Barry.Chern@p19.f20.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Barry Chern) (03/21/91)
Rick Mccormack writes in a message on 11 Mar 91... RM> APDA offers a set of XCMDS called the HyperCard Serial Communications RM> Toolkit. Unfortunately it doesn't have xmodem, but it only costs RM> $20. RM> If you want XMODEM you can spring for the Macintosh Communications RM> Toolbox ($80), the Macintosh Communications Tools, Basic Connectivity RM> Set ($50)--which has the XMODEM tool--and the HyperCard Macintosh RM> Communications Toolbox Toolkit ($30). I find this all a little confusing. Could someone detail the contents of all (or even some) of the above packages? Is there overlap, or do you need them all for completism? How many of them actually have anything to do with HyperCard? thanks, --Barry -- Barry Chern via cmhGate - Net 226 fido<=>uucp gateway Col, OH UUCP: ...!osu-cis!n8emr!cmhgate!20.19!Barry.Chern INET: Barry.Chern@p19.f20.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG
Jim.Spencer@p510.f22.n282.z1.fidonet.org.org (Jim Spencer) (03/24/91)
Barry Chern writes in a message to All RM> APDA offers a set of XCMDS called the HyperCard Serial Communications RM> Toolkit. Unfortunately it doesn't have xmodem, but it only costs RM> $20. RM> If you want XMODEM you can spring for the Macintosh Communications RM> Toolbox ($80), the Macintosh Communications Tools, Basic Connectivity RM> Set ($50)--which has the XMODEM tool--and the HyperCard Macintosh RM> Communications Toolbox Toolkit ($30). BC> I find this all a little confusing. Could someone detail the BC> contents of all (or even some) of the above packages? Is there BC> overlap, or do you need them all for completism? How many of BC> them actually have anything to do with HyperCard? First a quick description of what all this is. The Communications Toolbox is, or soon will be, a part of the Mac toolbox. Programmers can make calls to the routines provided by the toolbox to implement connections, terminal emulation and file transfers. These are accomplished through stand alone modules which contain the specific code for whatever type a connection, transfer or emulation you are trying to accomplish. It operates sort of like the Print Manager where the programmer doesn't generally have to know what kind of a printer you need. He or she simply makes the calls and the Printer driver makes the decisions about what dialog boxes to put up, how to connect to the printer itself, etc. While eventually the Comm. Toolbox will be incorporated into System 7.x, for the time being you have to add it to your system. The package that does that is the Macintosh Communications Toolbox. This contains the four managers that actually make up the Toolbox (the Communications Resource Manager which takes care of the general stuff and then the three specific managers, the Connection Manager, the Terminal Manager, and the File Transfer Manager) along with reference material and Pascal and C interfaces for the managers and tools. The Toolbox itself is necessary to run any programs which call on the Toolbox but it is available free from a lot of sources. You only need to buy the APDA $80 package if you intend to write code which calls on the Toolbox or if you intend to write tools (for example a ZModem tool or some kind of new terminal emulator). The Basic Connectivity Set contains a sample of the basic tools that are available. For Connections tools it has a Serial Tool, a Modem tool and an Appletalk tool. For Terminals it has a TTY Tool and a VT102 tool. For file transfers, it has an XModem tool and a Text File tool. Again this is available for free and it doesn't add too much that you couldn't get in the free package (I don't know if the free package contains the sample application Surfer but this is available on D e v e l o p so this doesn' t seem to be too essential. Finally the HyperCard Communications Toolbox Toolkit contains the XCMD's for calling the Communications Toolbox from HyperCard scripts, including source code. I haven't seen this available except from APDA so this might the one part that a HyperCard programmer might want to buy. The real beauty of the Comm Toolbox regardless of whether you call it from HyperCard or from a stand alone compiled program is that as new protocols and services are written by others, your users can simply add these tools to their sets without you having to rewrite the application. For example it is only a matter of time before ZModem is written and when it is, if you have written your code right, it will run the new protocol right out of the box.