CompuServe Thread

No – the program I recommend for packet is “CoComm'', from DL6 in AmigaVendor. It's much more flexible than VLT or BackTalk for operations that drive a complex layerred modem like a KAM or a PK-232 (your typical packet system). It's not simple by any means, but then, the task (to control a TNC cleanly) isn't simple either. Among other things in DL6 over there are example configurations for packet operation with the KAM, which is the Kantronix packet/AMTOR/RTTY modem (they'll tell you it does fax and sstv too, but it's so poor at it it's not worth thinking about – and there are no Amiga support programs to drive it that way, anyhow). –Ben

Chris; Did you have an experience such as I did? I ran HDOS for quite some time and then bought CPM (after all EVERYONE was using CPM). Was writing some code and got a BDOS error on B. It was all gone! Everything! I was so shocked. I could not believe it. I had become used to HDOS's way of handling things (like the Amiga does now). That was on the old H-8, I reset the machine, booted HDOS, and never ran CPM again (almost, curiosity got me every few months or so, but never tried to do anything serious again under CPM). VLT and BackTalk are available in the Telecom library here on CIS (as are several other programs). VLT is the product of SLAC (Willy Langfield – Stanford Linear ACcellerator group). It is amoung the most stable terminal programs on the Amiga. It is currently the one that I used the most but you do need to be at least somewhat comfortable with ARexx programming to make it powerful (BTW, I think it is Willy that wrote VLT, I could be wrong there). BackTalk is written by Steve Ahlstrom and Don Curtis, both here on CIS. Steve teamed up with Jim Nangano to write Whap! and is the author of View! Both are SYSOPs on CIS (and Steve is "Daddy Sysop"). BackTalk is also have a very good ARexx interface. Unlike VLT, the phone book is built in (with VLT there is an ARexx phone book on the networks). Even this latest version (1.51) seem to have some trouble with ZModem (at least on my system). It will transfer using Zmodem but there are errors and the transfer rate runs about 10 to 20% lower than with VLT. They are both using the same XPRZmodem library, so I don't know whats going on. -bill – via Whap!