Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!eagle.wesleyan.edu!jtreworgy
From: jtreworgy@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Handshake gripes (was Re: Does ARP have problems?)
Message-ID: <1991Mar17.014544.40347@eagle.wesleyan.edu>
Date: 17 Mar 91 06:45:44 GMT
References: <910316.180915.CST.C506634@umcvmb.missouri.edu>
Organization: Wesleyan University
Lines: 41

In article <910316.180915.CST.C506634@umcvmb.missouri.edu>, C506634@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU (Eric Edwards) writes:
> In Message-ID: <2147@public.BTR.COM>
>           thad@public.BTR.COM (Thaddeus P. Floryan) said:
>>Hmmm, wondering about all the recent flak over HandShake 2.20c, I recovered
>>it from floppy (after doing "CLI> delete hand
>>it (using the ARTM monitor ... great program, by the way) was the ONLY thing
>>on my system bringing in the ARP library.  And HandShake 2.20c is the ONLY
>>thing on my system(s) that causes a guru without undue provocation.
>>
>>Are we "on" to something here?  Just curious.
> Doubtfull.  The only part of ARP that Handshake uses is the file requester.
> The major problems that people have been having with Handshake is with XPR's
> especially Zmodem.
> 
> For the record, here's another handshake bug that's been there since at least
> 1.60b..   Under very low memory conditions or heavy fragmentation, try to open
> the phonebook.  LOCKUP.  No messages, no guru.  No problems with the rest of
> the system but now you have a large application dead in the water, eating
> memory. For those of us with only 1 meg, the only real option is a three finger
> salute.

I have found that Handshake is just not a stable program as long as I have
tried to use it... I have had the same lockup problems with or without external
protocols. The phonebook, as you said, causes lockups sometimes, I haven't
noticed any correlation with low memory though... but the most annoying thing
(I just don't use the phone book to avoid that one) is that random input (i.e.
someone picks up the phone while modeming, or random line noise) can often
cause a crash!!! This is not good. In my situation it crashes often enough to
make it not very usable, or at least very frustrating, so I rarely use it
nowadays and use VLT instead. (By the way I use the same Zmodem external
protocol on both programs, and VLT has NEVER crashed on me under any
circumstances. A very sound program.) This is fine for me since a VT100 is good
enough for my needs.... another (peeve) about handshake is that it produces a
vertical line on the right of the character position when there should be a
space sometime. I don't know why; the circumstances are when running VMS news
and a couple others. I don't know if there is some alternate space character
which he didn't define properly, but it's not there on a REAL VT220. Well,
that's enough whining for one day...
-- 
James A. Treworgy    -- No quote here for insurance reasons --
jtreworgy@eagle.wesleyan.edu         jtreworgy@WESLEYAN.BITNET