode won't be
very interesting.
The maximum length of a string that can be assigned to a key
is 511 characters. You can continue the string on the next line
by placing a backslash (\) character at the very end of a line and
continuing with the definition on the next line. Be careful not to
add a space after the \ because you won't be able to see it and the
program will think the next line is a new macro definition. Note
that there will be no line breaks sent at the end of the line.
Example:
KEY_ALT_C cq cq cq cq cq cq de k4gvo $"Backslash$
cq cq cq cq cq cq de k4gvo $"Backslash$
cq cq cq de k4gvo k
This is an example of a complete definition. Note that the first
two lines have the backslash but the last one doesn't. This would
be ok for a cw call, but you probably want to be able to insert a
new line occasionally for rtty, amtor or packet work.
6
You can insert any control character, including a carriage return
(that is what you normally send when you hit the enter key). Let's
try the above example with the addition of a carriage return.
Example:
KEY_ALT_C cq cq cq cq cq cq de k4gvo^M$"Backslash$
cq cq cq cq cq cq de k4gvo^M$"Backslash$
cq cq cq de k4gvo k^M
Now we have a reasonably constructed macro that won't offend the
station on the other end.
A control character is formed by preceding a letter with a caret
as shown above. The control characters ctrl-a through ctrl-z are
formed as ^A through ^Z. If you want to include the caret as a
character to be send, use a double caret (^^). Since there is no
such thing as a control-caret, the program will know to send a single
caret. You can also specify other special characters and strings.
See the section on selective call reply strings for an expanded set
of options within the macro string.
4.1.2 Assigning files to function keys
A function key can be assigned to a file by preceding the key name
with a ampersand (@). The name of the file follows the key name.
Hence:
@KEY_ALT_U mydefs.txt
@KEY_HOME c:$"Backslash$bob$"Backslash$mydefs.txt
are valid definitions. When the specified key is depressed, the file
is uploaded to the tnc. This means that the contents of the file are
sent to the tnc. This is handy for defining a set of parameters to
customize your tnc for a specific mode of operation. You could use
the macros to do this, but they are limited to only 511 characters.
Another use for this is the "brag tape" (the word tape left over from
when we used paper tape on the old *eletype machines). You could
put a description of your station, location, personal information on
a file and by hitting a single key, you can send it to the other
station.
4.1.3 Assigning functions to function keys
That sounds like a redundant statement doesn't it? It's not really.
There are six functions available in version 1.0 that can be assigned
to function keys. These are:
7
quit exit the program. Not a bad function to have.
togcap toggle logging of the incoming data.
help display the help screen
dos jump to dos
status print status of selcal
togsel toggle looking for selcal strings
logit brings up a data entry form for the station log
config configure the colors of the various parts of the
screen
reset reset the communications port
rforward scroll the receive window forward one page
xforward scroll the transmit window forward one page
rforward1 scroll the receive window forward one line
xforward1 scroll the transmit window forward one line
rback scroll the receive window back one page
xback scroll the transmit window back one page
rback1 scroll the receive window back one line
xback1 scroll the transmit window back one line
baudup increment the communications baud rate
bauddown decrement the communications baud rate
rlarger make the receive window one line larger
rsmaller make the receive window one line smaller
macro assign a macro to a key on the fly
upload upload a file, prompts for name
confcom bring up a menu for com parameter selection
The togcap function will either ask for the name of a capture
file to start saving data to or close that file if capturing had already
been started by a previous call to togcap. The default capture file
name is simp.cap. You may override that name by typing in a new
name over top of the simp.cap entry. While you are capturing, the
name of the capture file is displayed on the status line. When you
are not capturing, the status lines displays "Capture off".
The help function is a rather simple one. It just opens a window
on the screen and dumps the contents of the help file into the
window. If the help file is too long, the top part of the screen is
8
scrolled off into never never land. Using a text editor of your choice
you may edit this file as you see fit. The default help file is named
simp.hlp, but you can tell SimpTerm to use another file via the
HELP customization option in the init file. See the init file section
for details.
The dos function brings up a second copy of the command
processor. This allows you to execute commands just as if you
had exited the program, but the program is still in memory and
waiting for you to finish. After you have finished with dos and want
to return to SimpTerm, just enter "exit". That will bring you back
to SimpTerm where you left off. The communications buffer can
hold 2048 characters. That is about one screenful. If you stay away
too long, you may lose data. Be careful.
There are 8 scrolling functions. These are:
rforward, rforward1, rback, rback1, xforward, xforward1,
xback xback1
The rforward and xforward functions cause the receive or trans-
mit window to scroll forward one page. The rforward1 and xfor-
ward1 functions cause the receive or transmit screens to scroll
forward one line.
The rback, rback1, xback and xback1 functions perform the
reverse operations respectively.
The baudup function will increase the baud rate one step. It
will cycle through the following baud rates, 300, 1200 2400, 4800
and 9600. If you must use other rates, you will have to set them
via the COM input line in the init file.
The bauddown function will decrease the baud rate one step.
It will cycle through the same baud rates as described in the pre-
vious paragraph.
The rsmaller function will reduce the size of the receive window
by one line. This has the effect of moving the status line up one line
and increasing the size of the transmit window by one line. The
rlarger function has the reverse effect. You cannot reduce either
window below 3 lines high.
The macro function is used to define a macro and assign it to
a key without leaving the program. You are first asked to press a
key. This is the key to which the macro will be defined. I suggest
you don't use a printable key, like a letter or a number, but that is
a legal key. You can use this to assign macros to keys that aren't
on the list of valid keys as long as the program recognizes that a
key has been pressed.
9
The upload function lets you upload any file to the tnc. You
will be prompted for the file name.
The confcom function brings up a menu screen with radio
buttons to use to configure the com port. You may find it isn't
worth much unless you have a mouse.
To assign a function key to one of these functions, precede the
definition by an exclamation point (!).
E. g.
!KEY_ALT_X quit
!KEY_CTRL_L togcap
!KEY_ALT_H help
!KEY_F10 togsel
!KEY_ALT_S status
!KEY_ALT_J dos (Jump to dos)
The simp.ini file included in the distribution assigns the page-
down and pageup keys to the rforward and rback functions respec-
tively. Also the up arrow and down arrow keys are assigned to the
rback1 and rforward1 functions.
Just in case you don't have the quit function assigned to a key,
the END key has been permanently bound to the quit function.
So you don't accidently hit it and drop out of the program, the
end key must be pressed twice in succession to end the program.
You can't assign the KEY_END key to anything else. The program
won't complain if you try, but it just won't work the way you think
it should.
There are a few other keys that are special.
KEY_BKSP and KEY_CTRL_H
are intra-line edit functions and cannot be reassigned.
KEY_ENTER
can't be reassigned either, obviously.
4.2 Definition variables
You can set a number of configuration options by defining variables
in the initialization file. This section discusses them.
Comment lines
10
If the program finds a # (pound) sign in the first column of a line
in the init file, it will stop processing that line. This is a way that
you can comment your init file. Also any of the options described
below that have a fixed format will allow comments following all
of the permitted arguments. If an option has a variable number of
arguments, you can't put a comment on that line.
E. g.
# this is a valid comment
mid 15 # this is ok also.
COM port definition option
The COM port parameters must be set to match your tnc. If you
don't know what speed, word size, etc. that your tnc is using,
consult the manual that came with the tnc. A lot of the packet
tnc's around have an autobaud detect feature. When you power
them up for the first time they wait until you type an asterisk and
then they can determine the operating parameters you are using.
If you have both a COM option line in your init file and a
command line com option then the command line option will be
used. This way the command line can be used to override the init
file if desired.
If you don't tell SimpTerm what parameters to use it will default
to:
use COM1
2400 bits per second (baud)
8 data bits
No parity
1 stop bit.
If you insert the line,
COM1 4800,7,E,1
it will change the COM1 port to work with:
4800 bits per second (baud)
7 data bits
even parity
1 stop bit.
See the section on command line options for the full set of op-
tions for each of these parameter fields. There must be exactly 4
fields. The COM? line requires a SPACE immediately after the
COM? field. The command line version of this command uses a
COMMA between these fields. Try not to get these confused. Of
11
course, if you have your tnc connected to one of the other com
ports(like 3), you will want to use a line that looks like:
COM3 9600,8,N,1
instead.
HELP file specification
The default HELP file name may be overridden by including the
HELP configuration line in the init file. This is simply the key
word HELP followed by a file name.
MID screen layout
One of the feature of SimpTerm is that is has a split screen. This
allows you to have a "transmit" window that displays what you
are typing along with informative messages from the program and
a "receive" window that displays the data coming back from your
tnc. The size of the windows is determined by the mid command
line option. This value should be between 4 and 20. A value of 15
will give you a 15 line transmit window and a 9 line receive window.
If you specify a value for MID out side of this range a default will
be chosen for you.
PRELOAD file specification
There is an option available that lets you send a file to the tnc be-
fore control is turned over to you at the keyboard. The PRELOAD
option line specifies the name of this file. It follows the same form
as the HELP file spec. This option may be used to force certain
operating parameters when starting up SimpTerm. One use of this
feature would be to keep different init files each with a different
PRELOAD file. One PRELOAD file might set the tnc to work hf,
while another might specify vhf. If you have two hams that use the
same equipment, you might want each to have his/her own custom
PRELOAD file to change, at least, the call letters.
SELFILE file specification
This line specifies the name of the file that will receive the selcal
messages. The default is "simp.sel". If you want to specify a
different file name and/or drive specification put the SELFILE line
in the init file.
E. g.
SELFILE a:\messages
The messages that are stored in this file are appended to any
12
previous messages, so you will not lose any previously recorded
messages but you might want to look at the size of this file occa-
sionally so you don't run yourself out of disk space.
GMT time specification line
If the program finds this line in the init file, it will attempt to
display the times in GMT. Since the time function is only used
with selective calling functions, non-selcal users can ignore this
option. In order to make these functions work right, you must set
your dos clock to your local time and set the environment variable
TZ to indicate your local time zone relative to GMT. The format
of the TZ variable is:
TZ=zzz[+/-]d[d][lll]
Where:
zzz is a 3 character string representing the name of the current
time zone. E. g. CST or EST.
[+/- d[d]] is a optionally signed number with 1 or 2 digits. This
number is the local time zone's difference from GMT in hours.
Positive numbers adjust westward from GMT
lllis an optional 3 character field that represents the local time
zone daylight savings time. E. g. PDT Environment variables
are either set in your autoexec.bat file, or can manually be
typed in before you execute the program. Consult your DOS
manual for more information.
Examples (DOS command line):
SET TZ=EST5EDT (New York)
SET TZ=CST6 (Indiana, they don't used daylight time, do they?)
SET TZ=PST8PDT (Los Angeles)
Because of the "new" rules surrounding daylight time, you
might find that the time is an hour off during some parts of the
year. You might want to keep your dos clock in GMT, or adjust
your TZ environment to give you the correct GMT value.
SELREPLY reply line
When a remote station sends you a specific select, i. e. a request for
you to start recording an incoming message, it will expect you to
13
reply immediately with a message so it doesn't waste time sending
you a message if your equipment isn't monitoring. This option
specifies the reply that you will give in response to the select.
The format of this reply line can contain ascii characters, control
characters, or special formatting characters. The ascii characters
are the normal printable characters (or subset in the case of bau-
dot or amtor). The control characters are formed by a commonly
used notation where the caret precedes a character to indicate the
control code should be sent and not the character itself.
E. g.
^m carriage return (enter)
^j line feed
^d Control-d
^@ Null (0)
^^ caret
Some of the control characters can be specified via the C lan-
guage backslash escape notation. These are the only ones allowed.
\t tab
\n linefeed (new line)
\r return
\\ backslash
Also included are a few time and date functions that can be
specified by a %c notation, where c is one of the following:
D The date and time in the form dd-MMMyy hh:mm
t The time in the form hh:mm
d The date in the form dd-MMMyy
Where:
dd is the day of the week,
MMM is the 3 Character abbreviation of the month
yy is the 2 digit year
hh is the hour
14
mm is the minute
Example:
SELREPLY x\r^O^O^O^O^O^Ode K4GVO, %D\r^D
Using the PK-232, you can send the "letters" characters with
the control-O character, so to make sure that the other station
has gotten his transmitter shutoff, you might want to delay your
transmission a bit via this method. The "x" character, followed
by the carriage return tells the PK-232 to start transmitting. The
ctrl-D at the end tells the PK-232 to stop transmitting and resume
receiving.
RSELCAL selective call string option
This line specifies the selcal string(s) that you want to react to.
You may specify up to 5 strings. The strings can be delimited
by spaces, commas or tabs. The strings can NOT contain any of
these characters. Since these strings should probably contain your
call or your call and some trailing characters, this shouldn't be a
problem. These strings ARE case sensitive. That means that if
you are running in a mode that supports upper and lower case,
you had better put your selcal in both upper and lower case and
hope that the sending station doesn't send mixed case. All strings
identified from this set of strings by the program will be replied to
with the SELREPLY string.
Examples:
RSELCAL k4gvo K4GVO k4gvo-9 kd4rqn
ALLCAL selcal option
This option specifies the set of strings that the program will
look for to start a "all call" recording. When the program finds a
string in this group, it starts recording a message without sending
a reply. Other than that, it behaves in exactly the same manner
as the RSELCAL option.
Example: ALLCAL ANYONELISTENING TOALLOFYOU allcal
Note: as far as I can determine the PK-232 doesn't transmit
the figures or letters characters (baudot) to the program so there
doesn't appear to be a way to specify the old (1967) all call of
LETTERS N LETTERS N LETTERS N LETTERS N, so there
must be a new convention, but I don't know what it is.
15
ENDCALL selcal option
Obviously there must be a way to tell the program to stop recording
a message and one of these ways is to send a stop string. This option
specifies a group of strings that will be used to stop the recording
of the incoming message. This the format for these strings is the
same as the previous two.
Example:
ENDCAL NNNN nnnn ZCZC zczc
SELMAXT selcal time limit option
So that the program doesn't record reams of garbage, a time limit
can be specified. This time limit is in seconds and will only record
for "n" seconds. If it hasn't received a ENDCAL string by then, it
will close the received file. A line will be placed in the file indicating
that the recording was terminated because of a timeout.
Examples:
SELMAXT 300 (record for 5 minutes, maximum)
SELMAXT 32000 (record for virtually forever)
SELMAXT 12 (record only very short messages!)
EXTEND time limit extension string
Now it is nice to limit your messages to a specific time limit, but if
someone just has to get a long message to you, he(she) will have to
send it in chunks. He(she) might not know what you have set your
time limit to, so he might have to send it in a lot of little chunks to
be sure that he doesn't time out. In order to avoid that problem,
the EXTEND option can specify a string that the remote station
can send to you to tell you to set your time limit to a different
value. The format of the EXTEND option is:
EXTEND <string> <newtimelimit>
Where:
string is a group of characters (not including space and tab)
newtimelimit is the absolute maximum that you want someone
to set your timelimit to.
An example is in order. If you have the following in your init file,
EXTEND NEWTIMEX 600
and a remote station sends your selcal string and then (after wait-
ing for your reply) sends a line that looks like: NEWTIMEX 300^m
16
(remember the ^m is an enter or end-of-line character) your pro-
gram will set your time limit to 300, giving the remote station the
opportunity to send you up to 5 minutes worth of data. If he(she)
had specified EXTEND NEWTX 4000, the program would limit
the time to 10 minutes, based on the absolute limit you placed on
the time of 600 seconds.
Of course, the other station should be aware of your extend
string. If this string comes in while you are not recording a mes-
sage, it will be ignored.
FLATLOG
Use this parameter by itself to indicate that you want the station
log to be kept in a "flat" file format. In this case, flat means that
the data is in fixed columns. This might be useful for someone that
wanted to process the log from a program and didn't want to deal
with the "comma delimited" format that is the default.
SNOW
Some of the older CGA cards would produce snow on the screen
when direct video writes were done. If you see snow on your screen,
try to insert the snow directive in your simp.ini file.
BIOS
If you have a "near compatible" PC and the display isn't func-
tioning correctly, try to use the bios method of writing data to
the screen. It is fairly slow, but if that is all you have, it's better
than nothing. Insert the bios directive in your simp.ini if you are
still having trouble with snow. Don't have both active at the same
time. Include either snow or bios; or don't put anything.
NOMOUSE
If you have a mouse, you will see a scrollbar to the right of the
receiving (top) screen. If you find that having a mouse causes you
problems, insert the nomouse directive to cause the program to
treat you as if you didn't have a mouse.
QUIET
If you don't like the annoying startup screen telling you what you
are running and who's sweat gave it to you, insert the quiet direc-
tive in your startup file.
DDMMYY
17
Just in case someone wants to use this program in Europe or wher-
ever else they use the day-month-year format, instead of the month-
day-year used here, they can put this directive in their startup
file and the program will generate the date October 31, 1993,
as 31/10/93. But I have no idea why you would want to. (Jim
GRINS).
YYMMDD
This format is also included for completeness. It is left to the reader
to determine what it means. (Hint: read the previous paragraph)
LOGFILE
This directive specifies the name of the station log. The default is
station.log.
Example: LOGFILE k4gvo.log
4.3 Color Configuration
You can select one of the items by moving the highlighted bar up
and down with the up and down arrow keys.
4.4 Command line options
The SimpTerm command line looks like:
simp -init initfile -mid number -com comparamstring -word -V -
quiet
Where:
quiet tells the program not to display the introductory screen. See
the QUIET directive for more details.
word causes displayed data in a window to wrap on a word boundry.
V display the version number.
initfile is the name of a file to be used as the initialization file
containing the key definitions and other customization pa-
rameters. The default file name is "simp.ini".
number is the line number of the middle of the screen. This is
used to define the location of "split" between the transmit
and receive windows. Default is 12. See discussion below.
18
comparamstring is the communications port parameter string.
This specification overrides the COM init file option.
The comparamstring parameter is in the form:
comn,baud,wordsize,parity,stopbits
Where:
comn is the com port number, 1, 2, 3 or 4. This also can be
specified as COM1, COM2, COM3 or COM4.
baud is the baud rate. Must be one of, 300, 1200, 2400, 4800
or 9600.
wordsize is either 7 or 8.
parity is one of the following: N, O, E, M, S.
stopbits is one of: 1 or 2.
The following settings are the most common. If you don't know
for sure what to set them to, try these.
<comn>,<baud>,7,E,1
<comn>,<baud>,8,N,1
and maybe
<comn>,<baud>,7,O,1
The <comn> and <baud> depend on your computer hardware
configuration and your tnc interface speed.
You may use spaces instead of commas to separate the COM
fields. If you do, you must enclose the entire field in quotes, such
as:
simp -com "COM1 4800 8 N 1"
If you have both a COM option line in your init file and a command
line com option then the command line option will be used. This
way the command line can be used to override the init file if desired.
5 Station logbook
The station logging screen allows you to enter a number of possibly
helpful items. The first two fields will be filled in for you as they
are the current date and time. The cursor will be positioned at
the third field, but if you want to change the previous fields, just
press the CTRL-TAB key. A list of the editing keys is available by
pressing the F1 key while the logging data form is displayed. The
fields and their sizes is as follows:
19
Field Name Size Starting position in log file
DATE 6 1
TIME 5 7
CALL 11 12
NAME 20 23
QTH 39 43
MY RST 7 82
HIS RST 5 89
MODE 10 94
COMMENTS 48 104
FREQUENCY 7 152
POWER 4 159
QSL 4 163
OTHER 12 167
ENDTIME 4 179
Which looks like about a 182 character record in the flatfile
mode. I hope all of these fields are self-explanatory. The OTHER
field is just an additional field that can be used to put things I
didn't think of.
If you elect not to use the flatfile mode your file will be in this
format
"103193","0532","k4gvo","Jim","Fayetteville, GA",
"599","599","","10.109","100","","","","0650"
Of course, it will be all on one line. This format is called
"comma delimited" by *base and others of its ilk. This format
may be imported to many of the database managers and spread-
sheets available on DOS. If you don't like the layout, drop me a
note.
6 Selective calling feature
Here is part of a typical init file that will support the selective
calling feature.
!KEY_F10 togsel
RSELCAL k4gvo K4GVO W4LYBZW k4gvozw
ENDCAL ZCZC zczc NNNN nnnn
ALLCAL ALLSTAT
SELMAXT 240 seconds
EXTEND MXLEN 600
SELREPLY $"Backslash$rx$"Backslash$r^o^o^o^o^o^ode k4gvo %D ^m^d
If, in the body of a message being recorded, the string "MXLEN"
is found, the time limit will be bumped up to 10 minutes. Note
20
that the "seconds" field on the SELMAXT option line is really a
comment and not a specification. The following line WON'T set
the time to 2 minutes.
SELMAXT 2 minutes
7 License
I'm not going to bother with the usual nonsense about responsibil-
ity and guarantees. If you're foolish enough to use a free package
with something that you think is critical enough that you might
be tempted to sue someone if it screws up, you deserve what you
might get. CAVEAT EMPTOR! I hope I spelled that right. My
last Latin course was before my first FORTRAN II course. Am I
telling my age?
I guess I didn't mention that this program is almost free. Might
even be freeware, but since freeware is a registered trademark, I
understand, I won't call it that. If you use this program and feel it
is of any value, please drop something in the next Salvation Army
kettle you see. If that activity offends you for any reason, please
just do something nice for someone that you wouldn't normally do.
Like buy your secretary lunch the next time she screws up royally
instead of reaming her out.
You can use it, change it, abuse it, distribute it, charge for it
or most anything else you want to do with it, except if you charge
more than a reasonable copying charge for it, you must tell whoever
you sold it to that they could have gotten it for nothing if they had
just looked around. You may distribute it in any form, as long as
this file is included in its original form. You may add as many files
as you wish.
If you want source, drop me a note and we'll discuss it. I'll
probably eventually turn it out into the public domain, but I'd be
too embarrassed to do so with it now.
8 Trouble shooting
This section hasn't been written yet.
9 Error messages
I hope they are few and perfectly understandable. I haven't com-
piled a complete list, but here are a few you may encounter during
the initialization phase.
21
HELP line has no file name
The HELP line must have a valid file name as the first parameter.
LOGFILE line has no file name
The LOGFILE line must have a valid file name as the first param-
eter.
PRELOAD has no file name
The PRELOAD line must have a valid file name as the first pa-
rameter.
MID has no value
The MID line must have a valid non-zero, non-blank value as the
first parameter.
Key table corrupt
This is an internal error, it should never appear unless memory
gets overwritten.
Line nn, Invalid key name <keyname>
SimpTerm can't identify the key name on the line, number nn.
Check your spelling.
Malloc failed
SimpTerm ran out of memory.
Number of lines, nnn exceeds max, mmm
The maximum number of continuation lines has been exceeded.
Port definition in error, line nnn
There is something wrong with the COM port definition on line
nnn. Be sure it looks like the examples given above.
Port init failed nn
The attempt to initialize the com port failed with an error of nn.
22
10 Final notes
I hope that you find this program easy and enjoyable to use. I
wrote it while I was traveling with a T1000SE (8086) laptop (no
hard drive), a PK-232 and a IC-730. I didn't really like to use a
simple terminal program and felt the big gun programs, just were
too clumsy for portable use. I've made a few enhancements to
that original program and hope that you will find it acceptable. I
suspect that you aren't going to find a cheaper product.
This manual was typeset with LaTEX. I will be offering a hard-
copy of this manual on 8.5 x 11, 3 hole punched paper ready for
your 3 ring binder in the near future at what amounts to repro-
duction and mailing costs. If you are interested please drop me a
note with a sase.
If you like SimpTerm. Tell others about it. If you don't like it,
please tell me why. If you don't like it and tell others that it isn't
any good, then we all lose. You lose, 'cause I just might be able to
make it what you wanted, if I only knew, others lose 'cause they
might find something in it for them that you weren't interested in
and I lose, 'cause my feelings have been hurt, so PLEASE if you
want to complain, fire it my direction. I can't promise I can make
it your personal rose garden, but I will try to fix any problems or
deficiencies that might show up.
Oh, I know the documentation isn't up to snuff, but it's better
than not getting it out at all. I sure had fun with the spell checker.
It wanted to make rtty into ratty and amtor into actor. Wonder if
it knows something I don't?
11 Bugs
I think I have fixed all that have been reported.
The enhanced keyboards aren't supported yet. F11 and F12
don't work.
12 Futures
Clean up the code so I'm not embarrassed to distribute it.
It does not support the enhanced keyboard.
I'd like to add a more robust station logging function or maybe
multitask with the command processor so one could run their fa-
23
vorite logging program at the same time with out having to use
DV or something similar.
I plan on implementing a user-configurable log format, where the
user can describe the number, names and sizes of the log data. I
also am thinking about supporting .dbf file structures in addition
to the flatfile and comma delimited.
Alas, there is no index in this document. /LaTex does have support
for an index, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
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