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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rutgers!ames!ptsfa!ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!pur-ee!j.cc.purdue.edu!ray
From: ray@j.cc.purdue.edu (Ray Moody)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
Subject: Kermit News
Message-ID: <5200@j.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: Sat, 29-Aug-87 12:07:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: j.5200
Posted: Sat Aug 29 12:07:38 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Aug-87 09:26:07 EDT
Reply-To: ray@j.cc.purdue.edu (Ray Moody)
Organization: Purdue University
Lines: 89

Hello!

We hope Kermit v2.0 has been helpful to a lot of you out there in Netland.  We
have received quite a bit of feedback as to what new features to add, and, yes,
even a few bugs. 

Currently we are working on the next release of Kermit, which will be v2.1.  
Ray is doing most of the programming, and Kent is working on a completely re-
vised manual which will include a tutorial section.  Ray is currently very busy
between class and a REAL job (gasp!) so it may take a little longer than we
would like to finish v2.1.  It will be completed ASAP.

Here are some of the things which may be new or different in v2.1: (none of the
features that aren't actually done can be guaranteed, though)

Bugs and minor improvements:

 1) SITUATION: Screen flickers in Commodore 128 mode.
    CAUSE: Wrong address computed by mistake (oops!).
    STATUS: Fixed!
    (For those of you with v2.0, here is the fix:)
        LOAD "KERMIT",8
        POKE 26018, 244
        OPEN 15,8,15,"S0:KERMIT"
        CLOSE 15
        SAVE "KERMIT",8

 2) SITUATION: Lots of words not capitalized, one or two spelled incorrectly.
    CAUSE: A conversion on the source file filtered all the capital letters
    out.
    STATUS: Fixed!

 3) SITUATION: Many people need DEL more frequently than backspace.
    CAUSE: Many people use crazy operating systems.   :-)
    FIX: Change them around.
    STATUS: Done.

 4) SITUATION: STATUS command bombs if there is a disk error (Intermittent
    bug.  Yuck).
    CAUSE: Not determined yet... just found out about it (old bug, from at
    least as far back as v1.5).
    STATUS: Working on it.

 5) SITUATION: Using some characters from the function keys can be awkward.
    CAUSE: Hard to remember which key is which, and keys are kinda hard to
    reach.
    FIX: Move the characters to the main keyboard.
    STATUS: Done.


Major features:

 1) FEATURE: Finished VT-100 emulation.  This includes the graphics character
    set, cursor key activation, PF key support, and a few re-defined keys.
    LIMITATIONS: VT-100 features not supported (in most cases due to hardware
    limitations and/or lack of memory): double height & double width
    characters, only two character sets (no foreign sets), 132 column mode,
    smooth scrolling, reverse screen (substituted changing background to a
    lighter color), LED sequences, and some terminal reports (some of them make
    no sense when using Commodore hardware).  Also, if you use the C-64 80-
    column screen driver, and you print a non-blank bold character next to a
    regular character, there is a 50/50 chance one will become the same color
    as the other.  Nothing we can do about this as it is a hardware limitation
    involving color memory.
    STATUS: Done!

 2) FEATURE: Power-C (formerly C-Power) C compiler source file translation for
    up/downloads.
    STATUS: Working on it.  Should be no problem.

 3) FEATURE: SET COLOR command (for background, border, character, bold, & lt.
    background colors).
    STATUS: Not implemented yet, but it definitely will be in v2.1.

In the future (beyond v2.1), some major work needs to be done on the command
parser and the protocol section.  Most of this work won't do much for Kermit
users, but the work has to be done to free up memory for other features (and to
clean up a bug or two).  Two things that will be introduced with the work on
the protocol will be long packets and simple file compression.

Please keep sending us your comments, suggestions, and even bug reports (Bugs?
What bugs?  :-).

					Ray Moody
					 ray@j.cc.purdue.edu
					 ihnp4!pur-ee!j.cc.purdue.edu!ray

					Kent D. Sullivan 
					 ihnp4!pur-ee!corvair