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From: KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch")
Newsgroups: mod.telecom
Subject: PC Pursuit
Message-ID: <8611170756.AA27746@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Sun, 16-Nov-86 02:29:53 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8611170756.AA27746
Posted: Sun Nov 16 02:29:53 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Nov-86 09:00:25 EST
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    [Readers are encouraged to submit on their experience with Telenet PC
     Pursuit.  Mine has been very discouraging, typical of GTE. -elmo]

  There are several things I don't like about PC Pursuit:

  o  Lines from here (DC area) to Boston are frequently busy  (I seldom
     connect to other cities).
  o  The modems (or perhaps the phone lines) in Boston are often very
     susceptable to noise.
  o  You have to include the baud rate in your connect command, which
     is silly because the system must already know what baud rate you
     are at.
  o  When a city is busy, you have to reenter the city command, baud
     rate, your username, and your password.  There is no queueing for
     a busy city, you have to keep re-entering all these things over
     and over again.
  o  If you mistype the city, baud rate, username, or password, you
     can't correct it with <DEL> or <BS>.  You have to retype the
     whole thing.
  o  They claim they hang up on you if you are idle for 25 minutes -
     actually it is more like ten minutes.  This is too short.
  o  Sometimes I get connected to a modem someone is trying to call in
     on.  I see "RING" every few seconds and can enter no modem
     commands.  If I disconnect and reconnect, I get the same modem.
     I can do nothing until the caller gives up.
  o  There is no way to let the user specify a given modem in a city.
     One might want to do this if one modem seemed to be unusually
     susceptible to line noise, or if someone was trying to call in
     on one modem.
  o  There is no way to disconnect and specify that the modem should
     wait a minute before disconnecting.  One might want to do this
     if one telephone trunk was unusually noisy and one wants a chance
     to get another.
  o  They only accept payment by credit card, not by check or cash,
     even if you offer to pay in advance.  This is a considerable
     incovenience for those of us who have chosen not to have credit
     cards.
  o  If you neglect to reset or hangup the distant modem when you are
     done, or if PC Pursuit hangs up on you, the next caller can
     have the distant modem redial the number you dialed, which is a
     security misfeature.

  However, for all its faults, it is the best thing in its class,
otherwise I wouldn't use it.  I look forward to improvements and
competitors.

  Does anyone know what the "terminal" prompt is for?  If I say
anything but "D1" it seems to work almost as well, but pauses briefly
after each line of text from the far host.
								...Keith
[The terminal prompt is similar to the old TIP command @D C which sets
 the number of padding characters sent after a carriage return.   Telenet's
 is a bit more sophisticated, allowing some variation as to WHERE the
 padding is placed.  What I found discouraging is that the Telenet technicians
 don't know anything beyond how to cross-reference your given terminal
 in their chart.  Not very useful when I said "Ann Arbor Ambassador"...
 As I recall D1 specifies NO padding.  -Elmo]