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CHANGES AND UPDATES TO MS-DOS KERMIT 3.15 This file lists the changes and corrections in each Beta pre-release of MS-DOS Kermit 3.15, in reverse chronological order. The following Appendices are included at the end of this file: APPENDIX I: LATIN-2 COMPOSE SEQUENCES APPENDIX II: MS-DOS KERMIT AND PPP APPENDIX III: MEMORY MANAGEMENT ____________________________________________ Preliminary Final Release, 15 September 1997 Beta 25 with Beta notice removed and new date, code freezed. IBM PC and compatibles only. Accompanying text files still need to be updated. FILENAME SIZE DESCRIPTION MSK315.EXE 251768 Full-featured version MSR315.PCH 325 Initial patch for full-featured version MSK315M.EXE 199356 Medium version: no networks, serial connections only MSRM315.PCH 317 Patch for medium version MSK315N.EXE 164312 Lite version I: networks included, no terminal emulator MSRN315.PCH 327 Initial patch for Lite version I MSK315L.EXE 113414 Lite version II: no terminal emulator or networks MSRL315.PCH 310 Initial patch for Lite version II _________________________ Beta 25, 6 September 1997 New commands: SET INPUT FILTER-ECHO { ON, OFF } When ON (which is the default), only printable characters and controls are sent to the screen when INPUT ECHO is ON. When OFF, all incoming characters (except NUL and DEL, which are discarded) are passed to the screen, the idea being that a console driver (such as ANSI.SYS) will process them and format the screen nicely -- this only works if the escape and control sequences coming from the host are recognized by the console driver; remember, MS-DOS Kermit's terminal emulator is NOT active during INPUT commands. Bugs fixed: . IF NUMERIC did not work for unsigned numbers longer than one digit. . \frpad() and flpad() ignored a blank third argument and used the closing paren instead. . Array elements could not be assigned, e.g. by READ. . Writing an empty array element into a file could cause MSK or DOS to crash. . Assigning \%x variables inside SWITCH statement didn't work. . SERVER <time> was broken; if a timeout value was given, it did not work until and unless some packets were exchanged. . S, I, and A packets and/or their ACKs could be sent that were longer than the requested size; conversely, incoming packets that were longer than the requested size could be rejected even when the actual buffer was long enough to accommodate them. Both conditions have been corrected. This problem was evident only when very short packet lengths were requested. ____________________ Beta 24, 15 Aug 1997 The following bugs were fixed: . Host-directed printing would not stop if the stop-printing sequence was <ESC><CSI>4i, rather than simply <ESC>[4i or <CSI>4i. . Under certain conditions, an overlong Kermit data packet could be sent. ___________________ Beta 23, 3 Aug 1997 ANSI terminal emulation modified to allow use of the 25th line by direct cursor addressing and by scrolling. DG 217 emulation added. Does not support UNIX mode. ____________________ Beta 21, 19 May 1997 The status-line clock now can show elapsed time for the current connection via SET TERMINAL CLOCK { ON, OFF, ELAPSED-TIME }. ON shows time of day, ELAPSED-TIME shows elapsed time. Also the clock sampling and display mechanism were adjusted to prevent flickering in Windows, and so now is ON by default for both DOS and Windows 3.x. The elapsed-time clock can also be set back to 0 with the new RESET CLOCK command. New \Kdebug Kverb added, to toggle SET DEBUG SESSION while in CONNECT mode, and assigned to Alt-d by default. This removes the necessity to escape back, SET DEBUG SESSION, and reconnect to get terminal-screen debugging, and then escape back, SET DEBUG OFF, and reconnect to turn it off again. \Kreset (reset the terminal emulator) assigned to Alt-r for compatibility with Kermit 95. It is also still on Alt-=, as before. Additional TCP/IP stack monitoring and debugging facilities (refer to Beta 10 description below). SET TCP/IP DEBUG ON now adds a performance meter to the CONNECT-mode status line. Regular TCP/IP debugging material is displayed on the terminal screen by default, or if you have a transaction log active, it is written to the log instead. But in both cases, the new fields are shown in the status line: nnnnR = Number of microseconds to Receive an IP packet. nnnnT = Number of microseconds to Transmit an IP packet. The packet times are displayed when a packet is transmitted, so the R field represents the most recent reception. Smaller numbers mean fewer cpu cycles devoted to packet movement between Kermit and the LAN adapter; small is good. The most precise numbers occur when using Novell ODI drivers. Packet drivers produce spuriously tiny reception values, because most of the board work occurs before Kermit is notified (and hence before Kermit can time the reception process). In the case of reception Kermit measures the time between being first asked for a buffer and when the LAN driver finally reports the buffer is filled. For transmission, Kermit initiates events and the time is between Kermit's initial command to the LAN driver to transmit a buffer and the LAN driver's final reply that it has done so. The important point is the times measure Kermit to/from LAN driver events. ______________________ Beta 20, 23 April 1997 Another adjustment to DHCP material to make sure the server ident field is not created spontaneously. And to stop any misunderstandings about "time since boot" the client secs field is forced to 0 in all packets. Plus protection against endless retries on rejected IP lease renewals; needs testing. ______________________ Beta 19, 13 April 1997 Changes to DHCP client operation. Xander Jansen pointed out that some new small-office routers, such as the 700 series from Cisco, have changed their expectation of what a DHCP client must say to gain service. The prevailing formal rules were in RFC1541 and nearby documents. Brand-new RFCs 2131 and 2132 (April 1997) describe a method which is in direct contradiction to RFCs 1541 1533. When testing MS-DOS Kermit 3.15 Beta 18 against the small router, Xander found the router rejected the client. In Beta 19, the DHCP support was changed to be compatible with both ways of being a DHCP client, trying first the RFC2132/2133 method and if that is rejected then the RFC1541 method. SHOW COMMUNICATIONS now distinguishes DHCP from BOOTP. _________________________ Beta 18, 14 February 1997 Corrections: . Long-standing bug of being unable to delete characters via CSI P which are within four columns of the left margin while in 132 column video mode. . Bug introduced into beta 17 while adding \f(filespec). This forced the requested filename pattern to be prepended as a path to individual filenames of an incoming GET request, resulting in failure to find the files. Changes: . Modify the VT100 terminal ident from very long standing vanilla ESC ? 1 c to be ESC ? 1; 0 c to satisfy some string matching style remote programs. Similarly use ESC ? 6; 0 c for VT102. ________________________ Beta 17, 9 February 1997 Beta 17 fixes the following bugs: . A TAKE file once opened was never closed. . Macro argument variables, \%0..\%9, were not removed after the last nested macro exited and thus collided with possible non-macro use of the same variable names. . A harmless message occurred if a macro expected several arguments and fewer were provided on the invocation line. . A correction for Data General terminal emulation to clear video attributes adversely affected VTxxx emulations, leading to unwanted underlining, etc, after an erasure operation. This occurred only in Beta 16. . SET KEY definitions involving a macro name were not parsed properly in a few annoying cases. And adds the following new feature: . New variable \v(filespec) shows the filename pattern most recently used for sending or receiving files. It may contain wild cards and paths, depending on what the user typed. ________________________ Beta 16, 6 February 1997 In this issue we try to resolve known problems with the INPUT command. Some coding errors were discovered and fixed. The length of SET KEY definitions is down to 150 bytes maximum, because borrowing a longer buffer causes internal interference (MSK 3.15 Beta 15 introduced the much longer buffer (borrowed)). A consequence of that interference was loss of ability to invoke macros within key definitions Finally, an undiscovered omission in Data General terminal emulation was pointed out by Jeff Altman: underlining was not turned off when a Form Feed command arrived. ________________________ Beta 15, 3 February 1997 Key definitions can now be up to 1K in length. The previous maximum length was 127 bytes. Some glitches fixed in the INTRO screen. There is now a new SET PARITY option. It is mostly untested, so testing is needed by those in a position to test it: SET PARITY { EVEN, ODD, MARK, SPACE, NONE } behave as before: SET PARITY none establishes 8 data bits, no parity; the others 7 data bits and 1 parity bit. The new option is: SET PARITY HARDWARE { EVEN, ODD, MARK, SPACE } When this command is given, MS-DOS Kermit uses 8 data bits and 1 parity bit, and parity is handled by the hardware (i.e. the UART). This feature is added for the benefit of certain devices that can only communicate with 8 data bits and one parity bit, and should not be used except when absolutely necessary, since hardware checking of parity is a great deal less intelligent and tolerant than the normal software handling done by MS-DOS Kermit itself. SET PARITY HARDWARE works only on real serial ports; not on BIOS ports, FOSSIL ports, or network connections. _______________________ Beta 14, 27 January 1997 New REGET command. REGET is to GET as RESEND is to SEND: file transfer recovery of interrupted binary-mode transfers, in this case when downloading from a Kermit server. Works only when Kermit's FILE TYPE is BINARY. \v(date) format changed to "27 Jan 1997" for compatibility with C-Kermit. Language-independent numeric (Julian) dates are available as \v(ndate), as always. The new CONNECT-mode status-line clock (with blinking colon) is turned off when running under Windows, even in a full-screen DOS box), to stop flickering of the display caused by Windows recovering from a polling DOS call to get the time of day. The CONNECT-mode status line is now refreshed to show the proper printing status if a printer is unavailable, rather than leaving a ghost "PRN" indication if printing has been terminated. _______________________ Beta 13, 4 January 1997 SET KEY syntax simplified; curly braces no longer required when mixing Kverbs, Kmacros, and text strings except to resolve ambiguities or to preserve leading and/or trailing whitespace. Thus: set key \315 \kkp4\kkp5 foo \kkp6 is now a legal definition, resulting in those three verbs being seen at keypress time, and the embedded string is sent in the middle of them. The old, more complicated syntax, is still accepted. _________________________ Beta 12, 26 December 1996 A timer-related problem was fixed that could cause MS-DOS Kermit to block (hang) on a TCP/IP connection for up to a minute or more if a sent packet were lost while slowly sending tiny packets. This problem was most frequently observed in Telnet terminal sessions, while typing. IF commands containing variables were being overevaluated; e.g.: if = \%i 4 decrement \%i Such statements now work again. The following command-related changes were made for compatibility with C-Kermit 6.0: . The LOCAL command now works with macro names as well as \%x variable names. So, for example: LOCAL FOO BAR \%A declares three local variables, foo, bar, and \%a. FOO and BAR are macro names, which can be used either as "local subroutines" or as long-named variables accessible via the \m(name) construction. . The LOCAL command can now be used not only in macro definitions, but also in command files. This allows construction of portable command procedures with private data, without danger of conflict with variable names already in use by other procedures. . MSLEEP added as a synonym for MPAUSE (millisecond sleep). (There was no open Beta 11) _________________________ Beta 10, 18 December 1996 New items: . Add built-in Cyrillic support for the terminal emulator: SET TERMINAL CHARACTER-SET { CYRILLIC-ISO, KOI8, SHORT-KOI }, SET TERMINAL CODE-PAGE CP866. Previously this was done with command files (lots of SET TRANSLATE INPUT and SET KEY commands), but that did not work well with ISO 2022 character-set designation and invocation (G0, G1, G2, G3 switching, VT220 line-drawing characters, etc). . Modify commands ASSIGN, DEFINE, UNDEFINE, _ASSIGN, and _DEFINE for the syntax expressing array names. Each permits expressions and variables within the [index] field. Assign, define, and undefine do not permit substitution in the spelling of the array name of \&<character>; _assign and _define do permit it. . Add keyword IF to the list for command CHECK. CHECK IF reports that extended IF statements are present. . Add UNDEFINE variable/macro to undefine an item. This is the same as the DEFINE command with no definition text. . Add XECHO string to display the string without the leading CR/LF. . Add variable \v(connection) which always returns string "local". . Add function \fbasename(filename) which returns the filename without its drive letter and path prefix. . Keyboard definitions to invoke named macros had used definitions of the form {\kmacro-name}. The surrounding curly braces are no longer required, but they may be used with older material. This also means the syntax for specifying keyboard "verbs" and macros is now the same. Corrections: . SET KEY \xxx {\Kmacroname} was broken in earlier betas. . DEC User Defined Keys returned illegally and crashed the program. . Correct a small bug with processing DEC Sixel graphics. . SET PRINTER to a file which could not be opened crashed the program. . LOCAL list of \%<char> variables failed to skip items in the list which were not of the form \%<char>. . Revise the TCP/IP protocol stack code to be less agressive in sending long groups of packets but more agressive in responding to network congestion. The result should be fast transfers with fewer packets lost from too many packets per second on the wire. . Add code to catch errors of delivering TCP/IP packets from the LAN adapter driver to Kermit. The error of interest is when a packet buffer is allocated from Kermit but the LAN driver fails to signal that the buffer has been filled with a new packet. Failures are visible when command SET TCP DEBUG ON is given, and they may be made invisible but recorded in the Transaction log if command LOG TRANSACTION filename is stated. . Included in the TCP debug information are arriving ARP broadcasts (good for testing if the LAN adapter is still receiving) and IP packet transit time details. For specialists, the timing details appear as lines like this example, where fields are: time=2093 rtt=1 avg=0 std_dev=1 s->rto=5 time since the TCP stack started, current IP packet round trip time (rtt), smoothed average rtt, standard deviation of the difference, and the round trip timeout, all in units of Bios clock ticks (18.2 of them per second). Message "Failed to put packet on wire" is written if the lan adapter is unable to perform a transmission requests; Kermit retries the attempt. . Add a test for Control-C or Control-BREAK being typed while waiting for a TCP byte stream to be delivered to the remote host. This is an attempt to break free of waiting while Kermit file transfer packets are held back because TCP is waiting for an ACK to previously sent material. Such waits can be several minutes in bad cases. This test is of limited usefulness. . Fill in a Reverse ARP request field which is normally empty and ignored but might be looked at anyway. . Fixed a problem which crashes the program when going between text and graphics screens when neither extended nor expanded memory is used to preserve the graphics screen. . Time-of-day clock added to status line, with blinking colon. If this produces any unwanted effects, use "set term clock off" to disable it. (Beta 9 was skipped) _________________________ Beta 8, 10 September 1996 New items: . Add keyboard verbs \Ksession1 through \Ksession6 to select a particular Telnet session of the six available (versus the \Knextsession toggle). These new verbs are not preassigned to keys. Fixes: . Current directory, as shown in prompt, was over-evaluated. . Bug with UDKs fixed. . \v(drive) value had a spurious null character on the end. . SET PRINTER problems displayed gibberish rather than a proper error message. . No Ping response was generated for SLIP connections. . SHOW SESSIONS did not wait for a confirming Enter key. . \v(input) lost its text. . Invoking macros within macros which used END to leave had confused the END command. ------------------------ Beta 7, 7 September 1996 New items: Modify assign/define/undefine/_assign/_define for array name syntax. All permit expressions and variables within the [index] field. Assign, define, and undefine do not permit substitution in the array name of \&<character>; _assign and _define do permit it. Add keyword IF to the list for CHECK. CHECK IF always succeeds, indicating the script programming language is present. Add UNDEFINE variable/macro to undefine an item. This is the same as the DEFINE command with no definition text. Add XECHO <string> to display the <string> without adding CR/LF. Add variable \v(connection) which always returns string "local". Add function \fbasename(filename) which returns the filename without is drive letter and path prefix. Corrections: DEC User Defined Keys returned illegally, could crash program. SET PRINTER to a file which could not be opened crashed the program. LOCAL list of \%<char> variables failed to skip non-\%<char> items in the list. ------------------------ Beta 6, 2 September 1996: Bug fixes: . END/POP statement acted too strongly and exited all macros rather than just the current macro. . Consecutive spaces in strings were collapsed to single spaces, such as ECHO 1 2 3 showed 1 2 3, and INPUT 10 {WORD WORD} expected only a single space. . Declaration of arrays of size 14 eventually led to memory corruption. . INPUT ignored bytes read during preceeding script commands, such as PAUSE or OUTPUT. ----------------------- Beta 5, 27 August 1996: New commands: NOPUSH Hidden, one-way command, prevents PUSH/RUN SET TERMINAL ESCAPE-CHARACTER {ENABLED, DISABLED} Determines whether the Connect mode escape character, normally Control-], is an escape or is sent to the host as an ordinary character. Added TCP keepalive probes when using a TCP passive open (Listen). Times out a session after about 100 seconds of no response to a series of five probes. Fixed bugs with arrays having more than 14 elements. ----------------------- Beta 4, 19 August 1996: o Correct bug of losing the first two characters of the first argument word in the DIAL command. o Add new command SET TERMINAL CR-DISPLAY {Normal, CR-LF}, default is normal. The alternative adds a Line Feed after each received Carriage return. o Correct bugs in INPUT and MINPUT. o Adds three new commands: SWITCH, MOVE, and RETRIEVE. SWITCH <variable-name> { :label1, command, command, ... BREAK :label2, command, command, ... BREAK :label3, command, command, ... BREAK ... :DEFAULT, command, command, ... } This is similar to the C-language switch statement, and identical to the switch statement in C-Kermit 6.0 Beta. Like both, it can be nested. Example: SWITCH \v(nday) { :0, echo Sunday, break :1, echo Monday, break :2, echo Tuesday, break :3, echo Wednesday, break :4, echo Thursday, break :5, echo Friday, break :6, echo Saturday, break :default, echo When did the week get more than 7 days? } The MOVE command is just like SEND, except that after sending the file succesfully, MS-DOS Kermit deletes its copy. Thus the file is actually moved from your PC to the other computer, rather than copied. The RETRIEVE command, to be sent by a client to a server, is just like GET except that it tells the server to delete each file after -- and if and only if -- it has been sent successfully. Thus it is like MOVE, but in the other direction. Requires a server on the other end that understands this command. As of yet, only MS-DOS Kermit qualifies. The next beta edit of C-Kermit will have this feature too (both ends, server and client). ----------------------- Beta 3, 11 August 1996: Correction to DHCP lease renewal procedure. ------------------------------------------------- Second (unnumbered) test version, 11 August 1996: Corrections to reported bugs: o STOP <digit> string now properly displays the string. The DIAL command uses this syntax when the dialing script is not found. o SET PROMPT allows \numbers again. o INPUT <timeout> single-byte no longer hangs in an infinite loop. o MINPUT <timeout> {string} {another string} ... now properly recognizes each string. o \v(minput) now properly reports the index of the string matched by MINPUT. o Loss of modem Carrier Detect may now be recognized promptly during file transfers, but the changes are untested. Probably more work is needed. o \$(DOS Environment variable) now finds both uppercase and lower case variables, but not mixed case variables. Windows 3.1x creates variable "windir" in lower case, as can be observed within the DOS box, so this is a way for MS-DOS Kermit to check whether it is running under Windows 3.x. Additional features: o \fchecksum(string) yields the decimal value of the 32-bit unsigned sum of the code values of each byte in string, e.g. \fcheck(ABCD) = 266. o SET TCP ADDRESS has new option, DHCP, as a synomym for BOOTP. o SET TCP ADDRESS DHCP or BOOTP both try DHCP negotiation and accept the first response of possibly many, whether DHCP or Bootp responses. Special note for users of Novell's DHCPSRVR.NLM server v2.0: use SET TCP BROADCAST 255.255.255.255 to avoid a bug in that server which is triggered by using a directed broadcast address. Question on a requested enhancement: TCP/IP SOCKS support requires a choice of authentication mechanism. People asking for SOCKS support need to tell us which mechanism they require since one needs to be written into the code. The two choices are no authentication and plaintext username/password, neither of which provides any security, and the latter is a big security hole. -------------------------------- First (unnumbered) test version, 18 July 1996: ERROR CORRECTIONS 1. All patches issued for MS-DOS Kermit version 3.14 are incorporated into version 3.15 2. Unpatchable problem with ARP affecting some remote hosts is fixed in version 3.15 3. Unpatchable bug which prevented communications between LAN adapters from the same vendor (the first three octets of the hardware address were the same), fixed in version 3.15 4. Correction of a fatal bug when using internal TCP/IP over ARCnet ODI drivers. 5. Failure to act upon 8-bit control codes SS2 and SS3 in VT220/320 terminal emulation, even though their 7-bit equivalents were implemented. FILE TRANSFER IMPROVEMENTS Kermit file transfer protocol and TCP/IP internal protocol stack: 1. Dynamic Kermit packet retry timing, based on measured round trip times. This should provide faster recovery from lost packets. 2. Congestion avoidance strategy during packet transmission. Both (1) and (2) are directly from TCP/IP rules and procedures by Van Jacobson. This should improve performance on busy comms lines of all kinds. 3. Improved timing of IP packets within the internal TCP/IP stack, to deal with today's steadily deteriorating Internet performance. 4. Improvement of TCP keepalive probe detection techniques, to keep Telnet connections alive forever even if no user activity occurs. 5. Optional announcement in Kermit packets of the kind of operating system so that two alike systems would exchange files in BINARY mode automatically, and without filename conversion. The new command: SET TRANSFER MODE { AUTOMATIC, MANUAL } controls this feature, with the default being MANUAL for no announcement. If the "sysid" mode is used it overrides user choice of binary or text mode file transfers when like systems converse. Works with C-Kermit 16.0.192 (in Beta), Kermit 95 1.1.5 or later, IBM Mainframe Kermit 4.3.2 (soon to be announced), and of course MS-DOS Kermit 3.15 itself. 6. Automatic recognition of Kermit packets while in terminal emulation mode. See next section. TERMINAL EMULATION IMPROVEMENTS 1. Kermit can now use extended memory (raw memory above 1MB) in place of expanded memory for screen rollback space. The command below has been enhanced to include choices EXTENDED and EXPANDED. SET TERMINAL EXPANDED-MEMORY { OFF, EXPANDED, EXTENDED, ON } The default is ON, which means try expanded memory first, and if that fails then try extended. With Extended in use Kermit does not need an expanded memory page frame (located in UMB memory). The default ON results in operation the same as for version 3.14 of MS-DOS Kermit. 2. Automatic recognition of incoming Kermit packets while in terminal emulation mode. The new command: SET TERMINAL AUTODOWNLOAD { ON, OFF } controls this feature, with the default being ON. When the remote host sends a Kermit "I" or "S" packet to initiate a file transfer in either direction (via a SEND or GET command) then MS-DOS Kermit switches to file transfer mode, performs the file transfer, then returns to CONNECT mode. To download a file, just tell the remote Kermit to send it, e.g. (for C-Kermit on the remote end): kermit -s <filespec> ; To download in text mode kermit -is <filespec> ; To download in binary mode or (at the Kermit prompt): C-Kermit> set file type text ; (or "binary") C-Kermit> send <filespec> To upload a file, tell the remote Kermit to GET it, e.g.: kermit -g <pc-filespec> ; To upload in text mode kermit -ig <pc-filespec> ; To upload in binary mode or: C-Kermit> set file type text ; (or "binary") C-Kermit> get <pc-filespec> 3. The Compose Key (verb \Kcompose, assigned by default to Alt-c) now works not only for Latin-1 (Western European) character sets, but also Latin-1 (Eastern European) character sets. Latin-2 compose sequences are accepted when your local code page is CP852 and your terminal character-set is Latin-2; otherwise, Latin-1 sequences are used, as before. See Appendix I. SCRIPT PROGRAMMING IMPROVEMENTS 1. New command functions, \fname(arguments): \frindex(pattern,string,position) Right Index. Returns 1-based position of first occurrence of pattern in string, looking from right to left, starting "position" bytes from from the right (default position is 0). Returns 0 if pattern not found. \feval(math expression) Returns numerical result of a math expression. Numbers are 32-bit signed integers in calculations. Math operators are: +, -, *, / Add, subtract, multiply, divide + and - are also unary operators % modulo, remainder ^ exponent, to power of ! factorial ~ logical bit-wise NOT, one's complement & bit-wise AND | bit-wise OR # bit-wise Exclusive-OR @ Greatest Common Divisor ( ) Clustering symbols, to 8 deep. \fipaddr(string) Returns IP address in dotted decimal form found within string. Can be used with \v(input) to obtain IP address during SLIP login. \ftod2secs(hh:mm:ss) Converts hours:minutes:seconds to seconds. \fverify(pattern, string, offset) Checks that all characters in string are in pattern, starting search at offset of string. Returns 0 if all match, else 1-based position of first mismatch in string. Function names may be abbreviated to uniqueness, such as \fmin(). 2. Mathmatical expressions, such as (1992+3*3-5), can be used almost everywhere to represent a single numercial value. The rules of what is an expression are the same as for \feval() and follow common usage. If spaces occur then use ( ) around the entire expression. Numbers can be expressed as implicit decimal, 1996, or have a base associated with them such as \x1b for hexadecimal (27 dec). Numbers may be signed and results are retained to 32-bits. Single byte numerical values, \x1b, are permitted in text strings and represent one byte. To use backslash as itself double it, \\. Note that a number may terminate from its value filling a byte. For example: ECHO testing \12345 produces: testing {45 because \123 makes a full byte (visually a left curly brace). 3. To assist the CD, DIR, and RUN commands single byte \number conversion no longer occurs. Thus one may now safely say CD \4DOS. 4. Command word spelling may be composed on the fly from substitution variables, such as define \%a minal set ter\%a type vt320 This concept is extended to spelling of \function names, labels, and even the names of substitution variables themselves. 5. Substitution variables now support the notion of arrays of strings: DECLARE \&<char>[size] Allocates space for "size" number of strings. If size is 0 then the structure becomes undefined. \&<char>[index] Is member index of the array <char>. Use DEFINE or ASSIGN to create the array member. Index starts at 1 and should not exceed the declared "size." Strings are limited in length to 1KB which is the limit of a Kermit command. Not all members need be created, only the ones you wish. An empty definition removes that member. 6. Multiple match patterns for script INPUT statements, via new command MINPUT <optional timeout> pattern1 patttern2 pattern3... This behaves the same as INPUT except each of the patterns is examined and the first match terminates the command. Patterns containing spaces should be placed within curly braces, e.g. {three word pattern}. The pattern which is matched is revealed in new variable \v(minput): 1 if the first one was matched, two if the second, and so on, or 0 if none were matched. NOTE: For compatibility with C-Kermit, the optional timeout in the MINPUT, INPUT, and REINPUT commands, should always be included. 7. New variables: \v(instatus) Status of most recent INPUT or MINPUT command: -1 for not initialized yet 0 for success 1 for timed out 2 for user level Control-C interrupt 4 for connection lost \v(minput) Shows which search pattern was matched by the MINPUT command, which is a script INPUT command with one or more match patterns. The variable is 0 if no match was obtained. \v(return) The text string given by a "RETURN string" command. See RETURN below. \v(input) This is the contents of the INPUT command buffer, but with two changes from version 3.14. Now \v(input) is the entire buffer rather than up to the first Carriage Return, and control codes are retained intact (and thus are invisble). To see the control codes visually use command SHOW SCRIPT where controls are displayed in "caret-character" notation such that null is ^@, 1 is ^A, 2 is ^B and so on. 8. Program control functions FOR, WHILE, XIF, ELSE. They are: FOR <variable-name> <start> <end> <increment> { <command>, ... } WHILE <logical-test> { <command>, ... } XIF <logical-test> { <command>, ... } ELSE { <command>, ... } IF <logical-test> <command> ELSE <command> where: <variable-name> Is a substitution variable, \%<character>, which holds the loop index; <start>, <end>, and <increment> are numbers, and yes, loops can run backward by using negative increments. <command> Is any MS-DOS Kermit command. { <command>, ... } Is curly braces surrounding one or more Kermit commands, with commands separated by commas to represent end of line, or multiple lines of Kermit commands where the physical end of line acts automatically as a command terminator. A side effect of this is commands using { will be continued automatically by the next line until a closing } is encountered; each input line will have a comma prepended. <logical-test> is any of the IF statement tests. XIF may have the ELSE word in the middle of a command line, but ELSE must not be a separate command line. Only the IF statement uses ELSE as a separate command line (see below). The IF statement has been extended to allow an optional second line of ELSE Kermit command. ELSE must be at the start of the next line rather than on the same line as the IF main body. BREAK terminates a FOR or WHILE loop. Control resumes at the next outer statement, if any. CONTINUE continues FOR and WHILE statements the at the bottom, skipping statements between itself and the bottom of the loop. These statements may be nested. 9. RETURN string Used by macros to return "string" to new variable \v(return) and then terminate the macro. Termination is otherwise the same as by POP or END. 10. SETENV name=string Puts NAME=string into the DOS master environment. Example script sequence: input 10 Your IP number today is input 10 Please record it now. setenv myip=\fipaddr(\v(input)) where the remote machine sends "Your IP number today is 123.111.222.123. Please record it now." The DOS master enviroment would have the new line "MYIP=123.111.222.123" at the end. Note that changing the master environment does not affect the copy existing within Kermit nor any processes launched while in Kermit. 11. Local variables In macros, you can declare any \%x (x = any letter) variable to be local to the macro. Syntax: LOCAL <variable-name> [ <variable-name> [ ... ] ] APPENDIX I: LATIN-2 COMPOSE SEQUENCES Accented Letters. Enter in the desired case (upper or lower). Key 1 (K1) and Key 2 (K2) can be entered in either order. Character Name K1 K2 A acute A ' A breve A % A circumflex A ^ A diaeresis A " A ogonek A = C acute C ' C caron C & C cedilla C , D caron D & D stroke D - E acute E ' E caron E & E diaeresis E " E ogonek E = I acute I ' I circumflex I ^ L acute L ' L caron L & L with stroke L / N acute N ' N caron N & O acute O ' O circumflex O ^ O diaeresis O " O double acute O # R acute R ' R caron R & S acute S ' S caron S & S cedilla S , T caron T & T cedilla T , U acute U ' U diaeresis U " U double acute U # U ring U * Y acute Y ' Z acute Z ' Z caron Z & Z dot above Z . ss (German sharp s) s s (lowercase only) Accents and special characters; enter K1 and K2 in the order shown: Character Name K1 K2 Acute accent ' ' (two apostrophes) Breve % % (two percent signs) Caron & & (two ampersands) Cedilla , , (two commas) Currency sign X 0 (or X O, or x 0, or x o) Degree sign 0 ^ (zero and circumflex) Diaeresis : : (two colons) Division sign - : (hyphen and colon) Dot above . . (two periods) Double acute # # (two number or pound signs) Multiplication sign X X (or x x) Ogonek = = (two equal signs) Paragraph sign S ! (or S 0 or S O, upper or lower case) Soft hyphen - - (two hyphens) APPENDIX II: MS-DOS KERMIT AND PPP Here is a brief description of how to set up and use MERIT's PPP driver PPP.EXE (available in the Crynwr Collection of Packet Drivers). The documentation available for PPP.EXE is not very clear, hence this note. NOTE: We have not tested every variety and version of DOS PPP software. The version discussed here is University of Michigan Merit Network PPP 1.9.49 Beta, which seems to work satisfactorily, and which can be obtained with anonymous from kermit.columbia.edu, directory packet-drivers/ppp. Other versions might be available from the master site: ftp://merit.edu/pub/ppp/pc/etherppp.zip We do not necessarily recommend any version besides the 1.9.49 one, which has been tested successfully. Note that the term "EtherPPP" is often used to refer to the Merit PPP driver, because that is the name of ZIP file in which is it is packaged. First, install PPP on your PC. Step 1: Download the SLIP files IN BINARY MODE to your PC's KERMIT directory (wherever you keep MS-DOS Kermit). Step 2: In AUTOEXEC.BAT or elsewhere add a line like the following, which specifies the path of the Merit PPP configuration file, CONFIG.PPP. SET CONFIG.PPP=C:\PPP Step 3: Edit the sample CONFIG.PPP file, which looks like this: ppp trace 0 ppp pap user myusername mypassword ppp pap timeout 20 ppp quick ppp lcp open Replace "myusername" and "mypassword" with your own PPP username and password. Step 4: Create a STARTPPP.BAT file in your KERMIT directory. STARTPPP.BAT starts PPP.EXE and it contains one line that looks like this: ppp /c 1 /s 57600 /d none /k 6 /v 1 When we run it MERIT's PPP driver starts up on the existing telphone connection. The parameters are as follows; replace them by parameters that are appropriate to your setup: /d none No dialing by the driver; use the connection that's already there. /k 6 Present a SLIP interface to the TCP/IP stack (rather than an Ethernet interface). NOTE: "/k 6" is important. The driver must be configured as a SLIP driver, not an Ethernet driver, or else the TCP/IP stack will falsely believe that it should be doing broadcasts such as ARP. /v 1 Be verbose (so you can see error messages) /c 1 Use COM1. Replace this by "/c 2" if you are using COM2, etc. /s 57600 Set the speed of the given COM port to 57600 bps. Replace this by the highest speed that can be used with your modem. Once PPP is installed, you won't need to repeat the steps above. Now to make a PPP connection, there are three major steps: 1. Use Kermit to dial up your Internet Service Provider (ISP). 2. Start PPP on the connection from Step 1. 3. Have Kermit make TCP/IP connections over the PPP connection from Step 2. Begin by using MS-DOS Kermit ot dial up the terminal server at your Internet Service Provider and tell it who you are and what protocol you wish to use over the line. A Kermit script works well for this, but the example below is typed by hand (MS-Kermit> is Kermit's prompt, you don't type it): MS-Kermit> set port 1 MS-Kermit> set speed 57600 MS-Kermit> set flow rts/cts MS-Kermit> connect If you are using port 2 or other port, then specify that instead of port 1. You can use other speeds too, but obviously the higher the better -- use the highest one that works with your modem. Use the same port and speed as you have specified in STARTPPP.BAT. Now make the phone call. In this example we type "ATDT" followed by the phone number, and then press the Enter key (of course there are also other ways to make Kermit dial the phone, but all that is covered elsewhere): atdt73456 A few seconds later you should get back a message from the modem: CONNECT 57600/LAPM If instead it says BUSY or NO CARRIER, etc, then try again later. Now you should see a message from your ISP. If you don't see anything, try pressing the Enter key one or more times. Here is an example showing the dialog at Utah State University: Welcome to the USU modem pools. Enter: vms, library, telnet, or your PPP (or SLIP) username. nb1 login: jrd-ppp Password: xxxxxxx Enabled IPCP address negotiation for jrd-ppp-ppp Added interface jrd-ppp-ppp for IPX Packet mode enabled ~}#A!}!} } }8}!}$}%}"}&} } } } }%}&}$U}$}'}"}(}"3ó~ NOTE: Other service providers will have different dialogs. Some services are "PPP-only" and you will not get any kind of recognizable greeting or prompt -- instead you will get either garbage (similar to the last line in the example above), or nothing at all -- just a blank screen. In that case, there is no way to log in "by hand"; instead the user ID and password will be sent by PPP.EXE itself (after you start it), from your CONFIG.PPP file. Now return to the MS-Kermit> prompt by pressing ALT-x, and EXIT from MS-DOS Kermit. Now that the PPP connection is running on the remote side we need to perform step two: start PPP on our client machine and tell Kermit the current IP address. After the driver finishes negotiating with the remote side it displays the current IP number for us; we write it down and then tell Kermit to use it. Step 1: Start Kermit again. Step 2: At the MS-Kermit> prompt, type "run startppp.bat" (and press Enter). You should see something like this: C>ppp /c 1 /s 57600 /d none /k 6 /v 1 PPP: version 1.9.49 beta PPP command line parameters: --class=6 --int=0x60 --com=1 --irq=4 --base=0x3F8 --speed=57600 --hard=0 --fifo=1 --quit=0 --dial='none' 16650A detected IP address set to 129.123.246.5 Step 3: Now you see what your IP address is. Tell Kermit what it is: MS-Kermit> set tcp add 129.123.246.5 Step 4: Now you can make a Telnet connection to any host on the Internet: MS-Kermit> set port tcp xyzcorp.com MS-Kermit> connect When the session has completed the phone line might be disconnected by the remote end. If it isn't then you can make another Telnet connection, or you can just exit from Kermit but in this case you should use the Packet Driver support program TERMIN to terminate the connection. After Kermit puts you back at the DOS prompt, just type: termin 0x60 APPENDIX III: MEMORY MANAGEMENT (*** Reconcile this with section 19 of KERMIT.BWR ***) MS-DOS Kermit can use large amounts of memory to store the terminal emulator screen rollback buffer, Telnet session controls, and graphics mode screens. Where these items are stored is up to you and thus you need to be aware of the selection process. There are three choices: 1. Conventional memory (lower 640K). Advantages: easy, no extra work needed, can work everywhere. Disadvantages: Conventional memory is limited and precious; the amount of rollback screens is limited by available conventional memory; ability to run DOS commands or programs under Kermit is limited, etc. 2. Expanded memory (EMS). Any or all memory you might have installed beyond 1MB, accessed through a 64KB chunk (Upper Memory Blocks, UMB) in Conventional memory. This is the fastest "extra-memory" option, but requires Requires a memory manager and configuration thereof by the user, which can be confusing and risky. dedicating 64KB of conventional memory. 3. Extended memory (XMS). Any or all memory you might have installed beyond 1MB, accessed "directly". Slower than EMS but does not require the 64K UMB in Conventional Memory. OVERVIEW If the computer is running just DOS (by itself) and has no memory management facility loaded, then Kermit stores its large buffers in conventional memory Today almost all PCs use some form of memory management software, including that provided by Microsoft Windows 3.1, 95 and NT. EMM386.EXE is a familiar manager from Microsoft; QEMM/386 is one from Quarterdeck. With a memory manager Kermit can use memory above 1MB to hold these buffers. Memory above 1MB is commonly either extended or expanded memory. EXTENDED MEMORY Extended is provided by memory managers but can be slower to access than expanded memory (which can be deselected by the user). EXPANDED MEMORY Expanded memory is in two pieces, one large piece above 1MB and a 64KB piece in Upper Memory Blocks (UMB, between 640KB and 1MB). Expanded memory needs to be controlled by the user. For example, EMM386.EXE provides expanded memory unless the phrase NOEMS is used on its command line. Windows provides both automatically. QEMM provides expanded memory upon request when configuring the machine; its "stealth" mode requires it. Expanded memory provides faster access than extended memory, but it costs that 64KB area in UMB. Placement of the expanded memory 64KB working area can be left to the memory manager or more wisely it can be located by the user in a safe UMB location. Please see the instructions of your memory manager about details of placement, but the common control is phrase FRAME=d000 or similar keyword. Do not located it below C000 (video space) nor on an existing BIOS nor on shared memory clients (often network adapters). In the end configuring memory is a responsiblity of the user. MEMORY MANAGEMENT IN WINDOWS (this needs to be filled in -- presumably users do not -- and most should not -- mess with memory configuation in Windows, esp Win95 and NT -- and so which kind of ex****ed memory do they get and what should they tell Kermit?) MEMORY MANAGEMENT AND MS-DOS KERMIT Kermit's choices of memory are decided by finding if a memory manager is active. If there is none then conventional memory is used. With a memory manager MS-DOS Kermit relies upon command SET TERMINAL EXPANDED-MEMORY <setting> to make a selection. We may review the choice by giving command SHOW TERMINAL and viewing the setting of the EXPANDED-MEMORY line. The SET TERMINAL EXPANDED-MEMORY command has four choices: OFF, EXPANDED, EXTENDED, ON. These correspond to use conventional memory, use expanded, use extended, or ON to try first expanded and if not successful then use extended memory. The default is OFF, and a better choice for many people today is ON. The choice may be changed at any time but existing buffers will be lost by the change. Please be aware that locating the largest buffer, the screen rollback area, in conventional memory very quickly exhausts that memory. Each screen consumes about 4KB, so saving say 100 screens uses 400KB and that's not enough to let Kermit use command.com for some commands. The default number of saved screens is 10, and the number can be changed by DOS Environment command SET KERMIT=ROLL number-of-screens. Our recommendation is use a memory manager and enable expanded or extended memory usage by Kermit, by adding line SET TERMINAL EXPANDED-MEMORY ON to your MSCUSTOM.INI file. (End)