Columbia Kermit/kermit.zip/lispmachine/lmbugsdoc.txt

Text File | 2020-01-01 | 10KB | 226 lines

Bug history notes

Mark Ahlstrom  Started 05/20/85


1) For complex displays with long lines (for example, a
   Project_Usage_Report (pur) from Multics with the line
   length set to 132), the display puts the last few chars
   of some lines at the beginning of the line rather than
   the end.  This happens at both Multics command level and
   in Emacs Multics mode... and is predictable.

    Fix:  This is a flow control problem.  By using xon-xoff
    flow control at both ends (e.g., Port 1 with flow control
    on 3600, and setting "stty -modes iflow" and "stty -modes oflow"
    on Multics, this will not occur.  However, Emacs on Multics
    seems to disable this in order to get ^s and ^q to work, so
    the problem in Multics mode remains unless you want to try
    being a DEC terminal type and work around the ^s ^q issues.
        5/20/85 MLA

2) Changing the default directory via the review parameters window
   does not seem to work.

    Fix: This was a very tough one, but I think it is fixed.
    The problem was that a :before :select method of
    kermit-frame (found in lmiwin) sets the default-kermit-pathname
    back to the fs:user-homedir.  (At least, I think that is
    the source of the problem.)  This made it very difficult
    to keep the pathname set to anything else.
        6/6/85 MLA

3) The smooth scrolling feature does not seem to have any effect.

    Fix:  This now works, but is only used for the interaction pane.
    It is not designed for use in the terminal pane, and would be
    too slow in that pane for most purposes.  --MLA

4) After displaying a typeout window, as for the network-help,
   the contents of the underlying windows are cleared rather than
   just being redisplayed.

    Fix: This has been corrected by just removing the :refresh
    call at the end of the macro with-kermit-typeout-stream as
    found in lmical.  --MLA

5) The big screen option of the terminal does not work (not enough space
   on the 3640 screen to satisfy the constraints?).

    Fix:  The screen configurations have been completely redone
    for the 3600, and a new menu choice has been added to allow
    selection of various screen configurations and interaction
    window scrolling features.  --MLA

6) Change all file names and loading references to call the system
   lmxxx rather than lmixxx, and add more documentation?  Need to limit
   lines to 80 characters in source for Columbia??  Have a version and
   edit number in the code that is displayed upon start up (on display).
   Also, put the standard header info (from George C.) in files.

    I am not going to change the names or line lengths at this time.
    Maybe after George C. and I agree on everything, and we are ready
    to release to Columbia, then I will have to change the line lengths.
    There shouldn't be any real need to change the file names.. probably
    would just be more trouble than it is worth.  The copyright notice
    has been added to all source files.  The version is now set as
    a variable in lmiwin and displayed in the emulation window
    label line.  Header/copyright message is in all files.

7) Network-B does not work with Multics.  It does send some nulls to the
   LAN, but these are ignored by Multics.  Could be a timing problem in
   keeping the line low long enough....

    Fixed... there was a timing problem, but that didn't fix it.
    But, turns out that 3600 has a :send-break method for its
    serial stream flavors which does the job nicely.
        5/20/85 MLA

8) Can you send files without protocol??

    Yes... at least one way to do it is with the <network> ^Y command.
    This command throws you into an pop-up ZWEI window.  You can yank
    a file into this window, edit it if you want, and then have it
    sent down the line by hitting <end>.  Of course, you may have to
    be using flow control to avoid swamping the system at the other
    end if you are connected a a relatively high baud rate.
        6/14/85 MLA

9) Are all the warnings from "let" variables necessary and correct when
   compiling kstate?

    Fix:  A number of variables had to be declared special within
    the defuns to eliminate the warnings. 6/14/85 MLA

10) When connected and mousing "receive files", the error message is
    "NILisconnect first in order to receive."  Fix this.

    Fix:  This was an error in the format form.  --MLA

11) For review parameters window, it is difficult to get the mouse down to
    the abort pad since the fat-arrow scrolling gets in the way.

    Fix: I changed the border text to move the selection boxes to
    a better location for the 3600.  --MLA

12) Get an error when trying to start logging of terminal session using
    Network-L.

    Fix: This was due to a binding to :unbound rather than leaving a
    variable unbound.  Why did they ever use :unbound anyway??
    Fixed by including check for :unbound in the test within
    the function terminal-get-logfile-name-from-user.
        5/20/85 MLA

13) For both send files and server/send, when doing a wildcard send, the
    system prompts you correctly for all files, but then only sends the
    first file.

    Notes:  It seems that this should actually be done by the call
    to gnxtfl from the seof function, but it doesn't work right!
    It is also confusing that (:method kstate :simple-send) binds
    *filelist* to the cdr of the file list, rather than the whole
    list if this is the way it should work, as it appears that
    gnxtfl is supposed to ignore the first file on the list and
    set things up for the second file.

    Does it send the first and third files of a three member set?
    Yes indeed, it does send the first and third files from a
    three file wildcard set.  Of a five member wildcard set, it
    sends all accept the second file, so it appears that the only
    problem is setting to the cdr in the :simple-send method.  This
    has been changed to correct the problem.
      --MLA 6/17/85

14) For certain files (like limlod.lisp), kermit has major problems
    sending certain packets.  For some reason, it appears that the
    troublesome packet is 77 chars long rather than 74 like all the
    rest, and it just happens to end with #M#J (CRLF)!  What gives?

    Fix:  Note that 74/77 is the length reported by the spack routine
    when debug mode is on, but the actual packet length is greater
    than that.  At least for the 77 case, the actual length of the
    string shown by send-packet when in debug mode is 83 characters
    long!  I think that this is the problem, since I believe that
    the transfer being tested is using 80 character packet size.
    Since an "end-of-line" is actually converted into four characters
    (quoted CR and LF), this must be causing the packet to be too
    big when the end-of-line just happens to coincide with the
    end of the packet.  Looking at the bufill function, I also see
    that the fullsize is assumed to be spsiz - 6, but in looking at
    the original C Kermit code on which this is supposedly based
    (found in the Kermit protocol manual), they use spsiz - 8 as their
    test point.  At the risk of lowering the average packet size by 2,
    I am going to change bufill to use spsiz - 8 and then see if the
    problem goes away.  I will test this by trying to send a file
    with lots of "end-of-lines" to be sure that I get a case where
    the eof falls at the packet boundary...  MLA

    What I observed with a test file (lots of eol, with some other
    characters to give a variety of cases), was that packets of length
    74 (ending in regular characters), 75, and 76 worked fine, but
    packets of length 77 did indeed case trouble.  The surprising thing
    was that they sometimes got through at all.  By changing the test
    in bufill from spsiz - 6 to spsiz - 7, I then got packets of length
    73 (for regular characters) and 74 and 76 for packets ending with
    CRLF.  Everything worked fine.  To maximize throughput, I therefore
    left the test at spsiz - 7.  If someone starts using multiple character
    checksums, they might have to bump this up to 8 or 9 (will they?).
      --MLA  6/17/85

15. The server-receive function does not work correctly if you let the
    "Merge with:" prompt default.  In that case, you run into troubles in
    trying to open a *.* file (assuming that your current kermit-default-pathname
    specifies a *.* filename).  The defaulting isn't really working now.

    Fix:  (I also had to change kstate :server-receive method slightly since
    3600 doesn't allow taking the length of a string, and I had to change
    the function to string-length.)

    I changed the receive-files-from-server code (conditionally for 3600)
    to fix this, and now server-receives of single files work fine.  It still
    fails for wildcard files with an error in trying to open a wildcard
    pathname, but that is a separate problem to work...
      --MLA 6/17/85

16. As noted above, wildcard server/receive commands do not work.

    Fix: I had to modify the function RFILE in lmipro in order to
    get this to work properly.  I did this conditionally for just
    the 3600 at this time.  I looks like someone had stuck in some
    special code which caused this to break, so I may have rebroken
    someone's fix, but it looks rather strange.
          --MLA 6/17/85

17. Mousing in panes other than the command menu (when not connected)
    generates an error.

    Fix: I added another condition to the (:kermit-frame method :top-level)
    main loop to catch mouse blip lists before we tried to test
    them as numbers/characters.  Noncommand mouse blips are now treated
    just like other unanticipated terminal input.
      --MLA 6/18/85

*** Start of edit 2 fixes ***

18. Getting a divide divide by zero error when trying to display the send/receive
    status sometimes!

    Tracked down to function give-state-info in lmipro.  Fixed by changing
    the "setq bps" form in this function to:

               (setq bps
                       (// *bytecount*
               ;2; To avoid divide by zero errors, to this...
               (let ((ourtime    ;2;
                   (// (time-difference (time) data-xfer-start-time)
                       #.(float 60.))))    ;1; changed small-float to float
                 (if (zerop ourtime) 1 ourtime))))    ;2;


    This version will now be referred to as the 1.0a alpha test version.  You can
    make this show up on your display by also changing this form in lmiwin.lisp
    as shown:
    (defconst kermit-version "LMKERMIT Version 1.0a Alpha Test")