Date   : Sat, 10 Aug 1985 22:09:00 MDT
From   : Keith Petersen <W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARPA>
Subject: Kim praises Irv

The following file HOFFGOOD.TXT was found on the RCPM Sysops
Clearinghouse system Saturday night.  It is presented here without
comment.

--Keith

Re:   Hoff's extensions to the 1k protocol
Date: 8/6/85
From: pst

I am writing this in support of the Hoff extensions to the 1k
protocol.  Separately, Paul Homchick and Irv Hoff developed 1k
protocol for XMODEM.  Irv called his new program KMD, Paul kept the
XMODEM line going.

Many of you know me personally, and know that Irv and I have a
complementary/competitive attitude towards our respective programming
projects.  This should make my comments reasonably objective.

I have tried every XMODEM protocol program available for CP/M and
--MANY-- MS-DOS programs, and they are all (except for one exception)
completely compatible with the Hoff extensions.

       1) The Hoff extensions work.

       2) They work well. [i.e. they are transparent to non-compatible
          programs]

       3) If you are running IMP,  1k protocol transfers become automatic.

       4) It is my dream that Ron Fowler add the extensions to Mex115, but
          that's up to him.

I think this all-arround competition has brought about some really
nice additions to RCP/M software.

               1) The Christensen/Forsberg/Hoff 1k protocol
               2) The Hoff extensions to the 1k protocol
               3) The Traina Bye-BDOS calls in Bye337

Unfortunately, we have a disadvantage now.  There is great confusion
about XMODEM/BYE3 and KMD/BYE5.  The problem is that these sets of
programs are functionally identical (or will be as soon as the
Hoff/Masters team releases BYE501/KMD04 which use my Bye-BDOS idea).
There are minor differences between the XMODEM/BYE3 and KMD/BYE5
series, but they are identical from a user's standpoint.  We have
programs that are duplicates, the next step is to merge the best of
XMODEM/BYE3 and KMD/BYE5 into a single group of programs again.

However, none of us (the authors) should be the ones to make the
merge, because we have different ideas all want things done our _own_
way, which was one of the causes of the "big split" to begin with.

I will be more than happy to assist some individual in merging this
software, but I will not do it myself, because I feel it would just
continue the split between KMD/BYE5 and XMODEM/BYE3.  Any volenteers?

                               pst / Saratoga OxGate
                               408/354-5934 300/1200/2400 baud