Subject: New TSO Kermit in Pascal
From: M70B@CBEBDA3T
Date: 05/07 05:43:19

Finally my version of TSO-KERMIT is finished.  I read in a file on the
KERMIT-server that you're expecting my version since a year.  I have had my
program for beta-test since Nov 85, but the guys were not so sensitive to
inform me about their experiences.  But on our installation we run it with
great success.

There is a total of 7 files, containing the following:

     * TS2DS.ASM     Some ASM routines for TSODS command
     * TS2DS.INS     Installation procedure for TSODS command
     * TS2DS.PLI     Some PL/I rotines for TSODS command

     # TS2KER.INS    Installation of TSO/KERMIT
     # TS2KER.DOC    User's Guide of TSO/KERMIT
     # TS2KER.ASM    Some ASM routines for KERMIT
     # TS2KER.PAS    KERMIT main program

*) The TSODS command is used within the KERMIT program, to redirect
   TSO command output into a temporary file, accessible from the PASCAL
   main program.

   Fritz Buetikofer
   Amt fuer Informatik des Kt. Bern
   Laengassstrasse 51
   CH-3012 BERN (Switzerland)
   BITNET: M70B@CBEBDA3T

[Ed. - The files are installed in KER:TS2*.* on CU20B, and TS2* * on CUVMA.
This version is based in part on the Pascal/VS Kermit for VM/CMS by Victor
Lee of Queen's University.  This version of Kermit is more advanced than the
old assembler version from the University of Chicago (KER:TSO*.*); it allows
transfer of binary files, includes 8th-bit prefixing, wildcard send, repeat
count compression (receive only), alternate block checks, server mode, etc.
It runs only on line-mode ASCII connections through a 3705-style front end;
there is currently no support for Series/1-style protocol converters.]

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Date: 23 Sep 86  14:15 CET
From: Fritz Buetikofer <[email-masked]>
Subject: New Release 1.6 of KERMIT/TSO

Since May 86 some bugs in the version 1.4 have appeared. And furthermore
some new commands have been implemented:

 * Bugs fixed and error handling improved in the routine which checks
   for the presence of a file (Check_Dsn).
 * New command TAKE to execute KERMIT-commands from within a file.
 * When displaying STATUS screen, you will find a notice, whether
   the INIT-file (KERMIT.SETUP) has been found or not.
 * New command SET ATOE/ETOA to modify the ASCII <-> EBCDIC translation
   tables, while running KERMIT.
 * New command SET INCOMPLETE, to specify what has to be done with a
   file when user aborts the transfer.
 * Update of SEND command, so that the user may specify a filename,
   which is sent to the micro (instead of generating one automatically).

For the very next future, I'm going to implement a STATISTICS command,
handling of attribute packets and (maybe) long packets.  All modifications
and improvements I made are inside the pascal source.  All I had to do is to
adapt the documentation file to all changes.

Regards to all TSO freaks, F.Buetikofer

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Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1987
From: Fritz Buetikofer <[email-masked]>
Subject: New Release 2.0 of Kermit/TSO

Good new year ... good news !!!

Finally I found time to implement long packets into Kermit/TSO !

After reading thorougly the documentation of long packets and sliding
windows, I decided to try an implementation of long packets only,
because you don't get any full duplex channels on a TSO system
(Here I refer to the letter of Roger Fajman of Tue, 30 Jul 1985).
To my astonishment the changes for long packets were not so many !!
And after one day of testing I had the first transfer with long packets
running. As we are connected via a local area network to the host,
I decided to start with a maximum packet size of 1K, which seems to be
wide spread. Then I thought it would be useful, to set the checktype
automatically to 3 (CRC), if the packet size exceeds a certain limit,
which I put to 256 chars. In this period I found severe problems
in this Kermit version, because it sent wrong checktypes in certain
cases. So I had to fix this too ...

At this point I'd like to send a 'thank you' to the makers of Kermit-MS.
As the latest test version of Kermit-MS supports long packets, I had
a good test partner for my version.

In the past time I had some questions about the extended ascii table,
supported in my Kermit version. I think I should explain a little bit
more what I mean with this feature:
   In early days of filetransfer, people usually sent programs to and
fro, and these programs normally included only characters in the range
of ASCII 32..126. And all text formating was done on the micros. But
later, people wanted to share the text documents with others. And
these texts include now simple graphics characters, greek chars and in
Europe our special characters, the 'Umlaute'! There I thought it should
be possible to specify on the mainframe side a table (or maybe only
a table-extension). And in the original CMS version of Victor Lee I
found this table and implemented a full ASCII table according to the
character set of the IBM PC. When I tranfer files from my MAC I have to
modify this table using an external file with SET ATOE's.

Well, these are all notes I'd like to append to this new Kermit version.
Changes have been made mainly to the Pascal source, the assembler
subroutines to be able to handle 1K packets instead of 94 chars, in
the documentation file and some little modifications in the install
procedure ... so you have to get all TS2KER files !!

I hope you enjoy this new version and take profit of the increased
transfer rate of up to 200% (with long packets) !!

-----Fritz

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Date:        18 Sep 87 09:47:24 ADT
Subject:     Yet another version of ts2 kermit
From:        "Michael J. MacDonald" <MIKEMAC@UNB>

  I have modified ts2 kermit so that it works through the ibm3705 and
  the ibm7171 in transparent mode.  If your interested I will package it
  into a reasonable form and send it to you.

 Michael MacDonald
 Software Specialist, School of Computer Science
 University of New Brunswick
 Po. Box 4400
 Fredericton, New Brunswick
 CANADA    E3B 5A3

 (506) 453-4566

 Netnorth/BITNET: MIKEMAC @ UNBMVS1

(This message was forwarded to Fritz, and Mike was encouraged to get together
with Fritz to combine their work.)

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Date: 01 OCT 87   15:13  GMT
From: [email-masked]  (F.Buetikofer, Help desk UNI Bern)
Subject: Maintenance Release 2.3 of TSO kermit
Keywords: TSO Kermit

After a hot summer while I did not very much additional work on my
TSO-Kermit, I encountered some hidden bugs ... and fixed them.

The biggest problem was a system connected with 300 baud (!) to our
mainframe.  TSO Kermit didn't check for the right Y packet to come in, and
continued sending. This should be fixed now.  Another not official goodie is,
that my kermit should understand attribute packets (they are logged to the
KERMIT.LOG file, so I can analyse what's coming from the micro).

I'm appending the hottest version of Kermit (Pascal and documentation)
so you can put it in the distribution library.

Thanks and regards ... Fritz

[Ed. - And thanks to you!  The new files are in KER:TS2KER.PAS and
KER:TS2KER.DOC.  The other KER:TS2*.* files remain unchanged.]

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