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From: ljz@well.UUCP (Lloyd Zusman)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: PD Communications Program Wanted
Message-ID: <1054@well.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-May-86 20:01:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: well.1054
Posted: Fri May  9 20:01:40 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 11-May-86 05:38:11 EDT
References: <2149@uwmacc.UUCP> <512@ethos.UUCP> <135@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Reply-To: ljz@well.UUCP (Lloyd Zusman)
Organization: Whole Earth Lectronic Link, Sausalito CA
Lines: 56

In article <135@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> cjdb@sphinx.UUCP (Charles Blair) writes:
>
>
>Spend the money and buy Crosstalk. Supports Kermit (have used), XMODEM
>(have not used), and emulates a number of terminals. I emulate a VT-100
>on a DEC-20 to do Emacs and spreadsheets, and a TVI-920 to emulate a
>3270 (I'm going through a protocol converter) to do work on an Amdahl.
>You can run other programs from within Crosstalk (like your editor, if
>you have enough memory). Also, Microstuf's technical support people, when
>their phone isn't busy, are quite helpful. I've used a version of
>Procomm, and didn't seem to find a "script" facility like Crosstalk's
>for automating logins. Is there a version that supports such
>a facility?

(1)  PROCOMM *does* have a script facility in its later versions.  It
     can be used for automating logins.  You can run your editor from
     later versions of PROCOMM, just as in Crosstalk.

(2)  The only program you can explicity run from Crosstalk is your
     editor (or whatever you tell it your editor is).  To run other
     programs, Crosstalk lets you start up the command processor
     (whatever's in COMSPEC) as a subshell.  PROCOMM works exactly
     the same way (later versions, again).

(3)  PROCOMM's terminal emulation still seems to have a few bugs in it
     (as of version 2.3 ... see another message I left a day or two
     ago here).

(4)  Crosstalk emulates the VT-100 very painfully.  I find it nearly
     impossible to use EDT (on VAX, VMS) with Crosstalk's choice of
     keymappings on the VT-100 emulation.  PROCOMM's mappings are a little
     better.  PC-VT (public domain VT100 emulator) does a great job.

(5)  I have a long-standing gripe about Crosstalk.  It still (as of
     version 3.6) doesn't support full path names.  It has a CD command,
     but it's hard to use in scripts because it always asks you on the
     command line if you really want to change directories.  Plus,
     once you've changed directories, you can't find any system files,
     help files, script files, etc. until you change directory back
     again.  DOS 2.0 has been out for a couple years or so with full
     pathnames, and Microstuf still hasn't gotten around to supporting
     them.

(6)  Crosstalk does a good job on the nuts and bolts communications.  It
     seems really solid, and all the protocols seem to work.  PROCOMM
     seems good, too, but I haven't used it as much as I had been
     using Crosstalk.  PROCOMM does, incidentally, support Kermit, Xmodem,
     Ymodem (Xmodem with 1024 byte blocks), and Telink (used a lot on
     Fido BBS's).  Crosstalk has its own protocol, Kermit, and Xmodem
     only.

Take all this into consideration before running out and buying an
expensive product like Crosstalk.  PROCOMM's only problem that I
can see is the minor bugs in terminal emulation.  I suspect that
will be fixed soon (or maybe is fixed already by now).  On a
price-per-features basis, I think PROCOMM comes out ahead.