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Post by Jim Brain on Aug 12, 2004 18:35:12 GMT -5
tcpser is set up to handle V0 (numeric responses), and can handle the 'H' command in any location in the AT string. It also defaults to hardware flow control enabled. For completeness, you might want to test it. I have run Centipede here at 38,400 with no dropped chars.
I'd be happy to test it, but my attempt to create a modded 19,2Kbps IMAGE 1.2a was not successful. If someone could get me a minimal setup on a 1581 disk or email some archives for me to undo on my HD, I'd be happy to set it up for someone else to test.
Jim
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Post by CosmoCommander on Aug 12, 2004 19:48:03 GMT -5
On the Commodore side, my CMD HD is spinning down semi-regularly. I read about the cold solder joints issue on comp.sys.cbm, perhaps that's the problem. Man, that bites. I started with a CMD-40, but my 40 meg Seagate kicked the bucket. I replaced it with a 1000 meg Conner that I picked up for $5. It is running beautifully now. ;D
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Post by Pinacolada on Aug 15, 2004 14:31:53 GMT -5
Jim,
I've played around with tcpser on Windows for the past few hours, discovered that I need the '-i "&C0"' parameter in the command line to establish a connection between the PC and the Commodore. The entire command line that seems to work the most reliably is:
tcpser -d /dev/ttyS0 -s 19200 -l 7 -tsSiI -p 23 -i "&C0"
In my tests, tcpser needs to be started before Image BBS gets to the waiting for call screen and begins to send modem initialization commands. Once connected via HyperTerm, the connection is pretty latent -- you said to expect that -- but one thing I noticed is if you give the tcpser DOS window focus it speeds things up considerably! Right now I'm testing both CGTerm and tcpser on the same machine, maybe that has something to do with it. Waiting on a network card so I can run CGTerm on this laptop instead.
At various points you've mentioned telnet is not 8-bit clean and file transfers will not work under it. Would simply changing the port number used by tcpser to 64 or something other than 23 make a difference? I notice the default port number in your instructions is 6400.
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Post by Jim Brain on Aug 15, 2004 15:18:04 GMT -5
Forcing DCD on. No problem... That's why it is there. You should also be able to add that to the BBS startup init sequence. (Where is sets V0...)
tcpser should always be started before lading the BBS, so the BBS init commands are correctly handled by tcpser. In a pinch, though, if the init sequence for IMAGE is (say) E0V0S0=1, often, you can start tcpser late by just adding -i"e0v0s0=1", or appending it to the existing -i string... Doesn;t always work, though (Novaterm, for example, won't finish the init until it gets OK back from modem, or something...)
Under Win95 derivatives, command lines apps need to have focus to run well. I'd suggest WinXP or Linux...
CHanging the port won't work, but if the caller uses tcpser on his/her end, the connection will be 8-bit clean... When you run tcpser on port 23, you're running on the telnet port, but you are not running telnet... However, if they connect via telnet, they are subject to the non-8-bit clean issue (and you are as well, since they have telnet in the loop)... I might need to write a simple telnet like client...
Jim
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Post by Pinacolada on Aug 16, 2004 21:46:47 GMT -5
Hey guys, Got a new network card, back in business. BBS is up, seems to be pretty stable. Next thing to do I guess is get Linux working, maybe that'll be the final solution for the dropped characters. There's a few here and there, maybe it's just telnet being snarky, I'm no expert Jim, I put tcpser in a batch file to run at startup, got a few app crashes after prolonged use by several users, I'll log when I can (sometimes it's rebooted while I'm notaround ) and send them on their way. Anyway, hope to see some more new users who hang around and do stuff
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Post by CosmoCommander on Aug 18, 2004 18:25:40 GMT -5
I reduced the total length of cable between my Commodore and IBM to 3.5 feet, and now my problems with Telnet BBS Server are almost completely gone! I went an entire day without a RS232 Overrun or Framing Error! I changed the 25-pin connector on the end of my Supra Peak Modem Interface to a 9-pin connector, and re-wired it for direct connection to the IBM. Now I am calling it the Supra Peak Null Modem Interface! My Belkin Interlink cable was 6 feet long, and with the Supra Peak Modem Interface cable being 3.5 feet long, and my 25-to-9 pin adapter being 3", I had almost 10 feet of cable between the two computers. The interlink cable had these ridiculously skinny wires, but the Supra cable had fat 22-gauge wires. Anyway, I think my total cable link was too long, and I was losing too much signal strength. Now with 1 short cable containing nice grade wires, I should be getting little or no signal loss. It has made a VAST improvement.
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Post by Pinacolada on Sept 11, 2004 1:07:20 GMT -5
That's cool that the short cable worked. Well, I got my Linux box up and running thanks to my roomie, but tcpser doesn't seem to want to compile. I'll need to jump back into it and paste the error (something about wanting software from RedHat, I run Debian), probably could be fixed pretty easily, but I'm such a n00b. So I continue to tinker, bug-fix, document, and translate the Image BBS programmer's reference guide to HTML. I'll make a separate posting about it, but it's located at: home.comcast.net/~r.sherwood/bbs/imageprg-index.htmlIf anyone's interested.
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Post by Pinacolada on Sept 23, 2004 5:13:10 GMT -5
Sorry for the cross-post but I wanted to give this thread some closure. As it stands, Jim helped me immensely a few nights ago, explaining things I needed explained, helping out for several hours. End result, my serial cable was fixed, the modem config was fixed, the tcpser for Linux fixed, so the BBS is online, waiting for callers I should add some files in that say if the BBS is down for maintenance or whatnot as well. Thanks once again, Jim.
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Post by Jim Brain on Sept 24, 2004 1:52:55 GMT -5
Thank goodness. We spent quite a bit of time on that.
However, necessity of trying to get Pna's board up uncovered an excellent way to build the required adapter.
I test it tonight and it works well.
To "build" the required tcpser cable, I asked Pna to simply "chop" off pin 6 going into the Swiftlink/T232. Pin 6 is DSR, which is not needed, and floats to active when disconnected.
No soldering needed, nothing. Just remove a pin from the cable.
However, that ruins a cable for other uses (in Pna's case, it was OK, but not everyone wants to), so I refined the idea a bit.
I bought a DB9M and DB9F connector.
I took the DB9M (the one with the pins) and ripped out pin 6 from the connector. I then soldered the connectors back to back (pins to pins).
Instant adapter.
Plug the adapter into the SL/T232, and use a regular null modem cable for the rest.
Jim
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