[comp.sys.mac] Comm Toolbox

wtj@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (william.t.jones) (10/24/89)

blm@6sigma.UUCP (Brian Matthews) writes:
>White Knight sounds nice, but I suspect I won't have to wait too long
>before a program with similar features comes along that does support
>the Communications Toolbox, so I'll make do until then.
>-- 
>Brian L. Matthews	blm@6sigma.UUCP

Versaterm already supports the Communications Toolbox.

Bill Jones
att!mhuxu!wtj

ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM (Norman Goodger) (10/25/89)

In article <5792@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> wtj@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (william.t.jones,rd,) writes:
>
>Versaterm already supports the Communications Toolbox.
>
I have seen the latest version of Versaterm and I do not remember seeing
anything in it that would allow it to interface to the CTB..course since
the CTB is not released yet, perhaps the changed are not obvious to the
casual observer...


-- 
Norm Goodger				SysOp - MacInfo BBS @415-795-8862
3Com Corp.				Co-SysOp FreeSoft RT - GEnie.
Enterprise Systems Division             (I disclaim anything and everything)
UUCP: {3comvax,auspex,sun}!bridge2!ngg  Internet: ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM

mfi@serc.cis.ufl.edu (Mark Interrante) (10/25/89)

In article <993@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM> ngg@bridge2.3Com.com (Norman Goodger) writes:
>In article <5792@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> wtj@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (william.t.jones,rd,) writes:
>>
>>Versaterm already supports the Communications Toolbox.
>>
>I have seen the latest version of Versaterm and I do not remember seeing
>anything in it that would allow it to interface to the CTB..course since
>the CTB is not released yet, perhaps the changed are not obvious to the
>casual observer...

I have just called the versaterm people and got the following
information:

1. They have a version called 4.1 which will be released as soon as
Apple releases CTB.

2. They expect to release their version in Late Nov.

3. The version will support vt220.

4. I does not seem that they want to write CTB drivers.

5. There is a company called intercon that already sells a tcp/ip
driver for use with versaterm.


Thats about all they said.  These people seem on top of Apples
changes, they had a multifinder friendly version of Versaterm released
right after Apple released multifinder.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Interrante   		  Software Engineering Research Center
mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu		  CIS Department, University of Florida 32611
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) (10/25/89)

In article <993@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM>, ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM (Norman
Goodger) writes:
> In article <5792@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> wtj@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (william.t.jones,rd,) writes:
> >
> >Versaterm already supports the Communications Toolbox.
> >
> I have seen the latest version of Versaterm and I do not remember seeing
> anything in it that would allow it to interface to the CTB..course since
> the CTB is not released yet, perhaps the changed are not obvious to the
> casual observer...
> 

One thing that may be relevant to this discussion is that there are
several levels of "Comm. Toolbox compatibility," which take different
amounts of time to recode into an application:

 - The serial port registry

   This is the easiest, and what is/will be supported by people like SuperMac
   that make multi-port communications boards.  It lets an application find
   out how many serial ports (or things emulating serial ports at a very
   low level) there are currently installed, what their respective names
   are, and what the names of their respective drivers are.  Being compatible
   at this level is pretty easy (putting up a dialog instead of hardwiring
   ".Ain" and ".Aout"), and should drop into VersaTerm's alternate driver
   hook very easily.  In my opinion, *every* person doing anything using
   serial communications should be at least preparing to deal with this.

 - Connection Tools

   Connection tools give you what amount to bidirectional full-duplex
   streams (sort of one level up from a raw serial port).  This is the
   level where network drivers and multiple session support comes in.
   Anyone who's real serious about providing terminal emulation should
   also be looking real hard at this, since it will open up new physical
   media, and isn't all that much harder to code for that a simple serial
   port.

 - Terminal tools

   These are pretty nifty, but they don't "drop in" as easily, since they
   are predicated on a very "Macintosh-style" program flow--event driven,
   using code resources & whatnot.  For some of us, this is not a real
   problem, especially since anything that handles multiple simultaneous
   sessions already has a certain amount of the necessary framework in place,
   but any application that uses lots of globals, or knows deep in its heart
   that it's in control of all of the interaction, is going to have some
   tough going.

 - File transfer tools

   Pretty much the same issues as terminal tools, only for file transfer
   (surprise, eh?).

The more disciplined and generalized the code, the easier it will be to add
Comm. Toolbox support.

--
Amanda Walker <amanda@intercon.com>

svc@well.UUCP (Leonard Rosenthol) (10/25/89)

In article <5792@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> wtj@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (william.t.jones,rd,) writes:
>blm@6sigma.UUCP (Brian Matthews) writes:
>>White Knight sounds nice, but I suspect I won't have to wait too long
>>before a program with similar features comes along that does support
>>the Communications Toolbox, so I'll make do until then.
>>-- 
>>Brian L. Matthews	blm@6sigma.UUCP
>
>Versaterm already supports the Communications Toolbox.
>
	At this point in time, no RELEASED version of ANY COMMERCIAL Comm
software supports the Comm Toolbox - for the simple reason that they CTB itself
is not released.  I am sure that once the CTB releases itself (or System 7.0 
does...) then you will see CTB versions of many/all comm software for the Mac -
but in the meantime you're going to have to wait for Apple.

Leonard Rosenthol
Software Ventures

-- 
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