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MxLight Version 1.95 Operations Manual Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications ALL RIGHTS RESERVED For support, contact: James E. Fielden 307 E. Oak Hill Ave. Knoxville, TN 37917 USA TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Licensing and Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. GETTING STARTED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Starting MxLight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Line Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Configuring MxLight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3. USING MXLIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 External Edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Getting Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The Status Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 MxLight's Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Shell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Exit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Dial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Buffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Hangup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Download & Upload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Chat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Clear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Taglines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Doorway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Emulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Baud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Configure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 View Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Logon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4. FILE TRANSFERS & PROTOCOLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 What is a File Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Supported Protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Ascii . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Xmodem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1k-Xmodem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1k-XmodemG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Ymodem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 YmodemG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Kermit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Zmodem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 ZedZap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 External Protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5. REGISTERING MXLIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 WARRANTY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 2 INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 OVERVIEW Do you ever get tired of your Terminal program taking up more space then your operating system. Now communications program's are growing to 500k to 900k easy. Loaded with so many features that you have to print out their 500 page + doc's. Features that you will never use, features that are never needed. Have you been looking for a good communications program with all the features you need but with out taking a BIG chunk of your disk space. MxLight may be what your looking for. Occupying just under 100k of disk space and requiring around 128k of free memory, MxLight will run on just about any system with no problem. MxLight is small but it's not bare, packed with features and runs at lighting speed on even the slowest computers. Check out the list of features below and you'll see, everthing you'll need to communicate with anything. FEATURES * Ansi,Ansi-BBS,Ansi-Music,Avatar and VT100 terminal emulations. * Hot key commands to all the functions for quick access. * Very low disk and memory requriments. * No slow overlay files to load so it responds quickly. * Dialing directory with over 200 numbers. * Phone Book is loaded into RAM for Speed. * Ansi driver built in so no need for ANSI.SYS to be loaded. * Full support for Extended Doorway mode. * TagLine file with as many taglines as you want. * Send you Name and Password for each number with F1 & F2. * Handles speeds from 300 to 115200 baud. * Supports Com1 through Com8. * Auto Flow Control and status buffering. * Capture session to file supported with ANSI codes. * Full Swap to DOS so you can run anything from a shell. * Ascii, Xmodem, 1k-Xmodem, 1k-XmodemG, Ymodem(tm), YmodemG, Kermit, Zmodem & ZedZap(8k-Zmodem) * Support for upto 3 external protocols, without batch files. * Two-way Split screen Chat mode. * Auto Zmodem Download and crash recovery. * View text files at any time in MxLight. * Back ground ANSI-Music. * Complete control over all menus and window colors. * Phone Book Number Tagging. * Easy Edit Line Editor. * Choice of Modem Type (Hayes, Courier, Microcom). * Very Low Price. MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 3 LICENSING AND DISTRIBUTION MxLight is not, nor has it ever been free software. It is copyright and is distributed as SHAREWARE. You are granted a limited license to use MxLight for an evaluation period. If you use MxLight and you like it then you should register it. Upon registering MxLight, you will receive a serial number and instructions on how to apply it to your copy of MxLight for it to become a registered version. See Register.Txt for complete details on how to register your copy of MxLight. You are encourged to give copies of MxLight to others so they may evaluate it as well. MxLight may also be uploaded to bulletin board systems (BBS's) as long as you do not deleate any of the files that came with MxLight. SysOp's fell free to add your BBS logo to the Compressed file discription, but please to not add any files to the archive it's self. Do not delete, add, or in anyway modify any of the files in the MxLight package. MxLight must be distributed in it's entirety, complete with documentation. MxLight May be distributed with Shareware bundles, CD-ROMS and/or disk. Due to the low price to register MxLight Please don't charge more then $5.00 per disk if the disk only contains MxLight. MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 4 GETTING STARTED Chapter 2 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS IBM PC/XT/AT or close compatible computer running DOS v3.2 or above. One floppy or Hard disk drive, a modem, and 512k of RAM. NOTE: Mxlight actually requires about 128k of free RAM to run. if you have less then 512k then try running MxLight anyway, it just might fit, I have run MxLight on a 4.7Mhz XT with 256k of RAM on a 360k floppy. INSTALLATION Installing MxLight is very easy to install. First, copy the file MX.EXE to the disk or directory where you will be using it. Then type MX and you are ready to start the configuration. STARTING MXLIGHT To start MxLight simply change to the disk/directory where you put the file MX.EXE and type: MX followed by pressing the ENTER key. The first time you run MxLight it will create a configuration file called MXLIGHT.CFG which will need to get some information from you about your ComPort default baud rate and a few other things. You will be presented with a Menu you should try and run thur each selection on the menu to make sure MxLight is set to your liking. MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 5 LINE EDITING The new Easy Edit Line Editing, is very easy to use, just Hit F10 to Save your Work or Esc to Abort it and Reload the Old data. CONFIGURING MXLIGHT After MxLight starts up the first time you will be looking at a small configuring Menu: ******************* * A - ComPort * * B - BaudRate * * C - D/L Path * * D - Emulation * * E - Windows * * F - User Name * * G - Password * * H - Dialing * * I - Colors * * J - Protocols * * K - ModemType * * Q - Quit * ******************* First off hit the A key: If your using an IBM-PS2 it will ask for your ComPort 1 thur 8 else it will ask Enter your ComPort 1 to 4: Just enter what comport your modem is hooked up to. Next hit the B key: It will simpley ask Enter your Baud Rate(300 to 115200): You should enter the Highest speed your modem supports. Next hit the C key: Download Path must end with a backslash "\" example"C:\MX\FILES\" If you don't want a default download path just hit enter, other wise Enter your Download Path: Where you want the files you get from BBS's to go. Next hit the D key: If your not sure what Terminal Emulation you need or want then pick ANSI-BBS it is the most common and includes standard Ansi and ANSI-Background music support. A)NSI-BBS V)T100 T) AVATAR /0+ Pick the letter for what type emulation you want as a default you can always change this inside MxLight. Next hit the E key: Do you want Exploding Windows(Y/n) If you hit ENTER then Menus and display windows will explode on to the screen if you type a "n" then the windows will appear on screen with out the explosing. This may also be toggled inside MxLight. Next hit the F key: Enter default Name for Phone Book: Enter the name you use most of the time when logging on to BBS's You can have a different name for each bbs in the phone book it will just default to this on for quicker access to the Phone Book. Next hit the G key: Enter default Password for Phone Book: Again same as above you can set a different password for each. Next hit the H key: Pick your dialing mode T)one dialing or P)ulse dialing. If you have Push Button phones then pick T or if your phone system is the old rotatory type then pick P Next hit the I key: You will be shown a box with all possible colors for the MxLight Windows and Menus. Move the arrow keys around to change the color of the Windows. Once you find the color you want Hit ENTER. Now move the arrow keys again to pick the color for normal text. Again hit ENTER to accecpt the color or ESCAPE to keep the defaults. Last Move the arrow keys to pick the color for highlighted text. You can play with the colors more once your in MxLight by using the Alt-G combo to find colors you like, using the Alt-G only makes the changes Temp. Once you exit MxLight the colors are restored to what you have set in your configure. Next hit the J key: You'll be ask which Protocol to Edit(1,2 or 3). Start with one Protocol Name: Enter The Name of the Protocol as you want it to appear on the download menu(MobyTurbo,HS/LINK ect), upto 9 Letters. d/l DOS command line: Enter the command line to run the protocol not a batch file name, use "%p" for ComPort number, use "%b" for Current baud rate and "%f" for files to be transfered. Example: dsz port %p speed %b rz -m u/l DOS command line: Same as above only the Upload command line. Example: dsz port %p speed %b sz -m %f Batch(y/N) if your external protocol enter "Y" else just hit enter or "N". Do this for how many of the protocls you want to set up 1,2,3 and your done. Next hit the K key: You will be shown another Menu such as. Pick MOdem Type =============== A> Hayes B> Courier C> Microcom Pick the Modem of choice, most user's will only Need to pick 'A' for Hayes type Modem with AT commands Now hit the Q key: Your ready to start using MxLight. MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 6 USING MXLIGHT Chapter 3 USING THE EDITOR I've moved the editor to an external file called "EDIT.COM", so if you liked using the internal editor then their is know changes just an extra file about 5k in size that MxLight needs to find. Now Alt-E will run the first file it finds called edit. So if you want to run your favorite editor from MxLight make a file called EDIT.BAT put it in the same directory with MxLight or in your DOS Path statement. Deleat "EDIT.COM" and run your editor like it was internal to MxLight. My EDIT.BAT looks like this: @echo off q Now whenever I hit Alt-E I'm in my favorite editor with all it's power and commands that I'm used to. MxLight SWAP's all out to give you all but a few K to do your editing. GETTING HELP Hit the HOME key from inside MxLight to get a general Help screen with a listing of all commands. THE STATUS LINE The status line displays some helpful information. Hit reminds you how to get help, what version of the program your using, your current terminal emulation, if the capture buffer is open, and your registrion information. MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 7 MXLIGHT'S FUNCTIONS In this section of the doc I will go over each function of MxLight in detail. You don't really need to understand all of this but it could be helpful if you run into trouble while using MxLight or any other communications program. COMMUNICATIONS BASICS Asynchronous Serial Communication The brodest definition of serial communications would include anything that transits or receives data in a serial fashion. In the PC world when someone speaks of serial commuications they are talking about the communications facility provided by the "serial ports"(or com ports) Baud Rate When given a choice of selecting a baud rate you should select the highest baud rate your modem supports. Although here is a small list of the Highest baud rate you should pick compaired to your CPU speed: CPU Speed Highest Baud ------------------------------------------ 4.77 Mhz PC/XT (8088) 9600 8 Mhz PC/XT (8088) 19200 8 Mhz PC/AT (286) + 57600 16 Mhz AT (386) + 115200 This is just a basic guide line but even if you have a 14.4 modem, but you just have a 4.77 Mhz XT you will probley only be able to get 9600 baud or less. If you try to get more then this it may seem to work but will be alot more prone to line errors, aborted transfers and failed connects. So you would lose more time using 14.4 then if you would have just kept your modem at 9600 baud. Data Bits A data byte can contain 5, 6, 7 or 8 bits. The vast majority of applications will use 8 bits. Stop Bits Stop bits follow the data bits in the serial data stream. The value for stop bits will always be either 1 or 2. Generally, you'll use 1 stop bit. Parity Parity describes a bit checking scheme. When used, all of the bits in a data byte are added together. A final bit called the parity bit, is added such that the sum of all bits will be made either odd or even. Geerally you'll use NoParity since all Protocols now use their own error checking. MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 8 PATH DOWNLOAD PATH MxLight will download all files into the directory that you picked when you configured MxLight. If you did'nt pick a default download directory then MxLight will download into the current directory that you are running MxLight from. UPLOAD PATH MxLight does'nt use a default upload path so when you enter a filename to upload, after you give the BBS the filename you're uploading then tell MxLight the full path and filename of the file you wish to send. If the file is in the same directory as MxLight, you only need to enter the filename. SHELL DROP TO DOS When you hit Alt-~J~ to enter a dos shell from MxLight, MxLight Swaps all of itself but a small amount to EMS/XMS or disk if you don't have EMS/XMS. This allows you to run very large programs from a MxLight Dos Shell. You can even run MxLight from a MxLight Dos Shell with out any problems. MxLight Shell has been tested with DOS Version's 3.3 and up, DRDOS and 4DOS, MxLight does this by not looking for COMMAND.COM as many other programs do when they go into a DOS shell it reads the systems environmet to find out what it's surroundings are and Shells to the proper Disk Operating System. EXIT To Exit MxLight You need to hit Alt-~X~ and then will be prompted for a "Y" or "N" hit "y" and your back in DOS and out of MxLight. DIAL The dialing directory is very easy to use, to dial a number user the up and down arrow keys to scroll one number at a time. Use PgUp and PgDn to move up or down a whole page. Use Home and End to got to first number or last number in phone book. Once the scroll bar is on the number you want hit ENTER or D to dial that number. Hit A to add a number to the end of the phone book. Hit I to insert a number anywere in the phone book. Hit K to kill a number(erase). Hit C to clear a number, the entry stays in the phone book but it deleats all the info. Hit L to dial a number that is not in the phone book. Hit M to modify a number in the phone book you'll be prompted for all the information for that entry just hit enter at any prompt for No Changes. And hit Q or Escape to Exit the phone book. When you dial a number that is in the book are using L for Local dial MxLight will get trying the number until their is a connect or you hit escape. MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 9 BUFFER MxLight uses a 5k input and output buffer which is large enough for most everthing. But when MxLight goes into a file transfer at high speed or using ZedZap it will change the buffer and set everthing up for you. No longer to you have to change your buffer size when using a high speed modem, MxLight will sence then need for a larger buffer and increse it. When the transfer is done MxLight closes the large buffer and reopens the default 5k buffer for normal use. HANGUP Sometimes while on-line you'll need to break the connection for some reason or another. Use Alt-~H~ to Hangup the line. DOWNLOAD & UPLOAD MxLight Has all the protocols you need and will talk more about protocols later. For now to download hit PgDn, you'll be prompt with a Menu pick the protocol that you told the BBS that you wanted to use and if it's Ascii, or Xmodem tell MxLight the filename and set back and enjoy. Almost as easy to Upload PgUp Pick the protocol that you want and tell MxLight what file to upload. If your using Ymodem, YmodemG, Kermit, Zmodem or ZedZap you may enter as many files as you want. Enter the first filename just like doing a Xmodem upload, hit enter and you'll be prompted for another filename. If you're only uploading one file then hit ENTER on the blank line to start the Upload, if your uploading more then one file keep repeating the above cycle until you've told MxLight all the files you want to send, then hit ENTER on a blank line and pat your-self on the back for Uploading. CHAT When you're logged on to a BBS and want to chat with the SysOp their is know problem Most BBS's have a nice split screen chat and echo back to you want you type. But if you like to call other's using your modem then you need someway to see what you type and someway to keep your's and the other person's typing apart. Enter the splitscreen Chat Alt-~T~ and enjoy TwoWay SplitScreen Chat. In MxLight you get half the screen, I don't cramp you into the last 3 lines on the screen like most, and the remote end gets the top half of the screen. Each screen is a different color and the chat leaves your screen up under it the way it was once you entered chat. MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 10 CLEAR To clear the screen in MxLight hit Alt-~C~ this will give you a normal Clear The Screen. If you like to clear the screen with alittle bit different style then hold down your Alt Key then press 1 on your number pad then press 2 on your number pad then let go of the Alt key, that is a scroll clear screen. TAGLINES See the example tagline file MXTAG.DAT the only think you really need to know about the format of the file is. The 1st line must containe the number of taglines in the file. Also Taglines can be know longer then 70 charcters long. DOORWAY MxLight supports Extended doorway codes, what this means to most people is that in doorway mode you can move around full screen editors alot easier using the up and down arrows. To Enter doorway mode use Alt-~=~ you notice a change your status line will goaway. This is because Doorway should only be used with a full 25 line screen. EMULATION MxLight will let you pick between three different types of terminal emulation. But really MxLight has support for more then 3. Hit Alt-~V~ to change your emulation. Select A for ANSI, ANSI-BBS ANSI-MUSIC(with Background support) and TTY(ASCII). This is what most people will use all the time. Select V for VT100, ANSI and TTY support. Select T for AVATAR Level 0/+(STANDARD), with fall back to ANSI and TTY. CAPTURE MxLight will allow you to capture a complete session to a text file. Toggle this on and off with Alt-~A~. Hit Alt-A and you'll be prompted for a filename, just hit enter to use the default of MXLIGHT.CAP, or type in your own filename. The status line let's you know if capture is on or off, sometimes capture files can become very large so the status line will let you know if it's on or off. When you exit MxLight the capture is turned off for you if it is on. The only time that capture is not active if you have it on is when files are been transfered. BAUD Use Alt-~P~ to change your baud rate if you need to change it for some reason. If your baud is different then what you have listed in the phone book for a number then MxLight will change it before it dials the number. Also this is were you can change your Parity, Data bits and stop bits. Hit ESCape to exit this menu. WINDOWS Use Alt-~W~ to toggle Exploding windows on or off. If you did'nt select exploding windows in your configure then sometimes you might want to watch them blow up this goes back to the default in your configure when you exit MxLight. MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 11 CONFIGURE If at anytime while using MxLight if you need to change something in your configure file use Alt-~K~, this brings up the same menu that you saw when you first started MxLight and gave it all your default information. HELP Sometimes you may forget a command, Hit the ~HOME~ key to bring up MxLight's Help screen with a list of all the commands. In the editor use the ~F1~ key for help. VIEW TEXT If you ever need to view a text file while using MxLight and don't want to put it into the editor then use the Alt-~M~ key and you view a text file in the more style. LOGON A couple of hints to speed up your logons. You can use the ~F1~ and ~F2~ keys to send the name and password from the phone book to save you some typing. This can be different for each entry in the phone book. MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 12 FILE TRANSFERS & PROTOCOLS Chapter 4 WHAT IS A FILE TRANSFER File transfers allow you to exchange programs, text, or any other type of file with any BBS system that supports a file section. In order to transfer files over phone lines, the receiving system must have some way to tell if the data it received is the same as what was originally sent. Phone lines are seldom perfectly clear of static or noise, and this noise can alter the data as it travels from one system to the other. This is the purpose of transfer "protocols". Transfer protocols generally break a file into small chunks called "packets" or "blocks", then perform some calculation on the data and send the "packet", followed by the result of the calculation, to the receiver. The receiver performs the same calculation on the data as it comes in and then compares it's result with the following sender's result. If the two match, the receiver writes this data to it's copy of the file and sends some acknowledgement signal to alert the sender to send the next packet. If the two calculation results don't match then the data was corrupted in transit and the receiver sends a negative acknowledgement signal to alert the sender to resend the same packet. Different protocols use different methods for calculating the error check value, signaling the start of a packet, and acknowledging good and bad packets. Therefore it is important to use the same protocol as the system you're connected to. SUPPORTED PROTOCOLS MxLight has the following protocols: Ascii, Xmodem, 1k-Xmodem, 1k-XmodemG, Ymodem, YmodemG, Kermit, Zmodem and ZedZap Now for brief description of each protocol. Ascii Ascii isn't really a protocol since it has no method for error checking built in and as such is only useful for text files. It does however provide one very useful function, you can upload a message that was entered offline. Since Ascii just reads a file and sends out the characters as if you were typing them at the keyboard, it allows you to use a text editor or word processor to create a message that you want to "post" on a BBS. This is done when you're not connected and not paying for online charges. You save your message as a pure ASCII text file and then use MxLight to connect to the BBS. Do whatever is required to enter a message and when the BBS is waiting for you to type in your message, upload your text file with the Ascii protocol. You will see the text appearing on your screen as the BBS echoes it back, just as if you were typing it. MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 13 Xmodem Xmodem is not particularly efficient nor 100% reliable, but it is supported by almost every online service there is. No matter how limited a BBS's list of supported protocols is, it will probably support Xmodem. This is why it was essential to support Xmodem. Some BBS's may offer you two varieties of Xmodem reflecting the two types of error checking that Xmodem can use. These are Checksum and CRC. MxLight supports both methods and detects which one the BBS is using so it will work with either one. Whenever you have the option, CRC is the preferred method as it is a great deal more reliable than the Checksum method. 1k-Xmodem 1k-Xmodem is basically the same as Xmodem except for the size of it's packets. Xmodem uses 128 byte packets and 1k-Xmodem uses 1024 byte packets, which is where the "1k" prefix came from. This makes it a bit faster than Xmodem since it's packet overhead is reduced by a factor of 8. You should be warned that not all BBS's refer to this protocol as 1k-Xmodem. On some systems it's called "Old Ymodem" and others just call it "Ymodem". This can lead to confusion since this is not that same as real "Ymodem (tm)" that MxLight supports. So if you're trying to use Ymodem and it just won't work, the BBS is probably using a misnamed 1k-Xmodem, so tell MxLight to use 1k-Xmodem even though the BBS calls it Ymodem. 1k-XmodemG This is the same as 1k-Xmodem but it does'nt do any error checking it leaves all error checking up to the modem. You must have a MNP type modem to use this protocol MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 14 Ymodem (tm) Ymodem (tm) uses the same type of packets as Xmodem but can use both 128 and 1024 byte packets dynamically. The most important feature, however, is that it starts the transfer with a special header packet that contains complete filename, size, date, and time information about the file. The transfer is ended with a blank header packet (all 0's). These header packets allow more than one file to be transmitted in a single session, thus it is called a "batch" protocol. On some BBS's this is called "True Ymodem" or just "Ymodem" so it can be confusing to tell whether you have to use Ymodem or 1k-Xmodem. YmodemG YmodemG like 1k-XmodemG is for MNP type modems only. YmodemG is said to be the fastest protocol around, if you have a MNP type modem. YmodemG does know error checking so it must not be used with out a error correction modem(MNP) Kermit Kermit is alot like Xmodem it was developed to facillitate file transfers in environments that other protocols couldn't handle. Such environments include links that only pass 7 data bits, links that can't handle control characters, computer systems that can't handle large blocks and other diverse links such as those between a PC and a mainframe. Kermit was developed at Columbia University in New York City. The name Kermit refers to Kermit the Frog, from the television program The Muppet Show. MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 15 Zmodem Zmodem was developed for the public domain by Chuck Forsberg under contract to Telenet. The purpose was to provide a durable protocol with strong error recovery features and good performance over a variety of network types(switched, satellite, ect.). It has generally achieved these design goals and therefore, should be your protocol of choice whenever possible. Zmodem borrows some concepts from Xmodem, Ymodem and Kermit but is really a completely different protocol. ZedZap ZedZap is still new on the scene for most modem user's but ZedZap has been around for sometime and in use on Fidonet. ZedZap is the same as Zmodem execpt that it will attempt to use 8k blocks instead of the 1024 used by Zmodem. It starts just the same as Zmodem and if their is no errors it grows and keeps growing the block size until it reaches 8k or has an error. Both sending and receiving sides must be using ZedZap for it to work, but if your downloading using ZedZap and the other side is using Zmodem it will just stay at the 1024 block size. MxLight 1.95 Copyright (c) 1993-94 by MX Communications Page 16 External Protocols MxLight now will support upto 3 external protocols. They are very easy to set up and you don't need external batch files to run your protocols so that speeds up access to them. MxLight will use 3 codes in your external protocol command line. %p will pass the Comport number to the command line. %b will pass the baud rate to your command line. %f will pass any files your uploading or on non-batch protocols will pass the file name on d/l. Case does'nt matter for the %b,%p or %f Exp: %p,%P,%b,%B,%f,%F Examples MobyTurbo Download "dsz port %p speed %b rz -m" Upload "dsz port %p speed %B sz -m %f" Batch "Y" HS/LINK Download "hslink -P%p -B%b" Upload "hslink -P%p -B%b %F" Batch "Y" After typing in the command lines and the name of the protocol make sure MxLight can find your protocol by having it in your DOS path or in the same directory as MxLight. REGISTERING MXLIGHT Chapter 5 To register MxLight, simply print the file REGISTER.TXT on your printer, fill in the requested information and mail the form along with your check or money order to: James E. Fielden 307 E. Oak Hill Ave. Knoxville, TN 37917 USA In order to print the form you can type the following at your DOS prompt: copy register.txt prn If you don't have a printer then you can send a letter containing your name, your address and a check or money order for $10.00 to the above address. If you want a disk mailed to you, then include $5.00 for shipping. After receiving your money order or after your check clears the bank I'll send you your serial number and information on how to apply it to MxLight. If you send the $5.00 shipping then I'll send you the latest copy of MxLight with your serial number and whatever else I can cram on to the disk.(Sharware, FreeWare). WARRANTY MxLight is sold "as is" without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to, any warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. MX Communications and/or James E. Fielden shall not be liable for any damages, whether direct, indirect, special or consequential arising from a failure of MxLight to operate in the manner desired by the user. IN NO EVENT WILL MX COMMUNICATIONS AND/OR JAMES E. FIELDEN BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES TO DATA OR PROPERTY WHICH MAY BE CAUSE DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY BY THE USE OF MXLIGHT. MX COMMUNICATIONS AND/OR JAMES E. FIELDEN SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFITS, LOST SAVINGS OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF YOUR USE OR INABILITY TO USE MXLIGHT, OR FOR ANY CLAIM BY ANY OTHER PARTY.