Conference hydra::amiga_v1

                                            
    Handshake is VERY braindead when it comes to supporting international 
    keymaps and characters, but it's also a VERY good VT100/200 emulator.
    
    And it's ShareWare...
    
    If you don't need file transfer protocols, Wheat is a nearly perfect
    VT220 emulator, but it also lacks keymapping...
    
    VLT (FreeWare) does keymapping and supports international characters,
    but is not perfect in emulating a VT100. Keypad works, though.
    Since it's rather customizeable, you should be able to teach it
    all necessery tricks as far as keyboard codes a concerned. A VERY
    nice Tektroniks emulation, too.
        
    All of these programs should be available on internal archives like
    TAPE::, WJG::, NORSE:: or on Fish Disks.
    
    Regards,
    
    <CB>

    i seem to have a basic mistrust of archive/shareware type programs for
    heavy-duty use. reasons?
    
    1. fear of viruses
    2. concern that the packages are not as fully tested/debugged as
    commercial software might be
    3. concern that the packages don't have the features
    4. concern about problems with file-transfer. there are SO many notes
    and replies in this file about such problems.
    
    so i think i would be willing to pay the price to allay these fears.
    
    ken

    
    Re: .2
    
    hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, you kill me!
    
    Don't take this personally, but Online (including 3.0) sucks. More
    bugs or nonfeatures that you can shake a stick at. Diga! is even
    worse.
    
    If you insist on a commercial program, go for ATalk-III or whatever
    the newest version of ATalk may be. I can't guarantee on the keypad
    feature, though.
    
    The viruses stuff in nonsense, if you are THAT afraid, I wouldn't
    run any software on my system. Install Virus-X 3.2 and relax.
    None of the programs I mentioned has a virus build into them, I
    can assure you of that...
    
    JRComm has more features (and presents them nicer) than most of
    the commercial stuff. VLT is in the same league.
        
    Well, if the package doesn't have the features you need or want,
    you didn't shell out $$$ for it. They come for FREE.
    
    The file transfer problems are most of the time caued wrong settings 
    or other circumstances that are not in the responsibility of the
    program.
    JRComm seems to have real problems in some areas, but it's still
    in beta test...
    
    Regards,
    
    <CB> 

I agree with .3.  I have probably a $1000 worth of garbage SW at home that I 
don't even use as it is so bug ridden.  I've never picked up a virus in the
3+ years that I've had my Amiga. I had an early version of Online that was
barely capable of doing an ASCII capture of Dave Wecker's VT100 sources which
is still a great package.  Mike Leibow's VT200 v1.1a was an evolution of VT100
and has everything but Z-modem ( are you out there Mike? hint, hint... ;^} ).
A recent CAD package called PLOTS beats the DRAW+ package my wife got me ( boy
was she robbed!!! ).

I can go on and on but the PD games, utilities, tools, etc. are usually better
than 98% of the commercial stuff and you can usually get sources to fix or
extend them. Try doing that with any commercial package!!!

	Dick

    Re: Reasons cited for not trusting public domain software
    
>    1. fear of viruses
    
    To my knowledge, nothing coming from Usenet has had virus problems,
    Fred Fish PD disks copied from reputable sources (such as good computer
    stores and the online archives on TAPE::) have no virus problems,
    and people in this notesfile generally have had no problems with
    viruses from PD disks.  Besides, the available virus checker programs
    do a good job and can be left running all the time with no hassle.
    
>    2. concern that the packages are not as fully tested/debugged as
>    commercial software might be
    
    Usually the second or third revision of a PD package is as bug-free
    as commercial software, or else you'll see lots of messages here
    saying 'So-and-so still hasn't fixed the bugs in his xyzzy software.'
    
>    3. concern that the packages don't have the features
    
    Sometimes a problem, depending on how, er, idiosyncratic the author
    decides to be.  Any software getting a good review in this notesfile
    is likely to be full-featured, though.  On the other hand, what
    do you expect for free?
    
>    4. concern about problems with file-transfer. there are SO many notes
>    and replies in this file about such problems.
    
    Nearly 100% of the problems are related to VMS and terminal servers,
    and have absolutely _nothing_ to do with your Amiga or with any
    other microcomputer, for that matter.  These problems go way back
    to the CP/M days.  For skeptics, dial up your local bulletin board
    and see how much easier file transfer is compared to getting stuff
    off your VMS system at work.
    
    Wes

    ok! ok! i'm convinced!
    
    i've already looked at Fish disks, which seems a good way to go: they 
    have Handshake and VT100. One of the advantages of free/share/ware is
    that i can get BOTH for real cheap.
    
    couldn't find Wheat or VLT (see .2) on fish disks.
    
    any other suggestions?
    
    btw: thanks for your comments and suggestions!
    
    ken

    
    I used to used Handshake as a VT100 emulator.  I used to run EDT
    all the time from home and I could swear the kepad worked correctly.
    
    
    If your looking COMMERCIAL,  I recommend ATALK III.   I switched
    to ATALK III only to get ZMODEM protocal.   I use ATALK III all
    the time in VT100 mode and the kepad seems to work exactly right.
    
    Is ATALK better/worse than Handshake?   I couldn't say, if I didn't
    need ZMODEM I'd still be using Handshake (and it's MUCH cheaper).
    
    Frank
    

    re: a few back
    
    Smokey V1.1a is still the best VT100/VT200 emulator I've found.  I've
    tried ATALK III, but it didn't have ZMODEM RESUME and it couldn't seem
    to swap the BS and DEL keys which really annoys me :-).  So I end up
    using Smokey when I want to do some interactive work and AZcomm when I
    want to download (ZMODEM + ZMODEM RESUME).  I've never found a single
    emulation bug in Smokey V1.1a.  If someone could add ZMODEM with a
    RESUME option to Smokey that would seal it for me.  If the sources
    are Lattice compatible I'll give it a go myself, but I think Mike used
    Manx...
    
    regards,
    
    steve

    re .8
    
    Current version of ATALK III has ZMODEM RESUME.
    
    As mentioned in .8  BS and DEL are not swapped (yes! annoying).  I
    think I have them convinced to make that user selectable in the next
    release.  Actually that's not a VT100 emulation problem.  I think it's
    because we like to emuate VT100's with LK style keyboards.
    
    Frank 

I agree with Steve (.8). The key mapping is much more natual with Smokey
than with any of the other PD emulators. I also like some of the features
such as iconify, clear screen etc. I use either AZCOMM or JRCOMM for ZMODEM.
JRCOMM is slick. If I were a BBS junkie I'd probably use it. JRCOMM & HANDSHAKE
both look nice (might be better fonts than smokey) but for VT200/lk201 keyboard
emulation, Smokey wins.

Dave 

 

	FWIW, JRComm is terrific for Zmodem transfers (having gotten
	frustrated with Handshake using Xmodem), but currently lacks
	Handshake's VT100 compatibility. Maybe a later version...

	KY

I use Handshake in VT220 mode and use LSE all the time - the function
keys are a little strange, but other than that it works great. I use
YMODEM all the time with no problems (even with a noisy line). The
Next-Page and Prev-Page are mapped onto the numeric pad as Shift-6 and
Shift-5 which i found easy to get used to (not enough keys on the
keyboard).
 The only bug with Handshake is it displays the cursor wrong 1
position to the right if you edit a line that goes off the screen, and
in 132 mode the font isn't perfect, but i get by. I doubt if a
commercial peice of software could be much better.

 mark

    
    Re: .6
    
    Wheat and Meshugena, which are nearly the same program but support
    different multiple session protocols, should be available somewhere
    on TAPE::
    The latest and greatest version of VLT is on Fish #226, also to
    be found on TAPE::.
    
    Great to have you convinced, maybe I should look into a career as
    TV evangelist.... :-) ;-)
    
    <CB>
    

    While laughing about OnLIne....we just happen to have it as well.
    We use the vt102 terminal emulator, 8 bit, no parity, one stop bit with a 
    df224 and have not too many problems. The curious thing is why does the
    keypad work correctly with VMS applications such as NOTES but not with
    VTX ?
    
    One of these days we will switch...but time is short and for now it is 
    convenient....excpet for when I need vtx that is!
    
    
    wendy