burke@pollux.usc.edu (Sean Burke) (10/18/89)
This is a followup on my previous posting, in which I expressed my dissatisfaction with the thruput I was getting from my V.32 modem on my Mac+. I am pleased to be able to report that I have found terminal software which is completely satisfactory, and all of it either free or inexpensive shareware. First honors go to ZTerm, which implements the zmodem protocol. This program achieved 906cps thruput on a 9600 bps link. It's available from sumex.stanford.edu, /info-mac/comm and costs $30 shareware. Thanx to Rob Elliot, Chris Ho of USC-UCS and Dave Platt for suggesting this program. Additional features include solid vt100 emulation and support for hardware handshaking, tho' I haven't yet used this latter successfully (I suspect my cable). Second place goes to MacKermit 0.98(62), which achieved thruput of >500cps with 1000byte packets. This program beats ZTerm in other categories, starting with price (free), and better mapping of vt100 key codes onto the Mac+ keyboard. Those of us who use emacs from a Mac+ keyboard become very sensitive to this issue (I'm using MacKermit to edit this posting). Thanks to Paul Placeway for clueing me in. In case you missed his posting, MacKermit .98(62) can be ftp'ed from watsun.cc.columbia.edu; it's /kermit/test/ckmker.hqx. A number of people sent me enthusiastic endorsements of commercial software, particularly VersaTerm. Another person sent me mail regarding UW, a utility which allows you to open multiple shell windows from a Mac to a unix machine over a modem connection. For microcomputer terminal programs in general, I have concluded that, over an MNP connection, Zmodem is THE hot protocol - demand it. I expect this applies equally to v.22bis modems with MNP, which are not nearly as expensive as V.32. So, not only is V.32 getting affordable, but quality software to exploit it can be had cheaply or for free! Sean Burke "The nice thing about true hopelessness is that you don't have to try again" - Jules Shear