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- 18-Dec-86 15:31:41-EST,2833;000000000001
- Mail-From: SY.FDC created at 18-Dec-86 15:31:12
- Date: Thu 18 Dec 86 15:31:12-EST
- From: Frank da Cruz <SY.FDC@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU>
- Subject: New Kermit Program for IBM 370 Mainframes with MVS/TSO
- To: Info-Kermit@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU
- Message-ID: <12263844741.299.SY.FDC@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU>
-
- The new IBM 370-series mainframe MVS/TSO Kermit from the US National
- Institutes of Health (NIH), announced in the previous Info-Kermit digest, is
- now available in the Kermit distribution areas under the prefix TSN. There
- are 21 files, comprising a total of about 3 megabytes, including three
- documentation files and a TSO help file.
-
- The program is written in "ALP", which is a preprocessor for 370 assembly
- language developed at NIH. The ALP preprocessor, also supplied, is written
- in PL/I. For those who do not have PL/I or do not wish to bother with the
- source programs, a hexidecimal-encoded object file is provided, along with
- an assembler program to decode it into a binary object file; this can be
- linked with a tailorable module (written in straight assembler) in which
- site dependencies, such as the ASCII/EBCDIC translations, are specified.
-
- Before deciding to transfer all 3 MB from Columbia over a network, first get
- the file TSNKER.TXT, which explains which files are which, and then only get
- the ones you really need.
-
- Thanks to Roger Fajman at NIH (RAF@NIHCU.BITNET) for submitting this program
- to us. Roger participated in the design with Dale Wright, who then did the
- programming. The new program has many advanced features over previous TSO
- Kermit versions, including server mode, binary file transfer, file
- interruption, 8th-bit prefixing, run-length encoding, alternate block check
- types, and support for both 3705-style line mode and Series/1-style full
- screen emulation. It is hoped that this new version will render the old
- University of Chicago (linemode only, circa July 1984) and University of
- Toronto versions (Series/1 only, March 85) obsolete. Reactions from TSO
- sites will be appreciated, in the interest of keeping redundant Kermit
- versions at a minimum. Reactions from users of the Pascal/VS version from
- the University of Bern (linemode only, Sept 86) will also be appreciated.
-
- For the present, the Chicago, Toronto, and Bern versions remain available in
- the Kermit distribution under the prefixes TSO, TSO, and TS2, respectively.
- For the future, there may still be another TSO Kermit program on the horizon, a
- result of a cooperative effort among IBM mainframe Kermit sites to develop a
- Kermit program that is portable among all IBM 370 mainframe operating systems
- (no estimate as to when this will be ready, but IBM mainframe system
- programmers who are interested in developments in this area may send mail
- to IBM-KERMIT@CU20B or IBM-KERMIT@CUVMA).
- -------
-