pvf@bridge2.UUCP (05/13/86)
I had been waiting several weeks for my PD terminal program to arrive. When I heard about the Atari BBS, I could stand it no longer, deciding that I could write a simple terminal emulator with ASCII download capability pretty quickly myself. Well, Friday night I tried it. On my first attempt, none of the downloaded files would run, all giving "TOS Error 34" or something like that. I took out my trusty disk utility program and compared one of the downloaded programs with a program prepared locally. Well, it seemed that there was an extra byte at the start of every downloaded file that was pushing the remainder of the file off. Admittedly, I did not have a great deal of evidence supporting me, but I decided to try simply discarding out the extraneous byte. VOILA, working programs! I was actually so surprised myself that I very carefully looked through the code for my "terminal emulator" (including the compiler's assembly output) and it really seems that the errant character is comming from the BBS. Anybody know what the garbage character is or why it is there (incidentally, the character seemed always to be 0x12)? Other than that, I am really happy to have a hook into Atari for PD software. There are some really cute things available, and it was well worth the work. (I am especially pleased as I live in Mountain View, the next town over from Sunnyvale, so the phone call is cheap.) Thank you Neil! Paul Fries Mountain View, CA
turner@imagen.UUCP (05/14/86)
> > Anybody know what the garbage character is or why it is there > (incidentally, the character seemed always to be 0x12)? > > Thank you Neil! > > Paul Fries > Mountain View, CA *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE *** what you are seeing is a handshaking character called XON (ctrl-Q) it tells terminals that support XON/XOFF protocal to start processing incoming characters if a previous XOFF has halted it, otherwise it is ignored -- ---- "If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes" -Blade Runner Name: James M. Turner (not the James M. Turner at Lisp Machine Inc.) Mail: Imagen Corp. 2650 San Tomas Expressway, P.O. Box 58101 Santa Clara, CA 95052-8101 AT&T: (408) 986-9400 UUCP: ...{decvax,ucbvax}!decwrl!imagen!turner CompuServe: 76327,1575 GEnie : D-ARCANGEL
pvf@bridge2.UUCP (05/15/86)
> > > > Anybody know what the garbage character is or why it is there > > (incidentally, the character seemed always to be 0x12)? > > > > Thank you Neil! > > > > Paul Fries > > Mountain View, CA > > what you are seeing is a handshaking character called XON (ctrl-Q) > it tells terminals that support XON/XOFF protocal to start > processing incoming characters if a previous XOFF has halted it, > otherwise it is ignored A quick check of an ASCII chart reveals that 0x12 is NOT the XON code. XON and XOFF are (respectively) 0x11 (^Q) and 0x13 (^S). The 0x12 code has the name DC2 in the ASCII chart. Regardless, why would the BBS be telling me XON in the first place? It never told me to stop (XOFF). If my memory serves me well, the DC1-4 codes were originally intended to be device-specific control codes, hence "DCx" (Device Control). Further, I seem to remember (from Teletype days) that two of the DC functions were "PUNCH ON" and "PUNCH OFF". Anyway, back to the original question. Why is the BBS sending the 0x12?
chapman@sfucmpt.uucp (John Chapman) (05/15/86)
> > > > Anybody know what the garbage character is or why it is there > > (incidentally, the character seemed always to be 0x12)? > > > > Thank you Neil! > > > > Paul Fries > > Mountain View, CA > > *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE *** > > what you are seeing is a handshaking character called XON (ctrl-Q) > it tells terminals that support XON/XOFF protocal to start > processing incoming characters if a previous XOFF has halted it, > otherwise it is ignored > -- ummmmm, isn't XON (ctrl/q, DC1) 0x11 ? and XOFF (ctrl/s, DC3) 0x13 ? -- john chapman email to : ...{utcsri,alberta,ihnp4}!ubc-vision!sfucmpt!sfulccr!chapman not the address in the header.
timothym@tekigm2.UUCP (Timothy D Margeson) (05/16/86)
In article <191@bridge2.UUCP> pvf@bridge2.UUCP (Paul V. Fries) writes: >> > Anybody know what the garbage character is or why it is there >> > (incidentally, the character seemed always to be 0x12)? >> > Paul Fries >> > Mountain View, CA > >A quick check of an ASCII chart reveals that 0x12 is NOT the XON code. >XON and XOFF are (respectively) 0x11 (^Q) and 0x13 (^S). The 0x12 code >has the name DC2 in the ASCII chart. Regardless, why would the BBS be >telling me XON in the first place? It never told me to stop (XOFF). >Anyway, back to the original question. Why is the BBS sending the >0x12? 0x12, or what ever 0x is, the 12 is a decimal equivalent for ACSII FF, of formfeed. And it seems reasonable that the BBS's do send a form feed just proir to dumping screens full of data to a remote site. My two cents. -- Tim Margeson (206)253-5240 tektronix!tekigm2!timothym @@ 'Who said that?' PO Box 3500 d/s C1-937 Vancouver, WA. 98665
neil@atari.UUcp (Neil Harris) (05/19/86)
In article <186@bridge2.UUCP>, pvf@bridge2.UUCP (Paul V. Fries) writes: > When I heard about the Atari BBS, I could stand it no > longer, deciding that I could write a simple terminal emulator > with ASCII download capability pretty quickly myself. Well, > Friday night I tried it. On my first attempt, none of the > downloaded files would run, all giving "TOS Error 34" or > something like that. Well, it seemed that there was an extra byte > at the start of every downloaded file that was pushing the > remainder of the file off. I decided to try simply > discarding out the extraneous byte. VOILA, working programs! > > Anybody know what the garbage character is or why it is there > (incidentally, the character seemed always to be 0x12)? I would not be surprised if the BBS tries to send a CTRL Q at the start of an ASCII transmission. But wouldn't that be a 0x11? Strange... Anyhow, if it works, don't argue, right? > Other than that, I am really happy to have a hook into Atari for > PD software. There are some really cute things available, and > it was well worth the work. (I am especially pleased as I live > in Mountain View, the next town over from Sunnyvale, so the phone > call is cheap.) Thank you Neil! You're welcome! Now if only someone would come up with a way to get 4 (or even 8) phone lines into 1 ST, with appropriate BBS software, then we wouldn't have to do so much work... By the way, has anyone come up with a uuencode program that runs on the ST yet? What are you waiting for? --->Neil @ Atari ...lll-crg!vecpyr!atari!neil CIS: 70007,1135 BIX: neilharris GENIE: NHARRIS Delphi: Exploreneil BBS: 408-745-5308 {who says it's hard to find me?}
turner@imagen.UUCP (05/21/86)
> > > > > > Anybody know what the garbage character is or why it is there > > > (incidentally, the character seemed always to be 0x12)? > > > > > > > what you are seeing is a handshaking character called XON (ctrl-Q) > > it tells terminals that support XON/XOFF protocal to start > > processing incoming characters if a previous XOFF has halted it, > > otherwise it is ignored > > -- > > ummmmm, isn't XON (ctrl/q, DC1) 0x11 ? and XOFF (ctrl/s, DC3) 0x13 ? > yes yes i admit it !!! i read the bloody chart wrong, next time ill get it tatoo'd on my stomach where i can see it clearly -- ---- "If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes" -Blade Runner Name: James M. Turner (not the James M. Turner at Lisp Machine Inc.) Mail: Imagen Corp. 2650 San Tomas Expressway, P.O. Box 58101 Santa Clara, CA 95052-8101 AT&T: (408) 986-9400 UUCP: ...{decvax,ucbvax}!decwrl!imagen!turner CompuServe: 76327,1575 GEnie : D-ARCANGEL