Columbia Kermit/kermit.zip/cdccompass/cybker.bwr

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Date: Fri, 19 Sep 86 00:34:12 edt
From: Don Barry <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]

In response to your request for evaluations of the existing cyber 170 series
kermits, we have installed both kermits at this site (running cdc 855 and 990 m
machines).  The fortran kermit (from UT) is specific to their system in
many ways because they run a homebrew operating system (taurus) instead of
NOS.  this even has a unique character set, posing formidable conversion tasks.
it was done here, but the results were not impressive - inefficient in speed,
occasional bugs.  A systems programmer wrote a kermit for local use in CDC
CYBIL (a high level systems programming language) but it is bug-ridden and
of comparable efficiency to UT kermit.  If you'd like a copy, he can probably
be persuaded to part with one - his address on bitnet is CC100td TD at GITVM1.
Overall, the clear winner is Manchester KERMIT in CDC COMPASS.  THis is
very well written, modular, commented well, and 5 times faster than either of
the previous CDC kermits.  Its only deficiency is requirement of parity
specification at compile time and inability to do 8-bit transfers without
quoting.  These should be easy enough to add - even without, it is far and
above the best-designed kermit for CDC equipment.  The CYBIL version, after
appropriate debugging and efficiency enhancement, will prove eventually
worth supporting, as it will run under NOS/VE without major change, whereas
the assembly version will be useless.

Don Barry (Chemistry Dept)          CSnet: [e-mail]
Georgia Institute of Technology    BITNET: CMPBSDB @ GITVM1
Atlanta, GA 30332      ARPA: [e-mail]
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Date:     Wed, 1 Oct 86 10:38 AST
From:     <[e-mail]> (Jost Krieger RUB)
Subject:
To:       [e-mail]
X-Original-To:  [e-mail], AB

Subject: Multiple CDC Kermits

Concerning your question about multiple Kermit sources for
CDC Cyber machines, I see the following situation:
On Cybers, there are now three supported operating systems:
NOS, NOS/BE (both stone age) and NOS/VE (new,virtual memory).
The old Fortran Source you have is supposed to support both
old operating systems. (I also developed a derivative that
runs under NOS/VE, which I will send shortly, but everyone
expects a new OS Revision, which I expect to be incompatible
in critical areas, so I'll wait a few weeks. (. And then are
those bugs .) )
The new (COMPASS) source only supports NOS, and this is not
easy to change in an assembler program.
In the area of functionality the Compass program is better, as
it supports compression and 8-bit quoting. It also has a better
throughput rate, as it is a very small program that can be
swapped fast.
To add to these complications I hear that there is a Kermit
under development at Imperial College London (?)
that is supposed to be written in Pascal.
Furthermore, under the new NOS/VE is a UNIX subsystem available
called VX/VE, that runs C-Kermit with 3 small mods (sys3 version).
On all these themes, there has been a discussion on the Cyber-L
distribution list (I could forward the relevant entries). A further
point was the host of local mods against the distributed Fortran
version that need to be consolidated.
Finally, what is really needed for Cyber systems is a long packet
or window version of Kermit, as Cybers are notoriously slow in
forwarding information through front-ends and operating system
layers. This is not yet available in any of the listed versions ...

(Shoul I have sent this to the list or to your address ?)

Jost Krieger
Rechenzentrum der Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum
Postfach 102148
D-4630 Bochum 1

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 1-Oct-86 10:33:18-EDT,2794;000000000001
Mail-From: SY.CHRISTINE created at  1-Oct-86 10:33:16
Date: Wed 1 Oct 86 10:33:16-EDT
From: Christine M Gianone <[e-mail]>
Subject: [[e-mail]: Multiplicity of CDC Kermits]
To: [e-mail]
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

....
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Date:               30-SEP-1986 15:16:01
From:               [e-mail]
To:                 INFO-KERMIT <@cs.ucl.ac.uk,@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA:[e-mail]>
Subject:  Multiplicity of CDC Kermits

From:     Mr. A. O. V. Blanc <[e-mail]-a> 30-SEP-1986 13:54
To:       SYSKERMIT
Subj:     Multiple Kermits


From:         Mr. A. O. V. Blanc <[e-mail]-a>
To:           [e-mail]1
Date:         Tue, 30 Sep 86 13:55:04 BST
Message-Id:   <$RWFXCZXKBJKF at UMPA>
Subject:      Multiple Kermits

Dear Dr Phillips,

I am writing in response to the question about multiple versions of
Kermit in your newsletter number 90.  Please forward this information
to Columbia.

I am the author of the COMPASS version of Kermit.  The reason I wrote
it was that neither we nor any of the three other CDC sites with whom
we are in closest contact were able to make the UT Kermit run on our
machines.  Because Kermit needs to interface so closely with the
operating system, and in this case because it needs to bypass ordinary
I/O to gain 'robustness', I chose to write it in COMPASS, the CDC
assembler language for all of their 60-bit mainframes.  This makes it
less portable in a sense, but the UT Kermit, despite being written
partially in FORTRAN and partly in COMPASS, is restricted not only
to CDC machines but even, it appears, only to those which use certain
modifications to the operating system developed in Texas and Arizona.

                                  Yours,
                                  A. V. Le Blanc
                                  UMRCC
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