jhs@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA.UUCP (06/07/87)
I'd add to Mark Appelbaum's list of emulators the OmniCom program from CDY. I believe it costs just $10, but of course requires OMNIVIEW, which at last report listed for $39.95. This comes to about $50 list, but in fairness one should count the fact that CDY throws in a very capable 80-column word processor at no charge, and also that with OMNIVIEW you suddenly have an 80-column E: device. I.e. you can do on-screen editing of lines whenever you are using E: in Graphics Mode 0. For somebody who needs a word processor anyway, and who may wish to write programs using the 80-column E: device, this is a very reasonable way to go. OmniCom includes kermit, xmodem, and ASCII file transfer as well as Print Screen and ASCII Capture to Printer functions. "Print Screen" is EXCEPTIONALLY convenient when you just want to get a hardcopy of a name and address or other on-screen information. The ASCII capture, either to a file or to the screen, is also convenient for capturing longer documents when you just don't want to bother with kermit. Incidentally, ASCII capture in OmniCom seems to have been implemented correctly in that I have not yet seen it lose bytes when using "flow control". That is more than I can say for most other implementations that I have used. Very extensive and convenient support is provided for tailoring all key definitions to suit your application. Handling of line graphics is the best I've seen on the Atari 8-bitters. OmniCom is the first emulator I've used which is entirely satisfactory for screen editing on the unix hosts I use. I use it with the Rand editor, but I am sure it will work with most screen editors. It even does a good job on the "Animated Christmas Card" files that tend to show up the limitations of lesser vt100 emulators. There is also a Public Domain kermit written by John Dunning that is in the Beta Test stage. It has 80-column emulation in software which should be similar to vt10sq and OmniCom, but I haven't seen it in operation yet. I don't think it has xmodem, but Dunning may well add it at some point. This will probably be a very good PD solution to the terminal emulator problem when finalized. -John Sangster / jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa