Date   : Sat, 11 Mar 1989 05:58:52 GMT
From   : eichin@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mark W. Eichin)
Subject: TurboDOS Kermit Summary and Travel Report

The question: is there a kermit or [xyz]modem in Z80 assembler, or any
version already built that works with the TurboDOS T-functions?

The answers:
1) Ken Yap <ken@cs.rochester.edu> pointed me to the ftp directories on
cunixc.cc.columbia.edu, which have the master sources for Kermit for
EVERYTHING. Well, almost everything. They also have a Public Domain
Assembler and Linker for CP/M, which can compile the CP/M Kermit
distribution. 
2) Frank J. Wancho <WANCHO@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL> suggested Ron
Fowler's "MEX" program, of which an early release can be found in
simtel20 PD2:<CPM.MEX>. This several variants of Xmodem, kermit, and
others. Frank also pointed out that TMODEM was the name he gave to his
own TOPS20 version of MODEM7; I have also seen a UNIX modem program of
that name, so it was a common idea, but as Frank pointed out, it is
just a name, not a different protocol.
3) Robert Bloom <rbloom@apg-emh1.apg.army.mil> pointed out that both
IMP and MEX have overlays for TurboDOS, and that the latest Commercial
version of MEX+ v1.65 has a built-in installer that supports TurboDOS.
He also mentioned 1800-niteowl as the phone number for Ron Fowler's
company.
4) David Goodenough <dg@pallio.UUCP> mentioned QTERM, a program which
is written in Z80 assembler (though a custom one) and supports Kermit
and X/Y MODEM. 

It turns out that there are two different versions of TurboDOS support
available for MEX - one of them includes an extension module for
passing through blocks of data to the Master in a Master-Slave system
when the Master has the modem and you are using it from a slave; the
other may be simple T-fxn calls, I never got deep enough to tell.

Now for the interesting part: I actually have a Kermit running. 

1) I got MLOAD from simtel20 PD2:<CPM.STARTER-KIT> (which has lots of
other neat stuff too.)
2) I got XASM.SHAR[12] from PD2:<UNIX-C.CPM>.
       a) It didn't unshar. To fix this: change all ` (backquote, 96
decimal, 060H) to ' (forward quote, 027H). These are all in comments
(backquote doesn't mean anything in normal C, and in some mutant
versions it means "begin BCD constant", or at least it did a long time
ago.) and they interfere with the unpacking (at least under 4.3BSD)
because the "sh" of the unshar thinks it has to evaluate them.
       b) Once it unshared, it didn't quite compile. To fix this,
find several occurances of '\' in the files produced and make them
'\\'. I don't know why this didn't survive shar'ing, and haven't had
the time to check. The shar file has them doubled, but passing them
through sh ate one level of quoting.
       c) It is an effective assembler, except for one thing: it
can't build the Kermit distribution. (see below) To fix this, I added
the "LINK" operator. I just hacked it in, eventually I'll try to make
it cleaner, but that worked.
3) I got kermit/a/cp[sx]*.asm and a few other relevant files (also
kermit/aaa*, for the 'readme' stuff.) There wasn't any documentation
on how to "just build it", but on reading though some of the files I
figured out:
       a) First, asm80 cpsker. This gives you the system independent
cpsker.hex, around 62K of hex file, which is the base. This should be
common to most systems; download it, MLOAD it, and if you run it
you'll get "not configured for any system".
       b) Next, asm80 cpxtyp. This builds cpxtyp.hex, around 3K (for
me) of hex file, which has the system dependent stuff. To actually get
the right content, you have to have set flags in a few places, or i my
case add if/endif sets. Stragtegy: pick a system that is "as weird as"
yours, then just use it as a template for figuring out what you have
to customize.
       c) download cpxtyp.hex, MLOAD kermit=cpsker.com,cpxtyp and
opoof, you have a kermit. Run it, discover that it works in connect
mode but spits out continuous streams of "k" in send mode, and try
again. :-) [this was a symptom of my screwing up the push/pop pairs
around the modem send routines... ddt to the rescue! and it worked.]
       d) download ROGUE.LBR, unpack it, and relax for a while :-)
then delete it, because it takes 30K of a 180K disk and you only have
two drives to use.
4) I downloaded a software set that gives me the same software on the
UNIX and CP/M side:
       CP/M    Unix
       LASM    asm80
       MLOAD   ?
       UNARC   arc
       UUD     uudecode
       UUE     uuencode
       USQ120  usq
       SQ111   sq
       LU      lar
       KERMIT  ckermit
               zmac, zdis

There is other corresponding software, but all of the above is Public
Domain. I also haven't finished searching the archives. (CP/M is,
after all, a hobby for me...) 

I'm still looking for an EMACS... however, SmallC21 is probably my
next endeavor. After that, maybe a Z80/CP-M emulator for Unix...

My one problem at the moment: while kermit downlaods and uploads fine,
when I get or put a file, and it prints the filename on the screen, it
immediately follows it with about 5 lines of garbage. It appears to be
running beyond the end of a buffer, but it is hard to tell where to
start (I checked prtstr, and nothing looked obvious...). Next stop ---
ddt. 

Thank you for your attention, I hope someone else is able to use some
of this information. If you want the LINK patches to XASM (asm80) even
as they are, I can send them to you. If you run the archive and want
them, send me mail and let me know and I'll send them to you when I've
cleaned them up. If anything above is wrong, please let me know... 

                       Mark Eichin
                       <eichin@athena.mit.edu>


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