ndallen@contact.UUCP (Nigel Allen) (04/16/91)
Monday March 25, 1991.
Exis Inc. of Toronto, Ontario, known for their communications software
products, announced that version 3.15 of their Telix modem communications
software will be released on Tuesday, April 2nd, 1991.
"The main purpose of the 3.15 release is not to introduce new features,"
said Colin Sampaleanu, manager of Exis, "but rather to fix a few bugs, to
allow us to make some changes to the documentation needed to account for
changes in our overseas distribution, and to update our order forms to
allow for the new GST value-added tax on sales in Canada. We are still hard
at work on our next major update of Telix, and most people presently using
Telix 3.12 will not want or need to upgrade to Telix 3.15."
Jeff Woods of the Telix technical support department also stated that
support will also be a focus of the 3.15 release. "We now have printed
manuals available, as well as a Telix/modem configuration program to aid
users in installing Telix". Woods estimated that over 50 percent of calls
to the tech line could be eliminated by these new user aids, thus saving
added costs to the users in support.
Telix list price remains unchanged at $US 39 or $CDN 44, plus applicable
taxes and shipping. Telix may be ordered by calling Exis at (416)-289-4641,
or online via modem by calling EXIS's computer Bulletin Board System, at
(416)-439-9399. The BBS supports baud rates from 300 baud through most
high speed standards including v.32 and HST modulations. A fully working
evaluation version of Telix 3.15 is also available.
A file listing several new features in Telix 3.15 and all bugs fixed is
available upon request.
A Comprehensive List New Features and Bug Fixes in Telix 3.15:
o When editing a dialing directory entry you may now use Tab and Shift-
Tab to move up and down in the list of items, instead of being forced
to go forwards only.
o The status line may be cycled on/off directly from Terminal mode by
pressing Alt-8.
o BRANDTLX previously needed about 320k free memory to run, which was a
lot more than Telix itself needs. It should now run in much less
memory, generally less than 100k free.
o In an attempt to help users debugging SALT scripts, 4 predefined
'macros' or variables have been set up in CS, the script compiler. The
word __LINE__ will be replaced in the compiled script by an integer
constant representing the current line number in the script. __FILE__
will be replaced by a string constant holding the current filename.
__DATE__ and __TIME__ will be replaced by string constants of the
current date and time. So for example, a script could have the
sequence:
printsc ( "This is file " );
printsc ( __FILE__ );
prints ( " and line number " );
printn ( __LINE__ );
which if compiling TEST.SLT would print something like:
This is file TEST.SLT and line number xx
where 'xx' is the line number that __LINE__ occurred on. Note that
these macros get replaced by whatever they represent right as CS is
compiling the script file, Telix itself knows nothing about them.
o When CTS/RTS hardware handshaking is on by default, but the CTS line
is low at Telix start-up, Telix will now give a message to that
effect, while waiting up to 10 seconds for the signal to come on.
During this time the user may press Space to continue with handshaking
on anyway, or any other key to continue with it off.
o In VT-102/ANSI, if the remote system defined a scrolling region and
the cursor was outside of this region, text in scrolling region would
scroll on a received Line Feed.
o Some new keys (e.g. Alt-\) available with enhanced keyboard were
recognized by Telix, but Telix could not display their names (it
showed only a blank). All show properly now.
o On exit from Telix the border is now reset to black.
o If there was a status line at the top of the screen and it was
removed, Telix would lose the use of that line.
o The SALT 'run' function with a parameter of 1 (pause and wait for a
keypress) would not always properly display the prompt.
o Destructive/Non-Destructive Backspace key setting can now be saved to
disk.
o The 'frename' script function would move file being renamed to current
directory, if it was in another directory on the same drive.
o Telix now treats color codes in Avatar exactly as described in George
Stanislav's Avatar specs. Note that Telix only supports Avatar Level
0, not Level 1...
o The inkey() and inkeyw() SALT functions returned negative values for a
few keys (such as Alt-0).
o On a few individual PCs that we know of, Telix's routines to detect an
enhanced keyboard BIOS thought that there was one, when there wasn't,
leading to very strange results. This was more likely caused by
misbehaving keyboard related resident programs, rather than a Telix
bug. If the keyboard is thus completely unrecognized by Telix, the way
to get Telix running is to add the line 'ENHKB=OFF" in the TELIX.CNF
file (or change the existing line with this parameter). Telix now has
this option off by default.
o In ANSI or VT102 mode, the escape code 'ESC [ L', which is used to
scroll lines down, would sometimes clear the first or first few
entries in the translate table on systems running in 43 or 50 line
mode.
o The Host Mode Remote Shell did not work properly on some systems. The
symptom is the shell just exiting as soon as it was entered.
o Some time ago code was added to emulate (for conformity) a bug in the
MS-DOS ANSI.SYS driver in Telix's own ANSI terminal, but the new code
slightly messed up VT-102 terminal. The ESC[J and ESC[J1 terminal
escape sequences would reset part of the current line to Gray on Black
instead of the proper default colors.
--
EXIS Inc., Post Office Box 130, West Hill, ON, Canada M1E 4R4
(416)-289-4641 voice, (416)-289-4645 FAX, (416)-439-9399 BBS