Boston Computer Society Laptop Group Tuesday, April 28, 1987 Boston Globe, Boston Massachusetts The meeting started at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, April 28, 1987, at the Boston Globe. Despite the snowstorm(!!!) enough people showed up to take every available chair in the room. (Please note: a snowstorm at the end of April is abnormal even by Boston standards.) Al Goldman introduced the meeting subject: computer-to-computer communications. The model 100 and 102 work very well for communications with their built-in modems; the desktop computers are a little more difficult to use. Al described a program available from Compuserve called FLTIBM.DOC. This program runs on the IBM PC or compatible computer and allows easy file transfers. You can connect your Model 100 to your PC either through a telephone line or directly by using a "null modem cable." Al passed out a handout which included a wiring diagram for a null modem (also available from Radio Shack, catalog number 26-1496). A null modem has a male DB25 connector and a female DB 25 connector. The pins are connected as follows: MALE Pin Signal Connected to (on Female) 1 Common 1 TX 2 Transmit Data 3 RX 3 Receive Data 2 RTS 4 Request to Send 5 CTS 5 Clear to Send 4 DSR 6 Data Set Ready 8 7 Signal Return 7 8 6, 20 DTR 20 Data Terminal Ready 8 Bill Gerber, the meeting moderator, introduced Scott Anderson of Traveling Software who spoke about the TS products LAPDOS and MACDOS, with which you can connect the Tandy Portable Disk Drive to the IBM PC or compatible and the Macintosh, respectively. He also showed Traveling Software's "Laplink" -- this allows you to transfer data between two MS-DOS machines, for instance machines that use different size disks. ("Brooklyn Bridge" is a similar program.) Laplink comes with all the necessary cables and program disks. It transfers at 115,000 Baud, connecting the serial ports of the two machines. Each end of the cable has a DB-25 and a DB-9 plug so that you can plug it into any machine. LAPDOS and MACDOS are $95 apiece, and LAPLINK is $125. Bill Gerber then introduced Ted Rider of RCA to speak about uploading and downloading data from the DEC VAX. Ted handed out a simple-to-follow recipe for transferring files to the VAX and back using the VMS operating system on the VAX. Here it is: MODEL 100 TO VAX COMMUNICATION TURN ON GET MENU RIGHT ARROR TO TELCOM, CR GET TELCOM F1 FIND: VAX, OR ? VAX IDENT AND TELEPHONE NUMBER FROM ADRS CR CALLING -- WAIT FOR CURSOR CR, CR NTS1 (OR WHATEVER YOUR VAX SAYS) CALL (NODE NAME) CONNECTED TO (NODE NAME) CR USERNAME? (YOUR APPROVED USER NAME) PASSWORD? (YOUR APPROVED PASSWORD) NOW YOU GET THE STANDARD LOGON MESSAGES, TYPICALLY WITH AN ERROR INDICATION, SINCE THE VAX DOESN'T RECOGNIZE A M100 $ TO UPLOAD: CREATE FILE: (NAME THE FILE) F3 (UPLOAD) FILE NAME? XXXXXX.DO, CR UPLOAD TAKES PLACE CONTROL C INTERRUPT; YOU GET THE $ BACK LOGOFF, OR JUST LO STANDARD LOGOFF MESSAGE DISCONNECT? STANDARD TELCOM DISCONNECT TO DOWNLOAD: F2 (DOWNLOAD) FILE NAME XXXXXX.DO TYPE (VAX FILE) DOWNLOAD TAKES PLACE GO THROUGH DISCONNECT SERIES $ LO OR LOGOFF NTS1, OR OTHER VAX STATEMENT F8 DISCONNECT? Y, CR TELCOM F8 MENU Question: Do your files have to end with control-Z? Answer: Haven't been doing that; someone suggested that this may be why the VAX requires a Control-C at the end to get its attention. Note: switches on side of Model 100 must be set to ORIG and DIR. The next speaker (whose name I didn't catch) works with the BCS Education group and spoke on transferring files from the Tandy 102 to the Macintosh using Red Ryder. Red Ryder is a "shareware" telecommunications program for he Macintosh. When a file is uploaded to the Macintosh, the result is a TEXT file; MacWrite will automatically convert it to a "MacWrite" file. Question: is there a limit to the buffer size? Ans: Probably limited to memory in Mac; a bigger problem is occasional garbled characters. The transfer is done without any error checking. Scott Anderson noted that you may get better results with the Modem port; reason is that the printer port is not designed for lots of characters coming in. The modem port is optimized for very fast character input. Seth Froelich told us about Disk+. This is really 2 programs, one of which you run on a desktop machine, the other of which is a ROM chip for the model 100 or 102. You install the ROM chip and CALL 63012 on the Model 100; on the main menu you will now see DISK+. This program basically allows you to use the desktop's disk drive as your disk drive for the Model 100. Kind of the mirror image of Lapdos/Macdos. You connect the two machines with a null-modem cable and run the desktop program and DISK+. You can look at the list of files in the Model 100 or on the desktop's disk, transferring files up and down. The files are stored in a special format; on the desktop machine you use utility programs (supplied) to convert the files for use on the desktop computer. Programs written in Basic for the Model 100 will often run on the IBM PC. Question: What desktop machines are supported? Answer: Apple II, TRS-80 model 1, 2, 4, MS-DOS machines (including IBM PC, Tandy 1000 etc.), many others. (It did not run on Seth's Hewlett Packard MS-DOS machine -- it crashed.) Mr. Froelich also has an HP-110. He has a special card inside his IBM PC called a HP82973A HPIL Interface card. Then he runs HPLINK on the IBM; the portable machine appears to be disks D and E on the IBM. Question: After you send a file from the Model 100 to the IBM, is it useable and editable on the IBM? Ans: Usually; it is in ASCII. Note: IBM Basic is a little different; requires spaces within lines where Model 100 doesn't. A program on Compuserve, EXPAND.BA, will add the spaces. Next speaker was Jim Franklin, our host (representing the Boston Globe). He has an Epson Geneva and uses public-domain programs; they are cheap but sometimes flukey or hard to use. He described programs similar to FLTIBM for CP/M machines such as Kaypro, Osborne and Epson Geneva. SIGEA Systems, scheduled to be present, unfortunately did not make it, so Mark Lutton talked about their Telecommuter product (as a user; he is not a representative of SIGEA). First of all, this program provides a word processor and telecommunications for the IBM PC that are as simple to use as the ones on the Model 100. As if that weren't enough, there is a built-in, easy fast file transfer between the PC and the Model 100. But wait, there's more: you get exactly the right kind of null modem cable. AND you can set the PC up in Host Mode so you can call it with your Model 100 and transfer files or run DOS commands remotely. The meeting was opened to questions and answers. As usual someone asked, "How do you get line feeds out of the Model 100?" so here is the answer yet again: To automatically add linefeeds when a file is uploaded through the serial port or sent to a serial printer, in BASIC POKE 63066,1. To reset to normal, POKE 63066,0. To add linefeeds for a parallel printer, use LFUTL.PW1, available from the Model 100 SIG on Compuserve in DL7. The meeting then degenerated into the usual free-for-all and everyone went home through the snow.