T I N Y C O M M =============== Introduction. ------------- TinyComm is a simple communications terminal program for the Atari Portfolio. It was actually designed for use with a terminal node controller (TNC) for amateur packet radio, but should be useful with a conventional modem or even for ASCII transfer between two computers. TinyComm is (c) Copyright 1990 J M Associates. This program is distributed as FreeWare. It is offered as-is with no warranty that it will work as described, and no liability is accepted for loss or damage to data or equipment which may be incurred through use of the program. The program together with this documentation file may be freely distributed and used for non-commercial purposes without charge. A nominal shareware fee may be requested for later versions containing more sophisticated facilities or for commercial use. Operation. ---------- The serial port (baud rate, word length, parity etc.) MUST be initialised before entering TinyComm. The use of a speed greater than 1200 baud is NOT recommended. To enter the program simply type TINYCOMM. There are no command line parameters. A sign-on message is displayed at the top of the screen. Characters that you type are sent to the serial port, characters reeceived are displayed on the Portfolio screen. There is no echoing on the screen of characters that you type - the system that you are connected to should do that. (Set the TNC to give echo). TinyComm is designed specifically for the Portfolio 8 lines X 40 character screen. Text is stored in a 32K capture buffer. It is possible to scroll back to review text which has scrolled off the top of the screen. The keys are: Home : Scroll from start of capture buffer PgUp : Scroll up 8 lines PgDn : Scroll down 8 lines Up : Scroll up 1 line Down : Scroll down 1 line End : Redisplay last 8 lines of text (End of capture buffer) When the 32K capture buffer fills up it is reset, so it is not then possible to scroll back over earlier text. Other facilities are available on the function keys. These are: f1 : Display help menu of available functions f2 : Reset capture buffer f3 : Write capture buffer contents to a file f4 : Send an ASCII file to the serial port f10 : Exit TinyComm The Send File function 0(f4) sends the contents of an ASCII file, a line at a time, with a pause of 1 or two seconds (see BASIC file) after each line. It can also be used to send a file of commands to the modem. To receive an ASCII file into a disk file on the Portfolio, use f2 to reset the capture buffer before downloading the file, then use f3 to save the text in the capture buffer to a disk file when finished. Ther is no facility for binary file transfer. If a file STARTUP.SCR exists in the CURRENT DIRECTORY, then the text in this file will be sent to the serial port when TinyComm is loaded. This can be used to initialise the modem and dial a number or set up a TNC. On exit from TinyComm a file SHUTDOWN.SCR will be sent to the modem or TNC. This can be used to hank up the phone line or set the TNC for standby mode. Technical Notes. ---------------- The Atari Portfolio is not IBM compatible as far as the serial I/O port goes. This means that almost no major communications program will run on the computer. For good results interrupts must be used for input via the serial port so that data is not lost. TinyComm has to use polling via the standard BIOS call 14H. Input is polled as frequently as possible, but it is not possible to guarantee that the occasional character will not be lost. In particular, characters may be lost while saving captured data or when using scrollback. Data loss is minimised at low transmission speeds. The use of transfer rates greater than 1200 baud is NOT recommended. Notes for Packet Radio Users. ----------------------------- The files STARTUP.SCR and SHUTDOWN.SCR can be used to send commands to your TNC to set it up appropriately depending on whether you are monitoring its output or not. This file includes examples of what ypu can do. J.V.Moss 14 March 1990 TinyComm V1.00 (c) Copyright 1990, J M Associates. (jmoss@cix) 21, Goodmans Lane, Marks Tey, Colchester Essex CO6 1LU United Kingdom. Contents of STARTUP.SCR (this is a simple text file) ----------------------- ECHO ON NU ON CT Welcome to my portable packet station. >> MON ON DA Contents of SHUTDOWN.SCR (this is a simple text file) ------------------------ CT The terminal is unattended. Please leave a message on my mailbox G4BBH-2>> MONI OFF NU OFF RESTART I hope that this program is of use to you OM. If you have any questions I am available most evenings. I can send some other files for the Portfolio but some programs are too big to make into BASIC loader. The Tinycomm program will save files OK to the current disk drive but does not work correctly if you save a file to a:\file.txt etc. It opens a file with pathname but the result is 0 length. Without a pathname it works fine. 73 de Richard G4BBH @ GB7ZAA or @ GB7HSN