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From: dfh@ecs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.apple
Subject: Apple //e communications problems
Message-ID: <377@ecs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 8-Jul-83 23:02:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecs.377
Posted: Fri Jul  8 23:02:03 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Jul-83 19:32:40 EDT
Lines: 48




  I for one am a little disappointed in the Apple //e as compared to the
Apple ][.  There seems to be a significant problem with the //e's screen
I/O when using communications software/hardware.  For example, I tried
using Datalink (a Pascal based communications program) with the Apple
//e 80 column card, and it loses characters at 1200 baud.  Not all the
time mind you, just when the screen is filled and has to scroll up one
line before the next line can be displayed.  If I take out the 80 column
card, the problem persists. Not only does the problem exist with the
Apple 80 column cards (both the plain and  'extended' with 64K RAM), but
the Smarterm II suffers the same fate.  The Smarterm I appears to work
fine however with Datalink, as well as the Wesper Systems 'Wizard 80'
card.

  The problem crosses software boundaries too.  Ascii Express (An Apple
DOS based communications program) seems to have the same trouble, with
the afore mentioned 80 column cards, as well as a Pascal based
communications program of my own construction (which works fine on my
Apple ][ as well as a Franlin ACE 1000).

  Visiterm, however, which uses its own character set seems to work
fine.  Softerm, a terminal emulation program also seems to work fine.
It's quite clear that Softerm uses it's own screen I/O instead of
'hooks' into the monitor because it works at 9600 baud. (Nice package,
by the way).

  Thus I conclude that there is a hardware design error with the Apple
and ALS 80 column cards.  There is a close connection between Apple and
ALS. Perhaps it is too close?

  I know that apple was aware of a 'bus contention' problem between the
new 'slot 3' and the rest of the bus, but I haven't heard of any fixes
in the mill.

  Has anybody else experienced the symptoms I describe?  They are
probably more apparent when communicating with full duplex
character-oriented services like UNIX than with line oriented (which
have a short delay after sending a line) services like IBM TSO.  Does
Apple plan to fix the problem?



					David Hinnant
					N.C. Educational Computing Service
					(919) 549-0671
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