Columbia Kermit/kermit.zip/mskermit/msr232.ann

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File MSR232.UPD                MS DOS KERMIT              11 December 1988

         (See below about version 2.32/A, 22 Jan 89)

 Changes between MS Kermit version 2.31 (1 July 1988) and 2.32 (11 Dec 1988)
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 General:

- Show current Kermit Connect mode escape character in main HELP display
  rather than just the default Control-].

- Add copyright notice display as a reminder that Kermit-MS is not in the
  Public Domain yet it may be distributed at no cost.

- Ensure the received file display shows 100% done when the whole file has
  arrived, whether or not the remote system tells us the file is a different
  size. This reassures users even though a remote host may have told MS Kermit
  a file size based on its own file system rather than on MS DOS.

- Fix Tektronix emulation in Victor 9000 version, which reportedly has not
  worked right since 2.29 release.

 Computing free disk space, as either SPACE command or during file reception:

- Account for file destinations of screen and printer when checking for
  sufficient disk space while receiving files. Correct bug of using incorrect
  disk when checking space available.

- When computing free disk space allow extra large disk partitions (greater
  than 32MB) such as now supported by DOS 4.0.

- The test for available disk space when receiving files with attributes
  packets inflated the disk space rather than the file size. Revised to
  proper form: inflate file size by 17/16, decline file if not enough
  disk space.
  Additionally, the disk is sought from DOS internal information, rather
  than from the filename string, so that bridged or joined disks can be
  used effectively in the space computation (uses the fundamental device
  rather than a pseudo device letter created by utilities). Thanks to
  Henrik Levkowetz for this as well as the IBM-PC Ungermann Bass material.

 Improved handling of Control-Z during file transfers:

- Include special handling for files destined for the printer to compensate
  for DOS's refusal to send Control-Z to a printer. Under the default and
  normal case of SET EOF NOCTRL-Z the Control-Z is converted to a space;
  SET EOF CTRL-Z lets the output buffer be terminated by DOS. Subsequent
  output buffers will be handled similarly.

- Let SET EOF {Ctrl-Z | Noctrl-Z} end of file test apply to TRANSMIT command.
  SET EOF Ctrl-Z now ends the file when a Control-Z is read.

 Scripts, Take file, Macro enhancements:

- See the IBM-PC section for new host-reachable macros for those machines.

- Allow TRANSMIT command prompt be a literal ascii character or a \number.

- Apply control SET INPUT ECHO {ON | OFF} to script OUTPUT command so when OFF
  the OUTPUT command will not read and display characters from the serial
  port as helpful echos. When SET INPUT ECHO is ON, OUTPUT reads and displays
  arriving characters until 10 milliseconds elapse with no new character.
  With SET INPUT ECHO OFF, all new host material remains stored in the serial
  port (or network) buffer for reading by later commands, such as CONNECT.
  INPUT and REINPUT can read the echos; scripts should be checked if this
  causes unexpected results.

- Detect and prevent collisions between macros and active Take file buffers;
  they share some work space. Messages are shown when the space is exhausted.

- Correct bug requiring spaces after formal labels.

- Supress "?Timeout" message while in a Take file or macro.

- Allow strings in curly braces {a string} to be used as a "word" when passing
  words as arguments to a macro.
  Example:
        Kermit-MS> DEFINE testing echo \%1 and \%2
        Kermit-MS> testing One Two Three
        One and Two
        Kermit-MS> testing {Hello ladies} gentlemen.
        Hello ladies and gentlemen.

  Variable \%1 becomes a string rather than the normal first word after the
  name of macro testing. \%1 becomes "Hello ladies" and \%2 "gentlemen."

- Fix bug in finding labels in scripts, as in the commands
        GOTO end
        :end1
        commands
        :end
  could let label ":end1" be jumped to by mistake if ":end1" appeared first.

  A note on the label in a GOTO phrase. The label can be a variable name,
  which is immediately replaced by the definition string. The target label,
  however, is not expanded by presence of variable names. Thus, GOTO lab\%b
  is replaced by GOTO lab<definition string of variable \%b> and can be
  used to select labels based on earlier text held in a variable.

- Three new commands are added for scripts.

          ASK <name of macro or variable> <prompt string>

  ASK displays the indicated prompt and reads a line of text from the key
  board (or pipe if redirected) and stores it in the selected macro or
  variable. A variable (form of \%character) is the more useful of the two.
  The line is echoed and may be edited the same way as a Kermit command line.
  If a comma is entered it is stored in numerical form, \{44}, so that it
  is not mistaken for a command separator but is still a comma when the string
  is sent or used in other ways.

        IF [NOT] EQUAL word1 word2 command

  The two words are compared for the same spelling, and optionally the same
  case if SET INPUT CASE is set to OBSERVE, and if they match the following
  Kermit command is executed. Modifier NOT may be used to invert the sense
  of the test. Substitution variables may be used in this IF command, but
  if the variable's definition is more than one word it may confuse the
  testing; i.e.,

        Kermit-MS> ask \%a Enter your name:
        Enter your name: my name is Chris
        Kermit-MS> if equal \%a Chris goto welcome

  is immediately expanded to

        Kermit-MS> if equal my name is Chris Chris goto welcome

  and fails because the words being compared are "my" and "name", and the
  command becomes "is Chris Chris goto welcome".

  If either word is stated as @filespec then the first word of the file
  is read and used as the test word; this is useful for some username/password
  automation in scripts. If the file starts with @filespec the process nests
  to the final file.

        ASSIGN macro-name definition-string

  ASSIGN is just like the normal DEFINE command, except that when a
  substitution variable name occurs in the definition-string field the
  variable is replaced with its ultimate definition. DEFINE stores the
  variable name instead.
  Example:
        DEFINE \%a an example
        DEFINE test echo this is \%a

  Here macro "test" has a definition string of "echo this is \%a"

        ASSIGN test2 echo this is \%a
  which is immediately expanded to read
        ASSIGN test2 echo this is an example
  and thus macro "test2" has a definition of "echo this is an example"

  The effect of ASSIGN can be thought of as a copy command when we use it as
        ASSIGN \%t \%a
  i.e., variable \%t is given the current definition string of variable \%a.
  Whereas
        DEFINE \%t \%a
  defines \%t as the string "\%a"

- Hint on passing Batch file arguments to Kermit variables:
  Suppose file test.bat holds the line
        Kermit define \%%1 %1, define \%%a %2, stay

  Invoking the Batch file by
        C> test one two

  results in creating Kermit variables \%1 with definition of "one" and \%a
  with definition "two". The doubled percent symbols in the Batch file are
  needed to compensate for one of them being consumed by the DOS Batch
  processor. %1 is the first Batch argument word, %2 is the second word. The
  syntax \%%1 is converted by Batch to be \%1 when seen by Kermit, without
  further substitution by Batch.

- Hint on dynamically controlling scripts from the keyboard.

        set alarm 1             ; alarm goes true 1 second from now
        pause 1                 ; exits prematurely if any key is pressed
        if alarm goto nextlabel ; alarm becomes true if no key was pressed
        set input case ignore   ; upper and lower cases are the same now
        ask \%r Continue or Exit [C/E]? ; get user input to macro \%r
        if equal \%r e stop     ; if E stop the script
        :nextlabel              ; do the rest of script

  The command Set Alarm acts as a watchdog timer. Pause will exit early if
  a key is pressed (or was in the typeahead buffer of DOS) and thus when the
  script tests the alarm with "If Alarm" it finds the test condition false.
  The Ask command solicits directions as a letter and the If Equal command
  checks the letter. If no key were typed Pause would use all the alarm time
  and the query section would be skipped. Thanks to Mark Zinzow for this
  clever technique.

 Server related enhancements:

- Add command SET SERVER TIMEOUT <number of sec, 0-255> to control the time
  between NAKs sent by the server while waiting for a request. 0 means wait
  forever, if necessary, without NAKs. This latter case is especially useful
  when Kermit connects to a computer data-switch which retains a connection
  if there is any traffic within a few minutes; 0 prevents the Kermit server
  from unnecessarily stimulating such switches.

- Add new command REMOTE LOGIN {username {password {account}}}. All three
  items may contain embedded spaces and Kermit non-editing characters.
  Username may be on the same line as REMOTE LOGIN; otherwise, it will be
  requested by a prompt. Password and account are always solicted via prompts.
  A carriage return response corresponds to an empty entry. REMOTE LOGIN
  applies only to a remote Kermit server and not to a remote operating system;
  an MS Kermit server does not understand the command.

- Allow password for REMOTE CWD command to contain embedded spaces and other
  Kermit non-editing characters.

 General file transfer improvements:

- Fix a bug that has existed since 2.31, in which use of the SET SEND TIMEOUT
  command would cause misinterpretation of certain Send-Init parameters,
  sometimes resulting in incorrect decoding of file data (e.g. #M#J could
  appear in files).

- Correct long standing problem of local 8-bit quoting requirement not
  following current operating conditions.

- Change formatted file transfer screen line from "Last warning" to
  "Last message".

- Allow dollar signs in received error messages.

- Accept any character, except the start of packet character, in the
  End of Line position of a packet.

- Display messages in ACK packets, permit interspersed 'M' message packets.
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 Items specific to IBM-PCs at this time.

- Supress Hangup message while in a Take file or macro.

- Separate the comma on German keyboard keypads from the regular comma, for
  SET KEY definitions.

 Serial port and networking details:

- Revise printing strategy within Connect mode to buffer 132 characters and
  to send XOFF/XON to the host while the buffer is written to DOS. This helps
  prevent serial port overruns noted with slow PCs at high baud rates when the
  printer is attached to a network which may keep interrupts off for
  significant periods of time.

- Allow NULL bytes to be observed when DEBUG is ON.

- Correct bug clearing VT102 Connect mode tab stops by CLEAR command.

- Ungermann Bass Net One support had two fatal bugs, now fixed.

- The Bios in some machines objected to the stray interrupt generated when
  Kermit disconnected from the serial port. Fixed. Also solves problem of
  an earlier task, such as Smartcom II or PC-Talk III, forgetting to replace
  the serial port interrupt it borrowed and causing a crash during Kermit
  operations. The problem evidently was from the MS Basic compiler.

- A serial port with COM2 addressing (port 02E8H, IRQ 3) placed in the
  COM1 Bios data area, such as happens with some PC jrs, could not be
  found. Corrected to switch to COM2 addressing if the Bios data area
  for COM1 is 02E8H. COM1 is normally port 03F8H and IRQ 4.

- Preserve the parity found in the serial port UART chip around Kermit
  operations. Kermit itself performs parity in software and operates the UART
  in no parity mode (N,8,1). Preservation of the hardware parity restores it
  for other uses of the port outside of Kermit. In particular, COM1 is set up
  when Kermit initializes. If COM1 were used for a serial printer with Even
  parity, for example, and COM2 for communications then preservation restores
  COM1 to Even parity when Kermit is not using it.

 Terminal emulator improvements:

- New command SET TERMINAL CLEAR-SCREEN clears old startup screen by doing
  a terminal reset (same as verb \Kreset, ALT-=). SET TERMINAL conditions are
  preserved; these are the analogue of a VT102's setup values.

- Express many tab stops easily by adding the optional syntax

        SET TERMINAL TABS AT <start-column>:<spacing>
  and   SET TERMINAL TABS CLEAR AT <start-column>:<spacing>

  Example:
        set terminal tabs at 1:8

  sets tab stops in columns 1, 9, 17, 25, ... up to column 132. The rule is
  place a tab in the "start-column", add "spacing" value, insert next tab, add
  "spacing" value, insert next tab, etc up to column 132. The VT102 emulator
  starts with tabs in column 9, 17, 25, ... (9:8); having a tab in column 1
  does nothing. Thus, 1:8 and 9:8 are effectively the same.

- Support the Tseng Labs MultiPAK display adapter, a monochrome/Hercules type,
  for switching between 80 and 132 column modes. The user needs to have run
  Tseng Labs program BIGSCR /R:25, or equivalent, before starting Kermit.
  Kermit will then use the board as a monochrome text and Hercules graphics
  device. Although the board also supports 28 and 44 screen lines Kermit
  cannot discover this fact and thus uses only 25 lines (the /R:25 item).
  Thanks are due to Tseng Labs for generously supporting this addition.

- Try harder to discover the natural screen coloring for terminal emulator
  use when Kermit is started with a cleared (usually black) background screen
  yet DOS text is written with a colored background. This happens frequently
  when Kermit follows programs which do not restore coloring across the whole
  screen. The emulator will now assume the colors of the written characters
  rather than those directly under the cursor at Kermit startup.

- Make the VT102 screen be scrolled into the roll back buffer when a screen
  clear escape sequence arrives (ESC [ 2 J). This preserves screens otherwise
  cleared and rewritten by many mainframe utilities (such as VMS Mail). Thanks
  to David Lassner for this neat suggestion.

- Correct small problem selecting Block or Underline cursors in the VT102
  emulator.

- Permit the Transparent Printing escape sequences  ESC [ 5 i  and  ESC [ 4 i
  (on and off, resp.) to contain additional numerical arguments with
  semicolons.  Arguments are applied in the order encountered, after the full
  escape sequence has been read.  Thanks to Dale McElroy of Boeing Computer for
  pointing out the problem in sufficient detail.

- Absorb without action the escape sequences ESC * char, ESC + char, and
  ESC <left curly brace>  in the VT102 emulator. Thanks to Terry Kennedy.

 Major enhancements to the VT102 emulator for multi-lingual support:

- Add SET TERMINAL DIRECTION {LEFT-TO-RIGHT | RIGHT-TO-LEFT} to support right
  to left screen writing while in Connect mode; for national language support.
  The cursor does not move when changing writing direction. Thanks to Baruch
  Cochavy, IIT, Haifa, Israel, for inventing this material.

- Add SET TERMINAL CHARACTER-SET ALTERNATE-ROM to map accent grave and the
  lower case letters to be national characters in the IBM video adapter.
  That is, character codes of 60h to 7Ah (accent grave, lower case a-z)
  are mapped to codes 80h to 9Ah. Thanks again to Baruch Cochavy.

  This makes these high bit characters available by active user selection, or
  by reception of the escape sequences below to associate them with one of
  the two VT102 character set pointers called G0 (normal) and G1 (alternate).
  ESC ( 1         G0 points to the national characters above
  ESC ) 1         G1 points to the national characters above

  The related escape sequences below are extracted from the MS Kermit manual:
  ESC ( A         G0 points to UK symbols (ASCII with Pound Sterling sign)
  ESC ) A         G1 points to UK symbols
  ESC ( B         G0 points to ASCII symbols (ASCII with US pound sign #)
  ESC ) B         G1 points to ASCII symbols
  ESC ( 0         G0 points to special (line drawing) graphics
  ESC ) 0         G1 points to special (line drawing) graphics
  ESC ( 2         G0 points to alt char ROM - US symbols
  ESC ) 2         G1 points to alt char ROM - US symbols

  Arrival of Control-O selects the G0 set (default) and Control-N the G1 set.
  The other two choices for this command remain US-ASCII and UK-ASCII.

- Add two special Macro names TERMINALR and TERMINALS which can be invoked
  within the VT102 emulator by reception from the host of

        ESC [ ? 34 h    (invokes macro TERMINALS)
        ESC [ ? 34 l    (lower case L, invokes macro TERMINALR)

   and/or by using new keyboard "verbs" (not preassigned to keys)

          \Kterminals   (invokes macro TERMINALS)
          \Kterminalr   (invokes macro TERMINALR)

  When these macros are invoked within the terminal emulator and if they
  are defined then Connect mode is exited and the macro is executed. There is
  no automatic return to Connect mode at the completion of the macro. If the
  macro is not defined then Connect is not exited and nothing happens.
  Initially neither macro is defined. If a return to Connect mode is desired
  then include CONNECT in the macro. Any legal action is permitted in these
  macros, including invoking other macros and Take files.

  The purpose of these two names and macros is to allow a host or the local
  user to interactively select two local operations while within the terminal
  emulator, such as changing language specific setups or other desirable
  things, which are much more involved than an existing keyboard verb. There
  is no restriction on what the macros may do since Kermit is then operating
  not in Connect mode but at the Kermit command prompt level, as it is for
  other macros.

  The escape sequences above are a Kermit specific extensions of Digital
  Equipment Corporation's private escape sequences to set and reset modes;
  hence the letters S and R in the macro names.

- One suggestion for employing SET TERM DIRECTION, SET TERM CHARACTER, and
  the macros TERMINALR and TERMINALS to facilitate mixed Hebrew and English
  communications is the simple Take file below:

  File Hebrew.tak -
  -----------------
                ; Define macros hebrew and english to do all the work
  def hebrew  set term dir right, set term char alt, hkey, comkey
  def english set term dir left,  set term char us,  set key clear, comkey

                ; Define host-reachable macros for on the fly changes while
                ; staying in the emulator
  def terminalr english,connect
  def terminals hebrew, connect

        ; Define IBM-PC F1 key as switch to English, F2 as switch to Hebrew.
        ; Done here to be remembered despite SET KEY CLEAR in macro English.
        ; F1 and F2 thus are user-level commands during emulation.
  def comkey set k \315 \Kterminalr,set k \316 \Kterminals

                ; Define SET KEYs for Hebrew keyboard layout via macro hkey
  def hkey set k \x27 \x2c,set k \x2c \x9a,set k . \x95,set k / \x2e,-
  set k \x3b \x93,set k \x60 \x3b,set k a \x99,set k b \x90, hkey1
  def hkey1 set k c \x81,set k d \x82,set k e \x97,set k f \x8b,set k g \x92,-
  set k h \x89,set k i \x8f,set k k \x87,set k l \x8c,set k m \x8a, hkey2
  def hkey2 set k m \x96,set k n \x8e,set k o \x8d,set k p \x94,set k q /,-
  set k r \x98,set k s \x83,set k t \x80,set k u \x85,set k v \x84, hkey3
  def hkey3 set k x \x91,set k y \x88,set k z \x86
  -----------------

  After TAKE HEBREW.TAK, one may switch Connect mode language support between
  Hebrew (right to left, national display characters, similarly translate
  outgoing keyboard characters) and English by stating a single keyword
  at the Kermit prompt

        Hebrew or English  or  Terminals or Terminalr  (respectively)

  or while within Connect mode by pushing the F1 or F2 keys (in this example),
  or by reception of ESC [ ? 34 h or l from the host.  All the work is done
  from memory material and is essentially instantaneous. Clearly, other
  languages can utilize these tools. MS Kermit 2.31 allows macro names to be
  used the same way as predefined Kermit key words, by omitting the leading
  word DO in "DO macro-name."

                                Joe R. Doupnik
                                [e-mail], [e-mail], usu::jrd.SPAN
                                Dept of Electrical Engineering
                                Utah State University
                                Logan, Utah 84322
                                [phone]   work

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          Changes from MS Kermit 2.32 to 2.32/A, 21 Jan 1989

Items common to all machines supported by MS Kermit -

1. Correct a problem negotiating 8-bit prefixing when MS Kermit is operating
   with parity of NONE yet the other side requests that such quoting be done.
   Version 2.32 had a problem and would receive the 8-bit quoting character
   "&" as ordinary text and hence produce a corrupted file. Setting parity
   to SPACE on the PC with version 2.32 might be a suitable workaround.

2. Correct ENABLE/DISABLE MESSAGE commands to work properly. Previously the
   sense was inverted and the command applied to SEND rather than MESSAGE.

3. Formally decode messages in ACKs to data or filename packets before
   displaying them.

4. Add analysis of prompt text in the ASK command so that \number forms are
   converted to binary before displaying the prompt. This makes the prompt
   field behave the same as in the ordinary SET PROMPT command. A dollar sign
   will terminate the text string for either command.
   Example:     ASK \%1 \27[31mEnter password\27[37m

5. Correct small textual errors in the SET command main help screen.

6. Allow command REMOTE MESSAGE to use three character text messages.

   Items specific to the IBM-PC version of MS Kermit -

7. Delay accessing a communications port until the port is actually needed.
   This prevents the automatic probing of COM1 at Kermit startup, even before
   file mskermit.ini or equivalent is read. COM1 remains the default port
   unless another is selected by a SET PORT command. The effect of this change
   is transparent except where Kermit has been operated under a multi-tasking
   Environment such as Concurrent-DOS, Desqview, DoubleDos, or MS Windows.
   These situations have experienced difficulty when a second copy of Kermit
   is started while the first copy is actively using COM1; the disturbance
   is created when COM1 is prepared for use as part of the Kermit startup
   process. The present change prevents this disturbance by selecting but not
   touching a port until a Kermit command requires it. Note that STATUS, SHOW
   COMMUNICATIONS, SHOW MODEM, SET BAUD, SET SPEED, and SET PORT commands
   do access the selected port for information; to avoid possible interference
   between users of COM1 perform the desired SET PORT command to select and
   initialize another port before using these latter commands.

8. Add several small improvements to video screen support for the VT102
   terminal emulator when Video 7 boards are used. Preserve 43 line mode
   whenever possible. Defeat 132 column mode for Video 7 VGA boards used with
   fixed frequency analogue displays (31.5KHz), such as the IBM 85xx series.
   Prevent using wrong display buffer address when an unknown proprietary
   video mode is encountered from many EGA and VGA style boards.

9. Put the VT102 screen into the rollback buffer when clearing the entire
   screen with any escape sequence combination. Partial screen erasures
   do not cause preservation in the rollback buffer.

10. Support character 9Bh, ANSI "CSI", as equivalent to reception of "ESC ["
    in the VT102 emulator.

11. Preserve character set pointers and related items in the VT102 emulator
    when the screen width is changed.

12. Avoid unnecessary flow control commands when Control-Print Screen is
    active.

The files which have been changed since version 2.32 are

        MSSDEF.H                new release ident and date
        MSSKER.ASM, MSSSEN.ASM, MSSSER.ASM, MSSSET.ASM, MSSTER.ASM
        and for IBM-PC's
        MSXIBM.ASM, MSYIBM.ASM, MSZIBM.ASM

                                                        Joe Doupnik
                                                        22 Jan 1989

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