CompuServe Messages

Here's a suggestion for a better file transfer protecol. It came to mind after reading all the messages concerning CHOP confusion. Why not have a protecol that automatically squeezes a file, sends it through the phone lines, then unsqueezes it at the receiving end. Better still, send a header that contains the file name and other info that allows the receiver to specify whether the file is to be unsqueezed. This would allow the squeezed version to remain on CIS for example, then when a person downloaded the file the protecol would detect that the file was already squeezed and would not attempt to squeeze it again. In the error detection area, I also have a suggestion. In my days working on SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems we used a modified CRC that was 6 bits long for a 4 byte transmission. This CRC was flipped (ie bit 0=bit 5, 1=4, etc) so that the error detection bits were still the last 6 in the message, but were a mirror image. Apparently (I am no math whiz) this decreased the odds of an error significantly over a regular CRC. – Chris * Reply: 8712