spear@ihopb.UUCP (Steven Spearman) (12/06/83)
Here are responses concerning terminal programs for the Commodore
64 computer. All but two responses were referring to a program which
has been provided at no charge by two net users. Only one representative
response concerning this program is included. All names have been
removed.
Steve Spearman
ihnp4!ihopb!spear
Response 1****************************************************
I think there's a BASIC program in the Programmer's Reference
Guide in the section on RS232. This is very limited but covers
some of the essentials of a terminal program.
A more complete program appeared in a recent issue of
COMPUTE! magazine describing a program called TERM-U-LATOR
which is written in machine language. This one is much more usable
and can be used to talk to the VAX, but some symbols like
curly braces are missing. However, by modifying the lookup tables
for the characters, you can use some of the graphics symbols to
stand for the characters you want.
Missing however from both of the above are upload/download
capabilities. This is complicated by many factors -- not the
least of which is that BASIC is tokenized into non-representable
characters and so you can't just dump your text to the modem.
And I'm sure you know that the Commodore character set is different
from ASCII.
Other factors to consider are trading off the capabilities of
the VAX (c programs, input processing, TERMCAP, etc.) against
what you could add to your terminal program.
I'm writing such a program in my spare time but it could be several
months until it evolves into something useful. I hope as a
goal to be able to use vi. I don't think that there's enough
of a market for a terminal program emulating the vt100, but if
you run across one please send me a pointer to it. The other
features are almost certainly included in commercial terminal
programs which you may be able to add to.
Response 2*******************************************************
NOTE: several persons have offered the following program - see a
previous posting on net.micro.cbm
If you cannot find such an offer on the net elsewhere, write
me and I will forward one of the names of someone to contact.
*****************************************************************
I wrote one which emulates a DEC VT52 minus the aux keypad, then plus some
(including a crude download facility). It supports both 40 and 80 column
display modes, inverse video, 300 and (remarkably, I might boast) 1200 baud
full duplex, XON/XOFF, SCROLL/NO SCROLL key, and works dandy with "vi",
"emacs" (UNIX and TOPS-20), etc. No hardware mods are required, although you
need to interface a modem to the USER port if not using a VICMODEM.
It's not public domain, but free on request.
Response 3******************************************************
Midwest Micro has a program called Superterm ($149). It features
terminal emulation, up/downloading, printer and disk support. I
have not used it, but have used Smarterm64, a dumb terminal program
by the same manufacturer. It has good features, but can be a bit
tedious to use. For the full story, contact:
Midwest Micro Inc.
311 West 72nd st.
Kansas City, MO 64114
(816) 333-7200
P.S. I don't believe it supports an 80-column board, but iit does
have an 80 column display mode, using side-scrolling.
Sorry, I just realized that I made a mistake. I told you that the
terminal program I used was also made by Midwest Micro; a second
check revealed that it wasn't. Therefore, I can't vouch in any way
for Midwest Micro's product, other than to say that it exists.