[comp.os.vms] VAX TO PHONE LINE, TRANSFERRING FILES

graham@DRCVAX.ARPA ("Daniel J. Graham") (07/27/87)

Greetings and Pervarications:

I find that I need some help.  Here is the scenerio:

Our VAX 780 is tied to a Micom switch that also has a few modems on it as 
outdial lines.  A user may log into the VAX, or may choose Outdial and have 
direct access to a modem for dialing things like DSIN.  If the user has a 
PC for capturing the material he/she gets over the phone line, great, but 
if just a terminal, he is relegated to printing what comes over the 
terminal, than keying it back into the VAX.

Our communications people will gladly make a direct connection from the 
Outdial service to a port on the VAX.  What I need is a program that I can 
run that will attach itself to that port, send commands to it, and read the 
material coming from it and send it to my terminal and a file.  Since DSIN 
and many bulletin boards don't have Kermit like packages, The program has 
to be completely self-supporting, no handshaking.

Sending stuf to the port is as simple as opening the terminal port, say 
TTA0: as a file and writing to it.  Reading what comes back is a different 
matter, though.  This is where I am stuck.  How do I know how many reads to 
issue?  How can the program know that a carriage return, or a, "a" or 
whatever is required in order to continue receiving output.  If the data is 
displayed to the screen, I can know that, but then how is the interaction 
handeled??

I am rather ignorant about communications and the like.  Perhaps I am 
creating a problem that has been solved long ago.  I solicit your 
suggestions, and possibly programs to do what I need.  I appreciate all the 
help I can get on this one.

Thanks very much,

Dan Graham
GRAHAM@DRCVAX.ARPA
------

carl@CITHEX.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) (07/29/87)

 > Our communications people will gladly make a direct connection from the 
 > Outdial service to a port on the VAX.  What I need is a program that I can 
 > run that will attach itself to that port, send commands to it, and read the 
 > material coming from it and send it to my terminal and a file.  Since DSIN 
 > and many bulletin boards don't have Kermit like packages, The program has 
 > to be completely self-supporting, no handshaking.
   
This means that there's also no error checking and/or correction in such
cases.

 > Sending stuf to the port is as simple as opening the terminal port, say 
 > TTA0: as a file and writing to it.  Reading what comes back is a different 
 > matter, though.  This is where I am stuck.  How do I know how many reads to 
 > issue?  How can the program know that a carriage return, or a, "a" or 
 > whatever is required in order to continue receiving output.  If the data is 
 > displayed to the screen, I can know that, but then how is the interaction 
 > handeled??

Given that you can't do error checking anyway, you might as well use the
DCL command:
	$ SET HOST/DTE/LOG TTA0:
This lets you deal interactively with whatever's hooked up to TTA0:, and
keeps a log of it.  You end up with wierd record formats, but they can be
fixed fairly easily.