jmg@cernvax.UUCP (jmg) (08/26/85)
Having installed version 1.6 of Kermit this weekend, there are a number of obvious problems which may or may not affect other users. Since I have not seen any messages of a similar nature, I detail these problems here. Maybe there are fixes available. First problem concerns machines with the old (buggy) Kernel ROM; the one where updating the screen location also plugs the corresponding colour location with the current colour. The manifestation of this happens on such keys as <return> and <backspace> (i.e. f7). These cause a white blob if you hit the key when the flashing cursor is in its white phase. This is equally true with my 1541 Flash Kernel ROM. I tried a correction program which I found in the British Commodore Users magazine, but it was incompatible with Flash, and even without Flash it caused Kermit to simply hang up. The fix should be easy, once I find out in the code where screen memory is plugged. Maybe a related problem: ^<pound>, ^= and ^<up-arrow>, when typed in Kermit mode (i.e. not in VT52) change the character colours to red, blue and green respectively (correspond to ^3, ^7 and ^6). To get back to white characters type ^E or ^2. Again, a fix should be easy once the right section of code is found. DISK S0:<name> fails unless <name> ends with an asterisk. Probably because the name sent to the 1541 is not correctly padded with shifted spaces. DIRECTORY on its own also fails to find any files. Maybe the same problem as DISK. Both problems apply with and without Flash. Also, DIRECTORY <name>* puts a variable number of blanks in front of each directory entry listed. I did manage to get to a situation where repeated input (holding the keys down) failed: don't know how I did it! The termcap given in the documentation works correctly for ned only if the screen is specified as 24 lines, not 25. BTW, I still think that a better analysis of keyboard input needs to be done: need to check if the input byte was got with shift, control or the commodore key. This would allow the cursor controls to be converted to correct values. Please don't take this as a criticism of the program: it is great, and worth far more than I paid for it. However, nothing is perfect.