Date   : Fri, 01 Mar 1985 11:06:52 EST (Friday)
From   : Robert Bloom AMSTE-TOI 3775 <rbloom@apg-1.ARPA>
Subject: Minor Mex112 bugs

Minor bug reports in MEX112:

1.  MEX v112 lost an ASCII capture file and did not save the whole file 
correctly when I exited with a 'CPM'.  This is what I did and what happened:

          Opened ASCII capture file 'TRNSCRPT'
          Recorded ~5k characters
          Stopped record with <esc>-'U'nsave
          Did a couple MODEM2 file tranfers
          Logged out of remote and exited MEX with 'CPM'

     I did get the message 'saving TRNSCRPT' upon leaving MEX, but the file 
contained only ~200 characters.  I've had the problem before and usually solve 
it by 'WRT' the transcript before exiting.  (Forgot to do it this time 
however.)  I don't know if the MODEM2 tranfer had anything to do with it.

2.  A second incident came about when I was attempting the transfer a whole 
batch of keystrings from one version of MEX to another.  Easy, I thought, just 
save FILE.KEY from one and load FILE.KEY from the other.  However, I kept 
getting a 'syntax error' on the load command.  I tracked it down to the '/' 
character in one of the keystrings.  (The use of the back slash '/' character 
is documented in the manual but not in the on-line help file, or at least not 
under LOAD/SAVE or STRINGS.)

     If the keystring has a single back slash as in 'KEY A="cd 
usr/anywhere/anywhat^M" the SAVE command saves it with single backslash.  But 
when the LOAD command reads the key file it expects to see double back 
slashes.  Therefore, I suggest the SAVE command save the file in a form that 
the LOAD command could read it.

3.  (Not really a bug but annoying)  Occasionally during MODEM2 file transfers 
MEX will end the transfer with a "File Transfer Aborted" without any mention 
of NAK's, retries, or other errors.  It usually only occurs which downloading 
long, >50k transfers (naturally!), and with otherwise clean lines (very few 
NAK's).  It has not occured during uploads.  The remote host goes on sending 
blocks after MEX has aborted until the remote computer (I use umodem on the 
remote unix machine) times out.  It is almost as if the local user had typed 
an ^C to abort the transfer.

     Has this been reported before or is it maybe hardware related?  I've not 
had this problem with MDM7 when I used it.  I am using the MXO-NS11 overlay 
for the second serial port on my NorthStar Horizon.

Otherwise, MEX is fine.  I much prefer it over MDM7 as the command interface 
is closer to how I naturally think.  And the read command is great! - as 
umodem doesn't allow batch transfers, I ended up using a read file for a 
psuedo batch transfer of all the zcpr3.com files.  50-some files in 60 
minutes!  I couldn't possibly type the command lines fast enough to do that, 
even if I have enough concentration to jump on the prompts as soon as they 
appeared.

-bob bloom