Kermit-11 known problems 07-Apr-1986 09:37 (Pending) On RT11 FB systems with a large number of devices, Kermit can displace the USR (force it to swap) and crash when accessing the USR from the higher addressed overlays in Kermit. The fix for something like this may not be practical; it can be worked around by UNLOADING and REMOVING unneeded device drivers from lowest address to higher addresses (to prevent fragmentation of background memory). If you run K11RT4.SAV on a FB system and find either (1) The program crashes on file transfers or (2) KMON says the save image is too large, then remove the unneeded drivers and set the USR to swap. 24-MAR-1986 14:23 (Fixed in version 3.49) Attribute processing is incorrect for some attribute types. This dates back to April 1984 when support was first added, but no other versions were available to test against. The correction, made to K11ATR.MAC, will cause V3.49 or later of Kermit-11 to have compatability problems with previous versions of Kermit-11. The main problem will be in informing each other of binary file arrival; the only workaround is to explicitly force two communicating Kermit-11's into binary mode with the SET FILE command. See K11INS.DOC for further information. The specific problem is that the protocol requires the attribute TYPE field to be followed by a LENGTH byte to specify the number of characters following. Kermit-11 was not always inserting the LENGTH field. The new version, 3.49, will be able to tell if an older Kermit-11 is sending in the incorrect format by virtue of the fact that the first attribute packet that is sent is the system id code and operating system. Since this attribute will always be a short one (2 or 3 characters at most) it is a simple matter to detect the presence of a 'D' (for DEC) in the position of the LENGTH field and set a flag accordingly. However, in the case of the corrected Kermit-11 sending to a pre 3.49 version, this will not be the case and all attempts to rely on the transfer of attribute packets will fail. brian@uoft02.bitnet ------------------------------ .sbttl getcm1 check for additional input needed ; G E T C M 1 ; ; input: @r5 current command buffer ; 2(r5) command table address ; 4(r5) index of the current command ; ; output: r0 index of current command or < 0 for error ; argbuf any additional input or rest of the command line .enabl lsb ; /55/ getcm1: save ; Save registers that we destroy sub #100 ,sp ; /55/ Allocate a small buffer for mov sp ,r2 ; /55/ saving the command prompt. tst wasnul ; /45/ Was the command for ? beq 10$ ; /45/ No clr wasnul ; /45/ Not null anymore clr r0 ; /45/ Yes, return index 0 br 110$ ; /45/ Exit 10$: mov @r5 ,r1 ; Get command line address scan #40 ,r1 ; Look for a space that might delimit tst r0 ; the command name from an argument beq 30$ ; Nothing there add r1 ,r0 ; Point to the string after the space COPYZ r0,argbuf,#200 ; Copy the command arg over please br 100$ ; And exit 30$: mov 4(r5) ,r3 ; Get the command index mul #$listl*2,r3 ; If no arg given, see if one is needed add 2(r5) ,r3 ; Add in base address of command table mov .cmdar(r3),r3 ; Get the argument prompt now tstb @r3 ; Anything there that is required ? beq 100$ ; No, so take a normal exit then. STRCPY r2 ,r3 ; /55/ Copy the prompt over now 40$: CALLS kbredi , ; /55/ Read a command from the keyboard tst r0 ; And exit if it failed for whatever bne 90$ ; The read failed (control Z typed). tst cccnt ; No, but is there a Control C? bne 90$ ; Yes, treat as end of file CALLS cvt$$,;Remove junk, convert to upcase tst r0 ; Is there anything left ? beq 40$ ; No, reprompt and try again mov r0 ,r1 ; Something is left, point to the add argbuf ,r1 ; end of the line and null terminate clrb @r1 ; ... br 100$ ; Take normal exit 90$: MESSAGE ; /55/ Insure a carriage return mov #cmd$ab ,r0 ; Control Z on keyboard read. br 110$ ; And exit 100$: mov 4(r5) ,r0 ; Return command index 110$: add #100 ,sp ; /55/ Pop the temporary buffer unsave ; Restore registers we used return ; And exit .dsabl lsb ; /55/ global ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Mar 87 13:00 EST From: Lewis M. Dreblow - PSYCH at UFFSC Subject: Kermit-11 Problem Discovered and Solved Keywords: Kermit-11 I wish to inform the user community of a problem which occurred with the K11 release of Kermit. I was trying to use kermit on a 11/23 running RTV5 and TSXV5. I had no trouble using the release as a server, but kept getting hung whenever I tried to do a get or send to another remote server. It didn't matter what machine was on the server end. After about a month of tearing my hair out I discovered that I had TSGENed IOABT = 0 which caused TSX to wait for IO completion on jobs. This seemed fine at TSGEN time, but due to the .ABTIO MCALL in K11PRT caused kermit to hang for two minutes at every get or send command. Thus, users should be aware that they have to either (1) TSGEN IOABT = 1 or (2) at the command line (or in a command file) prior to running kermit issue the SET IO ABORT command. You may want to remember to SET IO NOABORT after running kermit as well. ------------------------------ Date: Fri 17 Jul 87 12:46:56-EDT From: Christine M Gianone Subject: K11 Kermit and MS-DOS Kermit at 9600 Baud Keywords: K11 Kermit, MS-DOS Kermit Randy Rushton (215) 628-4530 is trying to transfer a text file from the PDP11 to the IBM PC (Using the latest versions of Kermit I believe). It works fine at 2400 baud but not at 9600. Is this because of the PDP11's front end buffer size? Is there a work-around? Date: Tue, 28 Jul 87 10:23 EDT From: (Brian Nelson) Subject: k11 This is really dependant on about 10,000 things. I run 9600 all the time and have no problems. Maybe its RT11 and multi-terminal support? If so then the max speed for that runs around 4800, but real thruput is down around 100 cps due to extremely high overhead. If thats what they are using they should switch to a dl11 or clone interface and use the xl handler from rt 5.1 or later. Anyway, thats the only case where I know there is a restriction. As far as the other exec's go, xon/xoff works pretty good. M+ has buffering to 255 chars, rsts 9.x has buffering settable up to 7K or so. Brian ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Dec 86 18:41 GMT From: (H.Wipf) Subject: News, and ask for files Regards, Wipf Hansruedi Odesstech Consulting Office Mainroad 26 CH-2542 Pieterlen / Swiss Telephon : +41(32)87 33 42 (office/privat: 8.00AM-8.00PM/GMT) Electronic Mail: kermit@czheth5a.bitnet MailBox : +41(32)87 33 43 (24 Hour, 7 Day per week) 300_1200/75_1200_2400Baud/8_Bit/NoParity/1_Stopbit Just for a info: We (by means "I") in Switzerland have improved a bit Kermit-11 for RT-11 (as I'm specialist for that system), according with Brian Nelson. Now because of a miss-understand with Brian we have two dif- ferent kermit-11 of version 3.54, one in the USA distribued by Brian and one (a field-test version) in european (specialy in Switzerland and in German) which are not completely command com- patible, I have added some what such as: -- CAPTURE filnam, a command which do the same as the command sequence "SET LOG FILE filnam\SET DEBUG CONSOL"; -- SET TRANSMIT [NO]LF, used to control Xmit of when pre- ceded by a ; -- SET TRANSMIT [NO]EOF, used to control Xmit of when EOF whas detected; -- SET TRANSMIT [NO]ECHOPLEX, used to control echoplex (which mean of a transfer protocol which wait for the echo of a character transmitted, trying 8 time to correct any differ- ences of Xmit-Char's and Rcvd-Char's). This whas very use- full for message down-loading to to mailbox systems in ter- minal emulation mode of kermit. Howere, most other modifications are transparent to user, exept that "my" version can be assembled with either RT11 V4's MACRO assembler or with the new feature of MACRO-11 from RT11 V5 and later. I have also adaped some command's like the server log-off "BYE" command to be recognized and exected under SHARE-Plus and SHARE-11. Please can you edit a bit this P.S. for your digest infos! ------------------------------ Date: Fri 18 Sep 87 15:12:42-EDT From: Frank da Cruz Subject: K11 install procedure Somebody sent me about 50 pages of DCL procedures, etc, for installing K11 on RSX (printed). I'll forward them to you. You might want to contact the guy (who says he is "enthralled" with the latest release), and get the stuff in machine-readable form, check it out, and we'll include it with the distribution. In case it gets lost in the mail, he's Dean Fejes of Lin-Dea Inc, phone 813-597-2291. - Frank ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Feb 89 12:09 EST From: Subject: Kermit on RSTS 7.2 Just got Kermit working this morning (Feb. 14), seems to work fine. We are running 2 PDP 11/70's, one under RSTS 8.0 and the other under 7.2 due to the way in which some of our programs are written. They won't run under 8.0. We've had kermit running under 8.0 for a few years but I've always been told by others on our staff that it wouldn't run under 7.2. Well, we are looking at shutting down the 11/70 with the 8.0 version of RSTS and I had to start digging on finding a version of kermit for 7.2 or something like it. I then found in the documentation that it would run under 7.2. Looks like kermit is running fine, the only difference I can find so far, and I haven't looked at it much, is that I have to set attributes off before I can send anything from the micro to the 11/70. I can receive files without doing this but cannot send them to the host. Anyway as long as I know what to do, I'm in good shape. Thanks for your reply! Terry Lewis University of Tennessee at Martin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Feb 89 14:37 EDT From: Brian Nelson Subject: RE: [: Kermit on RSTS 7.2] Thanks. Re attributes on/off, there was something I sent to you a while back with msdos kermit and retry limits, xfer would fail on attribute packets unless I set the retry cound up on the pc past the default to account for the # of atribute packets I send. There are other problems with k11 on 7.2 that can show up, perhaps it would be a good idea for me to document them. brian ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Nov 91 20:59:33 -0500 From: billy@mix.com Subject: Kermit-11 floppy swapping problem solved To: brian@uoft02.utoledo.edu Problem: RT Kermit does not notice when you remove a diskette and then insert another one. Here's the fix, in the opndev routine in K11RTD: ; force USR to re-read dir segment, allowing one to swap floppies.. BLKEY = 256 ; /BBS/ RMON dir seg number in memory .lock ; /BBS/ lock the USR in memory, then .pval #rtwork ,#BLKEY ,#0 ; /BBS/ force it to re-read the dir .lookup #rtwork ,#lun.sr,r1 ; open the DEVICE for input .unlock ; /BBS/ now release the USR.. bcs 100$ ; can not find it clr r0 ; no errors Billy Y.. ------------------------------