Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!MTUS5.BITNET!HEINEKEN From: HEINEKEN@MTUS5.BITNET Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: BITNET mail follows Message-ID: <8807071709.aa09272@SMOKE.BRL.ARPA> Date: 7 Jul 88 22:04:00 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 58 Date: 7 July 88, 16:29:59 EST From: Steve King HEINEKEN at MTUS5 To: INFO-APPLE at BRL.ARPA Okay, I give up. I'd like to write a BBS program in BASIC (yes, BASIC. I haven't the money for a better language...) with some assembly language routines, but I'm getting stuck on the modem I/O. Actually, I'm getting stuck even before that. I can't seem to get my serial card's firmware to function with my modem! I mean, even the simple "Type this in and it works" demos from the manual aren't working. Here's my setup: Enhanced Apple //e Prometheus ProModem 2400G (Hayes compatible) Apricorn's Super Serial Imager serial card in slot 2. The SSI is supposed to be compatible with the Apple's SSC down to the DIP switches. There's an additional SSI switch that controls SSC emulation; I've made sure that's in SSC emulation mode. (The other setting allows for fancy graphics commands which I don't need for the modem.) I have yet to find a terminal program that doesn't work with this configuration. 2 flavors of Kermit, ASCII Express, TIC, and Zlink all work fine. I figured I'd use the SSC commands (they're the same on the SSI) to control the card for I/O. (I'd rather control it by twiddling bits in registers, but I don't have anything to tell me which bits do what!) Okay, fine. Test run. Get to the BASIC prompt, and (I'm putting my keystrokes in): ] ]<^a> APRICORN SSI: <== The cr shows carriage return This is supposed to throw me into terminal mode. I get a cute little underscore cursor on the screen. Fine. I type something. Anything. The cursor goes bye-bye. The transmit and receive (TD and RD) lights on the modem show that nothing is getting to it. Normally, these lights are active when I'm typing Hayes commands to the modem, or when I'm just feeding it garbage. So I try a short BASIC program to see if it works from there. Heck, all of the examples in the book are from BASIC, so why shouldn't it work? 10 PRINT CHR$(4);"IN#2" 20 PRINT CHR$(1);"T" 30 PRINT "Hello" Nothing. It hangs. No blinky lights. Hit RESET to continue. I've tried using other commands listed (including ^A3S to chain the 80-col in for I/O), but terminal mode always hangs the system. Since other programs work just fine, I assume that I'm not doing some crucial initialization of the card. But what do I need to do? Oh, dear Apple, why don't you include technical docs with your products? (I've got the 1985 printing of the Super Serial Card User's Manual here. I can't find anything less recent.) The Apricorn docs aren't much better. Any ideas? This is the first time I've delved into the murky world of Apple telecommunications and I've got a feeling that it shouldn't be this frustrating... --Steve King HEINEKEN @ MTUS5.bitnet