BBS Toolkit/BBS Toolkit.iso/doors_1/dw930301.zip/README

Text File | 1993-03-01 | 17KB | 410 lines

                                  DOORWAY BETA

A bug where using a /V:D and logging in locally or registering Doorway would
crash some systems has been fixed.

If you are using a fossil you can use COMXF (where X is the port number)
or SYSF to force DOORWAY to use the fossil.

If you have a non-standard port, then you can put the port number after the
SYS, ie. DOORWAY SYS:03E8:5 would use com3's uart with an irq of 5.

if you try to use SYS and /S:* it will now give an error message and ignore
the /S:*.

A new switch as been added.  The /RB switch will reboot the computer on
carrier loss, etc, instead of breaking the program.  This is better for
some systems, such as some on DV which will simple close then reopen the
window. However for many a soft reboot must be used instead of a hard reboot
so the /19 switch may need to be used as well.  Read the information on the
/19 switch, as it will often crash DOS if something like DV is not loaded.

The /T: (trap switch's operation has been changed).  If you trap an alpha
character, it will now trap both upper and lower cases of the alpha (before
it always only trapped the upper case).  Also you can put multiple characters
on the /T: line, ie. /T:Ax^C^K would trap a,A,x,X,^C and ^K.  If the switch
ends with a ^, then the ^ will be trapped.

10-15-92

DOORWAY is much better at starting at the top of the screen if you change
pages than before.  In fact you may not see any more updates that start
half way down the screen anymore.

Fixed a problem where DOORWAY did not detect some fossil drivers.  Doorway
was putting the com port number into DL, and the fossil driver was looking
at dl and dh (dx).

DOORWAY is now smarter about scrolling.  Many times DOORWAY would scroll
when there was no apparent reason for it.  This should happen less often
now.

If a program needed to load command.com for whatever reason and you had
a /h: in the command line, the program would often not load and run
properly.  DOORWAY is smarter now about looking at what command.com is
being asked to do, so that the program should now load, but the /h
is still functional to elimiate shells to dos.

10-21-92

Digiboard support.  If you are using DOORWAY with a DIGIBOARD then use
COMXD or SYSD to indicate it is to use DIGIBOARD calls (The X is the com
port number).

10-22-92

Added a /J switch to control scrolling.  Some people were previously using
a no scroll version of DOORWAY.  That can be accomplished now with a /J:25 or
higher now.  This switch sets a threshold of how many lines must match when
a scroll is done to allow a scroll instead of rewriting the whole screen.
Default is 5.  Previous versions of DOORWAY were at 1.


11-3-92

Sensing, of DWCOMM changed.  Methods are put in the public domain. If DWCOMM
or printer redirection support is not sensed then printer redirection will not
work.  Now other com programs can tell DOORWAY what they can and cannot do,
such as special character support and printer redirection.

Special character support simply means that if a character needs to be
displayed on the screen which would normally be interpreted as a control
character, such as a line feed, carriage return, or form feed, then it will
be preceeded by a NULL to indicate it is to be displayed and not interpreted.

Printer redirection is accomplished by DOORWAY sending the following string
for the printer: ESC[P#;NNN;STRING.  The # is 1-3 to indicate which LPT is
being written to, the NNN is 1 to 255 which gives the length of the string to
go to the printer, and the STRING is the string to go to the printer.

Old method (still works):  Doorway asks for cursor position.  If one comes
back it assumes ANSI is supported. If the position is returned as 0;0R then
DWCOMM is assumed on the other end and special character overrides and printer
redirection are allowed.

New Method:  Doorway sends a get cursor address.  If one comes back it assumes
ANSI supported.  If a 0;0R comes back then special character override and
printer redirection support is assumed as above.  If a true cursor position
comes back then DOORWAY will send a ESC[c, which asks the remote what it can
support. If the remote returns a ESC[?128;1;2.....c then DOORWAY will
determine what is supported.  The 128 says that it has DOORWAY support, the
;1 says that special character overrides are supported, and the ;2 says that
it supports printer redirection.  Later ;3, ;4 etc. will be used for other
supported functions, such as graphics capability.

DOORWAY announces it's entrance and exit to the calling end.  An ESC[=255h
indicates that DOORWAY mode should be turned on, and ESC[=255l indicates that
it needs to be turned off.

11-25-92

Fixed Digiboard (COM1D, COM2D etc.) where it would not do printer redirection
previously.

Fixed DOORWAY where it works with IRQ's over 7.

11-28-92

Fixed DOORWAY where it will now work with many programs which were using INT 9
to trigger reading the keyboard buffer.  Several of these are Quicken, Quick
Basic Compiler when you are in a window, and EDIT which comes with DOS 5.
Previously DOORWAY was unable to get the program to read the keyboard buffer
until someone entered a character on the HOST system.

11-29-92

DOORWAY now supports 16550 UARTS.  If it detects a 16550 it will indicate so
on the opening screen (to sysop only), and enable the buffers.

Bug found (and fixed) where menu mode would sometimes crash a system if using
Digiboard.

12-04-92

DOORWAY is now Desqview aware.  It is more selective about which interrupts
to restore under Desqview, as restoring some interrupts could cause a crash
if running under Desqview.

12-08-92

Lockup problems under Desqview on carrier loss (thought they were already
fixed), fixed again!

12-10-92

When Doorway exited it would dump the characters in the UART if it was a
16550.  It now waits until the UART is empty before resetting the UART to
previous buffer mode.  This prevented the other end from going out of no
wrap mode when exiting.

12-11-92

A /NT switch has been added.  This forces DOORWAY to not always start at
the top of screen. If a program is doing a lot of updating on an upper line
it could prevent the screen from updating completely further down.  For
instance a clock could cause DOORWAY to spend all it's time updating the top
line, and never updating below line 13.

12-14-92

Some systems with Desqview were STILL locking up on carrier loss. Fixed AGAIN!

12-16-92

OK, found that if you run DOORWY in two windows at once under Desqview,
Desqview would lock up.  This turns out it was caused by the code added to
make DOS Edit, Quick Basic editor, Quicken and other programs which refused
to read the keyboard unless there was a hardware keyboard interrupt.
Hooking and faking a keyboard interrupt on more than one partition would
lock up Desqview.  I have found a way around it, so this version should not
be a problem under Desqview, and should work with those programs as well.

12-17-92

Have improved "tracking" on the remote end when in Direct Screen Write mode.
This version will no longer allow the host to "go off and leave" the remote
when doing a directory, even though you are in direct screen write mode. It
will no longer leave gaps when doing a directory, so it is not necessary to
switch back to BIOS mode when in dos for proper remote display.


The /NT switch should no longer be required.  It has been left in for the
time being but if I don't hear that it is still needed will probably remove
it shortly.

12-20-92

Fixed problem where DOORWAY would do an external abort on some high ascii
characters when in, or after haveing been in Direct Screen mode.  This also
may fix some other random lockup problems.

12-31-92

I am determined to have all problems resolved by the end of the year. Here's
hoping.  Fixed problem intorduced by code to make Dos Edit and such work,
where entries in the menu (such as password) would lock up the system if
entered from the HOST keyboard.

1-2-93

Problems with DOORWAY not terminating a DOS session properly are addressed.

1-11-93

Problem with Doorway overwriting line 17 in BIOS mode is fixed.

Added a new capability.  The addition of an "M" to the com or sys statement
will allow DOORWAY to provide a menu for doors, but will do NO redirection,
keyboard, or time monitoring.

1-12-93

Fixed lockup when using the "M" function added yesterday if logged in in
local mode.

1-13-92

Fixed problem where some programs, such as DOS edit were locking up.

1-19-93

Found that function $40 was not being trapped on a /d disable writes.

1-20-93

Adding the M function stopped fossil from working.  Fixed.

1-25-93

Found a problem where high intensity was being interpreted as blink on some
programs, fixed.

2-5-93

Added some more characters for translation if DWCOMM in not detected, such
as lf, cr, tab, and control S.

2-9-93

Added additional delay when DOORWAY inquires about remote capabilities.  Some
modems "hold" information for a while before sending it out the mode, and this
was causing some systems to give up on a response before they should have.
This made DOORWAY not identify DWCOMM in some cases.

2-12-93

Fixed problem where high intensity background could cause remote to blink if
in direct screen write mode.

2-17-93

If Doorway was using a non-standard port, DSZ would think DOORWAY was initially
not redirecting.  This would result in DSZ turning off redirection, but not
turn it back on if DOORWAY used the PORT:XXXX:I statement.  DOORWAY
has been modified to return a 7F instead of a FF when the redirection call
is made, to indicate a non-standard com port.  Since DWXFER uses this
information, it now looks for 7F instead of FF, and must be updated at the
same time as DOORWAY if you are using them with a non-standard port.  DSZ
should now work properly with DOORWAY on non-standard ports.

2-18-93

Added a /NCD switch.  This reduces the normal 4-6 second wait for carrier loss
to be acknowledged to 0-50 mSec.  This is for some direct connections where
the CD/DTR is dropped for only a second or so to terminate.

Fixed a problem where the /I: menu would not display if the /D, disable writes
to disk was set.  Also programs which would try to write to the console would
not work with that switch set.  DOORWAY now determines if the write is to the
console, aux or PRN before trapping them with the /D:.

3-1-93

Finally found why DOORWAY would occasionally lock up under Desqview on a
carrier loss, or timeout.  DV will occasionally corrupt the BP if an int 10
is done from within an interrupt.  This has now been fixed.

                                    DWCOMM

If you use DWCOMM b or DWCOMM B on the command line DWCOMM will use the BIOS
or Fossil calls instead of it's internal handler. Note that if you use BIOS
on high speed connections, BIOS may not be able to keep up, since it is not
interrupt driven, and has no buffering.

10-22-92

Disabled CRTL-BREAKS in DWCOMM.

10-23-92

The recompilation of 10-22-92 caused a bug in the dialing where it would
show a lot of garbage characters.  Fixed.

10-27-92

Fixed a problem where if you exited a directory after a shell, DWCOMM did not
log back into the original directory.

Also carrier would be dropped when exiting a DOS shell with some modems.
This should be fixed now, but since the modems we were using did not drop
carrier I need to know if the problem still exists.

11-7-92

Added 16550 detection, and buffering. Previous versions could lose characters
with slow computers or under multitaskers at high baud rates.  Max baud is now
about 8 times higher than it was.  Also added CTS/RTS flow control to eliminate
overruns at high baud rates and with slow printers.

12-10-92

If line wrap is off, DWCOMM would display instead of performing a carriage
return or line feed if it occured in column 79.  Also it would backspace
instead of displaying when it suppose to if in column 79.

12-11-92

Reverse video would blink. Fixed.

12-15-92

Some DOORS send an ESC[0K instead of an ESC[K for clear to end of line. This
is not defined, but DOORWAY now will ignore the 0 if this code is received
and clear to the end of the line.

1-12-93

Added scroll window capability.  Galatacom sends this VT100 code, and it was
not implemented previously since it was not a true ANSI code.

1-13-93

Made so that the switches can be in any order.

Added switch "A", (ie. DWCOMM A), to make DWCOMM send ANSI codes for the
cursor keys, home and end keys.  It will detect when Doorway is active and
switch to Doorway mode automatically, and revert back to ANSI mode when it
exits DOORWAY (or other application which sends the DOORWAY mode on and off
sequences).  Without the "A" it will remain in DOORWAY mode as always.

1-31-93

Just got informed the carrier drop problem supposedly fixed 0n 10-27-92 was
still not fixed.  Still works on all our modems, so unable to test. However,
I think I have it fixed this time.

2-19-93

If you use the "a" switch to make DWCOMM send the ANSI instead of the DOORWAY
codes for Major BBS, then it will also ignore the NULL lead-in.  This is
necessary as Major precedes some ansi codes with a NULL, making the ansi
sequense display instead of being interpreted.  In this mode, DWCOMM is unable
to display special characters such as CR, LF, FF and backspace.  However, if
you drop into DOORWAY, that will be detected, and it will go to DOORWAY mode,
re-enabling all that is lost with this switch.

Major BBS sometimes sends a zero for cursor position for position 1.  DWCOMM
now will substitute a 1 for 0, if there is a 0 for cursor position.

                                    DWXFER

11-12-92

Added 16550 support.  Improved sync on bringing up and exiting.  You must
upgrade both ends, or you may find that they do not sync properly.


                                  XTABLE

12-08-92

Entering the same character twice suppose to delete the entry and restore
it to the default with proper scan code.  However it was putting in a scan
code of 0 for each entry, now fixed.

                                 DWHOST UPDATE

     Advanced Features in v3.0
     --------------------------
     This section describes some additional features in DW Host.

     o Extended  Comm Port  Specification -  DW Host now  allows you to use
     comm ports  other than  COM1 and  COM2.   If you  specify a  comm port
     greater than 2 on the setup screen (F3), you are prompted for the port
     address and interrupt (IRQ) number.  This technical detail is required
     due to the lack of standardization on COM3 and COM4.

     o No  Password Option  - Some  people are  using DW Host  to front-end
     applications which provide their own  security.  When used with  these
     applications,   the   DW Host   password   entry  requirement  becomes
     redundant.   If you  are using  DW Host v3.0  and delete  the password
     entry on the setup screen, then  as soon as a connect is  established,
     DW Host exits (or invokes the application named on the setup  screen).
     The  caller  sees  no  password  entry  prompt  when  no  password  is
     configured in the setup screen.

     o Modem Activity  Display - As  an aid in  setup trouble-shooting, all
     strings sent to the modem AND all modem responses are displayed on the
     status  screen  adjacent  to  the  new  label  of  "Modem:".    As new
     characters are sent or received from the modem while it is in  command
     state,  they  are  inserted  into  the  display at the right, shifting
     earlier data to the left in order to keep the same length display.

     o F1 or F2 to Quit in Modem Reset Error loop - You may now quit out of
     of DW Host by hitting F1 or F2 when the system is re-cycling due to  a
     modem  reset  error  (earlier  versions  required  hitting the big red
     switch).

                                 DW Host v3.0                        Page 8


     Advanced Features in v3.0 (Cont'd)
     ----------------------------------

     o Enhancements to DW  Host v3.0  include:   completely reworked  modem
     control  logic  for  more  reliable  operations.  Occurrences of modem
     reset  errors  are  far  less  frequent  (and  compatibility with more
     modems is provided) in this release.  Comm ports now may be opened  at
     speeds to 38,400 bps.  The ability to dial out to make a connection
     using the new P parm has been added (See "Operating DW Host", Page 6).