AIX PS/2 1.2 & IBM X.25 simply doesn't work!

[Anssi Porttikivi]

Hello, all you UNIX(tm), AIX(tm) and data communications experts!



We have BIG problems runnning AIX PS/2 X.25.

Our hardware:

IBM PS/2 80-111, 386 20 Mhz, 4 Mb RAM, 110 Mb disk 
IBM X.25 card 
Nokia synchronous modem 
HPY (the local phone company) X.25 socket in the wall

Our (buggy) software:

IBM AIX PS/2 1.2 
AIX PS/2 X.25 Program 
IBM maintenance update 01.02.0300

Our mission:

To set up a public access multi-user USENET site.  The
telephone company provides a service by which people
can call our public number with ordinary modems and the
calls are routed and protocol converted to our X.25
address. This is supposed to be a cheap multi-user
alternative to multiple telephone lines. 

Our problems:

We have serious problems that prevent any intended use
of the software and the IBM staff here are not too
helpful, or skilled enough.

Problem 1.  

The X.25 first refused to do anything.  It began to
initiate sessions after applying update 01.02.0300.
However, sessions through X.25 do not work properly:

- when editing the command line the "erase" character
messes up the display. The edited command line is given
to the system OK, but the screen looks like backspace
is echoed as <BS><BS><space><BS>.

- when running microEmacs (we compiled the sources),
characters are not echoed immediately, but seem to be
buffered. I can type about 20 characters before they
appear on the screen all at once. If I type one
character and wait a few seconds that one character
eventually appears. The problem doesn't appear to be a
slow line or system, since return and microEmacs
commands work immediately. If I type return or a few
characters and return they appear on the screen
immediately. Using some command, Control-A for example,
instead of return also gets immediate echo.

Our theory is: The X.25 processor tries to off-load
processing from the CPU, but instead of being helpful
gets in the way. Looks like writing on the command line
makes X.25 echo everything typed, but backspace is
echoed also by the tty driver as <BS><space><BS>, 
which in addition to the <BS> echoed by X.25 messes up
the screen.  When in microEmacs (version 3.10), X.25
handles letters and digits itself, buffering them. When
X.25 gets something it does not know what to do with,
it gives the buffered input to the CPU.  Why does it
work differently in microEmacs?

As far as we can understand, the X.25 subsystem should
immediately pass everything typed to the tty device
driver and not buffer anything.  Also it should not
echo anything. We tried "stty" command, but did not
understand what to change.  We seem to get error
messages trying the "stty" on the X.25 system pseudo
tty port device files. Just writing this I received a
message from a friend.  He says, that the X.25 standard
defines a parameter FORWARD which controls the echoing
of different cahracter classes.  As far as I know this
not mentioned in the AIX X.25 documentation?

Problem 2. 

When we initiate a session through X.25, we get modem
commands thrown at us by don't know which software,
maybe "getty" ?  This is very harmful in our case and
must be corrected.  The commands are those Hayes
commands used to initialize a modem for auto-answer and
some others. How should I configure the line so that
all programs involved believe it is not a modem line?
Setting clocal + or - doesn't seem to affect anything
and the IBM X.25 software doesn't always allow using
the "stty" to set CLOCAL.   When a X.25 session ends an
error message

"Could not set clocal, getty sleeping."

is always displayed.

Is anybody in the whole world running this kind of
system? Can it work? Are we stupid? Help us!


-- 
Anssi Porttikivi                 Anssi_Porttikivi at cs.helsinki.fi      "I am 
Gaudeamus Data Oy (Inc.)         Vuorikatu 5                         Finnished
telefax (+358-0-) 13114345       00250 HELSINKI, FINLAND               now"