Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!clyde!maxwell!jean
From: jean@maxwell.Concordia.CA ( JEAN GOULET )
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Making an SX-212 work with Kermit-65
Summary: Need good SX-212 handler
Message-ID: <1205@clyde.Concordia.CA>
Date: 12 Sep 89 04:36:52 GMT
Sender: news@Clyde.Concordia.CA
Reply-To: jean@maxwell.Concordia.Ca ( JEAN GOULET )
Organization: Concordia University, Montreal Quebec
Lines: 31

After hours of effort in trying to make Kermit-65 work with my SX-212, I've
finally discovered something that might be the culprit.  It appears that the
SX.COM handler (written by James C. Dillow) is the real problem, as it does
not appear to emulate an 850 handler enough.

The thing is that the Kermit-65 code checks DVSTAT (746) and if it's not zero,
there's an error.  The 850 handler apparently uses each bit in DVSTAT as an
error indicator.  However, the SX.COM handler doesn't do that at all.  It
seems to use DVSTAT as some kind of counter for the number of bytes left in
the input buffer, just like DVSTAT+1, except different.

The end effect of this is that I haven't been able to use Kermit-65 because
it thinks the modem is spitting out errors, so what it does is zero out
the input buffer counter, so I don't see received data most of the time!

I see three solutions here.  1) Get a better SX-212 handler.
                             2) Rewrite parts of SX.COM (yech)    
                             3) Rewrite parts of Kermit-65

Solution #1 is the best one so if any of you have or know of an SX-212 handler
that works with Kermit-65, please UUencode and post or mail it.  Solution #2
would be difficult at best.  Solution #3 is possible, as I am in the process
of adding an XEP-80 handler to Kermit-65, meaning that I already have to
make changes to it, but if I redo the modem interface part of it for the
SX.COM handler, then it won't work with the 850, and that's no good.

                                             Jean Goulet
                                             Electrical Engineering
                                             Class of '89
                                             Concordia University
                                             Montreal, Canada