termcap for IBM PC

[johnston%lbl-csam at sri-unix.UUCP]

From:  (Bill Johnston [csam])johnston at lbl-csam


The IBM PC, in and of it self, looks like a dumb terminal; that is
characters comming from the communication interface are sent directly to
the screen. PC's with DOS 2.0 have loadable device drivers, one of which
implements an ANSI terminal. Characters sent to the screen by using the
appropriate DOS calls will be interpreted by this driver. Unfortunately,
not all software makes use of the proper DOS calls, so characters may
get to the screen without going through the ANSI driver, even if it is loaded.
The most notable example of this are all BASIC programs; e.g. the PC-TALK
communications program. Most commercial communications programs implement some
terminal emulation in their program, usually VT-52 or VT-100.

A good, public domain, communications program, which also implements
reliable file transfer in the form of a "mini" FTP, is the KERMIT program
distributed from Columbia U. KERMIT has implementations on 20-30 hosts
and micro systems, including UNIX, VMS, VM/CMS, PC DOS, CPM, UCSD-p, etc.
Each implementation is done in a language suitable for the
host (C for UNIX, ASM fo PC, BLISS for VMS,
etc.). PC-KERMIT emulates a VT-52 with some H-19 extensions.
I have a termcap for this, which showed up on the KERMIT, ARPA net-billboard
(Info-Kermit at COLUMBIA-20).
The implementations are collected and distributed by Columbia.
The distribution is via the ARPANET (free) or by tape ($100). Contact
Frank da Cruz (fdc at COLUMBIA-20).

N.B.
Recently, some people around here have started using KERMIT for file transfer
instead of UUCP since KERMIT will run nicely at 9600 baud, whereas UUCP
seems not to. This
is probably due to the fact that KERMIT is much simpler (and less capable)
than UUCP. KERMIT, for instance, sends it's data through the terminal handler,
letting it worry about flow control, which is probably where UUCP gets
into trouble.