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From: tdn@spice.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA (Thomas Newton)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: MacIntosh Communications Software
Message-ID: <463@spice.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 11-Oct-85 19:13:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: spice.463
Posted: Fri Oct 11 19:13:23 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Oct-85 06:26:14 EDT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 31

The Macintosh version of Kermit that Columbia University puts out comes close
to meeting both requirements.  The current version attempts to emulate a VT100
terminal plus some of the extra features of a VT102.  And of course it handles
KERMIT file transfers; the KERMIT implementation is more complete than the one
in the versions of Red Ryder that I've seen.  Problems:  when I tried using it
with Unix (Gosling) EMACS, it garbaged the screen moderately often.  The VT100
emulation still could use some improvement.  Advantages:  MacKermit comes with
a keyboard remapping program that lets you set up a META key and that lets you
define keyboard macros.  It is also free, but note that Columbia University is
not in the distribution business:  they'll sell you a tape with > 100 versions
of Kermit for different machines for about $100?, but if you just want the Mac
version, you'll need to obtain it elsewhere.  The latest version of MacKermit,
not including the keyboard remapping program & documentation files, was posted
to net.sources.mac about a week ago by info-mac@uw-beaver.

The final version of Red Ryder 6.0 is supposed to support both VT52 and VT100
emulation.  Like version 4.0, versions 5.0, C.06 (beta), and E.06 (beta) have
support for Kermit and XMODEM text transfers.  Versions 5 and up also support
the "MacBinary" protocol used by Compuserve (you download a binary file using
XMODEM and the terminal program determines whether to use text mode or binary
mode by examining several bytes in the first packet).  When I tried using the
C.06 and E.06 versions in VT100 mode with Unix EMACS, the programs locked up.
But then, one can hardly expect beta test versions to be stable.

I don't know anything about VersaTerm, having never seen the release version.
But between MacTerminal {-0.15,1.1}, beta Red Ryder {C.06, E.06}, and Kermit
{0.8(33)}, I still haven't found one program entirely suitable for both screen
editing and downloading.

                                        -- Thomas Newton
                                           Thomas.Newton@spice.cs.cmu.edu