Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8603031642.AA16655
Posted: Mon Mar  3 11:43:36 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Mar-86 04:03:59 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 65

Greetings fellow atarians:

I resently sent a letter out to the mail-list asking about terminal emulators
for the 8-bit machines.  First, I would like to thank landon for his swift
reply about chamleon.

Let me explain about my situation before I go into the details of what I found.
I am a student at the University of Alabama and like other computer centers
around the country, mine decided that the frequent crashes of the computers
meant that it was time to update the existing computing facilities.  At the
time we had a UNIVAC 1100/71 for academic work.  When the bids came back we
found ourselves looking at an IBM3081D.  CMS was chosen to be the operating
system for this new machine.  All well and good, but it was also decided that
this new system would be screen oreinted instead of line oreinted.  I do not
know exactly what all this means, but for dail-up service it meant going
through a protocol converter, IBM 7171, sometimes know as a "Yalebox".

About a year and a half ago I had purchased a 600XL and an 835 modem to use
as a "dumb" terminal to the UNIVAC (I bought it because it was inexpensive
needless to say I soon found out what great machines Atari are!).  At this
point in my life (1 1/2 years ago) I thought a stop-bit might be
something that was placed at the bottom of a door to keep it open!!  I
never had to worry about such things because TELELINK II which came
with the modem worked first time.  Then I start finding out about
stop-bits, parity-bits, word-size, etc, etc...but don't care because
TELELINK worked so well (except with the 1027 printer, but thats another
story).  After the printer episode I consulted with the local users
group and the consensus was that I needed a different terminal program.
I went over to a guy's house who had a sizeable software collection
and tried several terminal programs.  I then found out that we use 7-bit
words.  Not one of the terminal programs that we tried allowed for this
to be changed so nothing but TELELINK would work with the UNIVAC.

When the IBM arrived I had a copy of vt10 squared all ready to go.  But alas
it also sent 8-bit words and consequently only about half of the character set
could be sent.  Back to the drawing board.... After pouring over hundreds of
pages of manuals on the IBM 7171 and terminal programs for the Atari, I hit
upon a section about using the 7171 with a standard ASCII typewriter terminal.
Then I realized  that actually the VT program is not a real VT emulator but
an ASCII terminal with some key sequences redefined.

Enter Chamleon a terminal program written by Jack Palevich.Just before my
copy arrived I had received some bad news, it didn't allow word-size to be
changed.  Wishing for something magical to happen, I booted up Chamleon and
low and behold it worked, provided I told the 7171 I was an ASCII typewritter
terminal.
If anyone needs to talk to such a machine, an IBM going through a protocol
converter, good luck.  With CMS the machine makes liberal use of a clear screen
key which in ASCII typewriter translates into 24 blank lines.  Notice I said
24 blank lines, not 24 CR, but 24 lines of 80 blanks then a CR.  At 300 baud,
30 chars a sec.... it adds up fast.  It is so slow...(Anyone know of a CHEAP
1200 baud modem???) also I can use none of the nice full-screen commands like
filelist etc, etc.  These commands cause the screen to be written but it also
kicks you off the system.

Sorry about the long file, sorry if it bored you, If anyone has any suggestions
about my situation, if anyone is in the same situation please get in touch. I
will be more than happy to share my experiences to anyone who thinks that it
can in some way help them.

thanks again for all who sent replies earlier

craig

BITNET: SWHITE at UA