Columbia Kermit/kermit.zip/mskermit/msr301.ann

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Date: Tue Mar 20 20:16:02 1990
From: Christine M Gianone <[e-mail]>
Subject: Announcing MS-DOS Kermit 3.01 for the IBM PC and PS/2 Families
Keywords: MS-DOS Kermit 3.01

This is a maintenance release of MS-DOS Kermit.  It incorporates all the
3.00 patches that were announced in the previous issue of Info-Kermit, and it
also includes other fixes and minor changes, including:

 - Support for 75/1200 bps split speed operation (SET SPEED 75/1200),
   contributed by Dan Norstedt of the Stacken Computer Club in Sweden.
 - A change to the way SET TRANSLATE INPUT works to allow it to operate
   on 8-bit characters received in the 7-bit environment via single or locking
   shift mechanisms.
 - Automatic transmission of shift characters when typing 8-bit characters in
   the 7-bit (parity) environment.
 - Ability to use C1 control characters for graphics if terminal character
   set is TRANSPARENT.
 - Numerous character set translation corrections.
 - Improved operation with IBM EBIOS / LANACS (new command SET PORT EBIOS n),
   with help from Yale and IBM.
 - Improved operation with Novell file server disks.
 - Various minor fixes to Tektronix and VT terminal emulators.
 - Reinstatement of the "LEDs" in the VT320 mode line.
 - Other minor fixes.

Here is the detailed list of changes:

CHANGES FROM MS-DOS KERMIT 3.00 TO 3.01                      March 21, 1990

Version 3.01 of MS-DOS Kermit is best regarded as a maintenance release,
intended to incorporate fixes to problems reported in version 3.00 and a few
small additions.  The following items note problems or limitations of MS-DOS
Kermit version 3.00 which were fixed by patches to 3.00, and now are
permanently fixed in version 3.01:
 1. Internal patching mechanism is activated.
 2. Avoid Kermit becoming blocked by presence of DOS command MODE COM1...,P.
    This patch prevents the serial port from being returned to the original
    owner (DOS) while Kermit's prompt is displayed.  The ",P" option above
    tells DOS to try and retry some more to get control of the port and you
    might have had to type Control-C or Control-BREAK to regain control.  With
    this patch the problem should disappear and the ",P" may be reinstated.
 3. Correct deficiencies in SET DUPLEX HALF, for half duplex hardware RTS/CTS
    operation of a physical serial port.  Do not use this command for IBM
    mainframe work.
 4. Correct accidental truncation of a command line to 17 characters if it
    follows the command SET PORT DECnet.
 5. Prevent loss of the character following the arrival of transparent printing
    termination escape sequence ESC [ 4 i while in terminal emulation mode.
 6. Use correct logging kind if logging is initiated via a macro, such as:
      MS-Kermit>DEFINE mymac log session monday.log
      MS-Kermit>mymac
 7. Avoid display of the path when command CD or CWD is given while in
    a macro or Take file, but show the result if SET TAKE-ECHO ON has been
    stated.  Assists quiet-screen scripts.
 8. Prevent a test for the supplementary keyboard driver MSLK25.COM from
    occurring on regular PC and XT machines; let this test still occur on AT's
    and above.  This test caused Kermit to hang AT&T 6300 machines running
    MS-DOS 3.1, but not for other DOS versions.  It also occurs on Olivetti
    M24 PCs with various versions of DOS, including 2.11 and 3.20.
 9. Make an arriving Control-Z character be displayed while emulating a
    VT320/VT102/VT52/Heath-19 terminal. It now shows as a right facing arrow.
10. Correct a bug in processing of IF = COUNT and other math expressions using
    names of keywords (ARGC, VERSION, etc).
11. If the command SET TERMINAL CHARACTER-SET TRANSPARENT has been given then
    let the C1 area control codes, 128-159 decimal or 80h-9fh hex, be usable
    as displayable text rather than as control codes.  Assists translation of
    certain Cryillic and other character sets that put graphcis in the C1
    area.  Note that SI and SO control codes may be used to shift between
    ASCII and high bit set IBM-PC characters.
12. Modify the location of SET TRANSLATION INPUT to occur after, rather than
    before, normal ISO-2022 character set translations and after SI/SO
    shifting to left and right halves of tables.  When used together with
    SET TERMINAL CHARACTER-SET TRANSPARENT then the right half, the line
    drawing and greek characters of the IBM display adapter (or whatever other
    characters you have loaded in your display adapter), are available
    as either regular 8-bit codes or as a SI (Control-N) followed by 7-bit
    codes.  Single and locking shifts are still active.
    Limitation: C1 control characters arriving from the host are exempt from
    translation mechanisms (as they should be in a "standard" 8-bit character
    set).  However, in the real world some host character sets have graphic
    characters in the C1 positions, e.g. Russian DKOI. SET TERM CHAR TRANSP
    is the likely best current solution because it uses C1 characters as text.
13. Modify the indentification of the LATIN1 character set for file transfers
    from I2/100 to I6/100, to be in agreement with our latest understanding
    of the "proper" ISO reference identifier.  If this causes problems between
    MS-DOS Kermits with and without this patch then use this workaround: SET
    TRANSFER CHARACTER-SET LATIN1 and SET ATTRIBUTE CHARACTER-SET OFF.
14. Ensure trailing spaces are removed from commands like DEFINE \%a string.
15. Avoid a possible delay in outputting strings as keyboard definitions when
    operating with a network communications path (without this fix, function
    keys might have to be struck twice, etc).
16. Correct operation of ESC [ Pn d in text emulator.
17. Use different video mode for Orchid Designer Professional VGA board when
    switching to 132 columns.  Substitutes new hexadecimal value of the video
    mode for the 23h used with the orignial Orchid Designer board.  These two
    boards yield the same presence signature to Kermit but require different
    video modes. THIS IS NOT A PERMANENT FIX in version 3.01; a fresh Patch
    file will be required for version 3.01.
18. Corrections to character set translation tables.
19. Removal of special treatment for IBM EBIOS (but see below).
20. Allow server to exit via BYE and LOGOUT.
21. Server: default to block check from I packet.  The server would bid to
    send files with the block check value set by the server's owner rather
    than that negotiated by the client in an initial session startup.  This
    patch allows the block check value to be increased during a session above
    the server's startup value if the client says SET BLOCK 2 or 3.
    Subtle, and usually of no consequence in normal operations.  Sounds like
    a game of Bridge, and it is very similar.
22. Allow single character definitions for DEFINE macro string.
23. Allow files to be written to Novell file server disks, and stop unwanted
    access of drive A:.  The problem was the standard way of asking DOS
    about space on the destination drive always yielded drive A: if the
    real drive was a Novell file server.  This caused drive A: to power up
    and yield an incorrect value for the disk space (none if nothing is in
    drive A:). AT&T STARLAN has no such problems.  If the problem occurs on
    your system the immediate workaround is to say SET ATTRIBUTE LENGTH OFF.
24. Correct screen rollback allocation if machine has more than 508KB of
    memory free after Kermit loads its main body.  Yes, it has happened!
25. Correct erasure of double width lines and ignore command to restore VT340
    color palette settings.

OTHER CHANGES FROM 3.00 to 3.01:
1. New behavior of SET TRANSLATION INPUT \xxx \yyy.  \xxx is now a PC code
   page value, rather than the raw value received from the communication line.
2. Modify CONNECT command to send Shift-In/Shift-Out characters when:
    (a) a special (8-bit character) has been typed, and
    (b) parity is other than NONE.
   Under these conditions characters in the C1 range (80h-9fh) are transmitted
   as ESC followed by the character value minus 40h.  Characters in the GR
   range (A0h-FFh) are sent as ESC N followed by the character without the
   high bit.  ESC N is the ISO 2022 standard Single-Shift-2 command.
3. Support for split-speed 75/1200 bps communication.  Thanks to Danne Norstedt
   for his code.
4. The ESC h sequence (draw bold intensity line) is now recognized during
   Tektronix emulation.
5. Better handling of Wyse big screens in Tektronix mode.
6. Hercules and other monochrome systems can now write opaquely in Tektronix
   mode.
7. The VT340 color palette is now restored upon command from the host.
8. The "LEDs" in the mode line are now displayed during VT320 emulation.
9. Improved handling of ", STAY" on the Kermit command line.
10. Improved (i.e. working) support for IBM EBIOS with LAN Async Server. Thanks
    to Steve Knudson of IBM and Susan Bramhall of Yale University for their
    help on this topic.  EBIOS communications is now available via the new
    command SET PORT EBIOS <port value of 1..4>.
11. LATIN-1 is now spelled LATIN1.
12. Invoke message "Resume or New" when selecting a DECnet node while a DECnet
    connection is still active.
13. Preserve Tektronix pixel operation code around display of text.
14. Correct failure to turn on bypass mode by Control-X in the Tek emulator.
15. Add 20 msec delay between sending XOFF to host and shutting down the port
    when performing a RUN or PUSH command, to allow the character enough time
    to exit the port.
16. Correct scrolling action of ESC [ Pn E in text emulator.
17. Make timeout when expecting packet EOL character a forgivable error.
18. Set single file skip flag ('X') when rejecting a file because of attribute
    packet reasons, to block further file transfer packets from hosts which
    fail to obey the protocol on attributes packet file rejection indicators.
19. Increase the number of VT340 color palettes to 256 (only the first 16 are
    reportable) to accomdate DEC's RETOS package.
20. Let Horizontal Tab in Tek emulator space at 8 column increments.  This
    assists WordPerfect and other programs overwriting text on the graphics
    screen in a formatted fashion.
21. Allow files to be written to Novell file server disks, and stop unwanted
    access of drive A:.  The problem was the standard way of asking DOS
    about space on the destination drive always yielded drive A: if the
    real drive was a Novell file server.  This caused drive A: to power up
    and yield an incorrect value for the disk space (none if nothing is in
    drive A:). AT&T STARLAN has no such problems.  If you see this problem
    the workaround is: SET ATTRIBUTE LENGTH OFF.
22. Correct screen rollback allocation if machine has more than 508KB of
    memory free after Kermit loads its main body.
23. Correct line erasure problem with double width lines.
24. Correctly parse DOS command line word "stay" to remain in Kermit.
25. Ensure user specified value for SET RECEIVE TIMEOUT always applies.
26. Clear DOS keyboard buffer when exiting Connect mode via Control-].  Some
    systems may retain a Control-Break (^C) in the buffer from Connect mode
    operations.
27. Numerous corrections to the character set translation tables.  Thanks to
    many correspondents for their sharp powers of observation.
28. Correct problem of losing the last two command characters of
    REMOTE HOST command>filespec  when the ">filespec" redirection is used.