|Internet,Modems, |and the whole Comms Thing by BullyBeef How reading this will help you. These simple chapters cover the basics, the things you need to know to get started, the language is friendly, the concepts simple, but the message clear, todays modems are foolproof and easy to use, software is cheap and powerful, and todays communications networks let you tour the world (not simply log on to a trainspotting bulletin board somewhere in pontefract). After reading these chapters you'll be able to: Give yourself 12 good reasons for buying a modem? Pick the modem you need, not the one the salesman wants to shift. Pick the right software and figure out how it works. Get yourself online. Pretty good, eh? If you want to breath life into your computer, then give it a modem, a modem is your introduction into the world of computer communication, or comms as it is known (unless you are an american then you will probably be thinking "oh he must mean telecomputing"), and at it's simplest that is exactly what it is - communication between computers, it's the abil- ity for your computer to talk to other computers, anywhere in the world and to exchange information between them, that infomation can take many forms, be it a computer program, a picture, some music, a book, or even an animation... you name it. But comms goes further than that, you can not only communicate with an- other computer but also with the people behind the keyboard, real con- versations take place, real friendships are forged, real communities can develop, it isn't unknown for people to fall in love across the network of computer networks known as the internet, in fact i know of a number of people who are happily marred after having met this way, it doesn't stop there though, comms isn't just the future of dating agen- cies (although that may well be true), there are many varied and excit- ing opportunities open to you as soon as you enter the online arena. Here are just a few of the things you can do. Communicate using Electronic mail, no more waiting days for your post to arrive at it's destination, with Email your letter can be delivered instantly to another user of the same service, literally as soon as you press the return key it has been delivered and simply waits for the re- cipient to connect to the service to retrieve it, if the Email is sent to a user of a different service then it may ake an hour or two to tra- vel across the networks, whatever, it isn't surprising that traditional postal services are known as "snail mail" to comms users because of the slowness of delivery?. Send faxes and receive faxes without a fax machine, many modems have a fax capability built in, and even if you don't possess one of these then may online services offer a fax facility via your computer. Join a home banking scheme, some banks offer users with the appropriate technology the opportunity to do their banking from home, getting stat- ements, balances, issuing transfer request ect. Gain access to vast libraries of public domain and shareware programs, covering every possible intrest from games through to accounting pack- ages to classics of literature in computer readable format. Play online games,in real time, with real people, imagine being able to pilot a world war two bomber as part of a squadron, working with your co-pilots to try and defeat an enemy squadron, could this be the ulti- mate flight sim fantasy? stop imagining, it's no fantasy, you can do this now using comms. Get help with your worst computer problems from experts in the field free of charge and within a few hours of asking. Go shopping without leaving your armchair, being able to buy anything from the latest CD to that new car you promised your partner, you can book holidays, reserve air and train tickets, get seats for a big con- cert, or even send flowers to your loved one, all from the comfort of your own home. If you are writing a project for school, college, or even maybe as part of your work, you can do the necessary research without having to spend a day at the library, use the vast stores of information out in cyber- space, ask your computer to find the information for you and then down- load it from a database in tokyo direct to your Amiga in warrington? Forget directory enquiries if you need to find a telephone number, go straight to the computer databases that the operators use themselves. Services such as "Phonebase" and "Electronic Yellow Pages" allow you to quickly find the numbers you want with the minimum of fuss. Participate in lively, stimulating, or just plain daft, debates on any subject you can possibly think of, if you want to talk about something it can be guaranteed that somewhere in CyberSpace there are gonna be other people that will want to talk about it with you. Find out about the news as it is happening, connect to the news feeds that are used by the professionals to see what is happening worldwide, before it reaches the radio or television. Work from home, many people are now using modems to enable them to work at home, known as "Teleworking" this is an employment sector that is very definitely on the increase in the UK, of course this is not just restricted to data input jobs, many journalists write their copy on the computer and then send them directly to the editor using a modem. There are, of course, many more avenues of opportunity within the comms arena but i think you get the idea from this short list, the modem is going to be your gateway into another world, the world of the future,as they,whoever they may be, say,"the future is now". Getting Connected: All you need to get into this fascinating world of comms is your Amiga, a modem, a telephone line, and some terminal software, lets take a look at each of these in more detail: The Amiga: Any type of computer can be used for comms but the Amiga is obvioysly my computer of choice and yours too if you are reading this? however, the type of computer is irrelevant when it comes to actually communica- ting, an Amiga will quite happily talk to a Mac, PC, Atari, Sparcstat- ion or whatever. (to make your online life easier an Amiga with a hard disk is recommended, but not essential, using a hard disk will speed up data transfers and make storage a lot easier, many off line readers do not, for example, work on a floppy based system), as with most appli- cations, the more RAM you have the better althrough a basic 1Mb system will work, similary, the faster your Amiga the better the performance you will get with comms. The Amiga has a pretty decent serial port as standard, and this allows for fast transfer rates without the need for extra hardware, but you'll get better results from a 68040 or 68030 equipped machine than a low end basic 68000 A500/1500, it is the serial port that is used for sending and receiving of data, and it is used in preference to the parallel port because it offers a more reliable link over long distances. As an Amiga owner you are fortunate in possessing a truly multitasking computer - it means that you have one of the best value for money mach- ines available for comms use. Many PC's suffer from problems with high speed comms because they lose information during system interrupts, but the Amiga can deal with these interrupts efficiently because of it's multitasking capability, to ach- ieve effective high speed transfers on a PC you are looking at extra ex- pense to purchase specialised add-ons such as a special chip for the serial port or even a serial port accelerator card,(ooops picking on the PC again ha,ha). The Modem: A modem is, simply, a device for converting computer data to and from sound so that it can be transmitted over an ordinary telephone line, computers talk in a language that is made up of 0's and 1's, called bi- nary, this digital information has to be converted into an analogue si- gnal, sound, before it can be transmitted using the telephone line,when the information is received at the other end of the link, the receiving modem converts the sound signal back into the digital information the computer there will understand. Although this may all sound terribly complicated,it is in fact a very simplified explanation of what actually happens in the data transfer process, all you really need to know is that it works, just let the modems do all the hard work - it's what they get paid for after all. Modems have come a very long way in a very short time, not so long ago i was using what was then state of the art technology, yet it crawled along like a snail with a broken leg, now just a few years later i am using a modem that cost an awful lot less in real terms but can trans- fer data 100 times faster? in general terms the rule of thumb when look ing at buying a modem is to go for the fastest that you can afford. To buy a cheap but slow modem can be something of a false economy, the main cost of communications is going to be that of using the telephone line, all the time you are connected to an online service you are using your telephone and running up the bill. The slower the modem, the longer it takes you to transfer data, and so the more time you spend actually using the phone line, the faster the modem, the faster it wil be to transfer data and you will spend less on phone bills, with the prices of modems dropping all the time, you should be looking at one that has a speed of 9,600bps (bits per second) as a minimum, these modems will also be known as V32 standard. Many modems also feature a fax capability, but only pay the extra for this if you think you will really be making use of it, remember that you will most likely need to purchase special software to enable you to utilise the fax facility of your modem, so there is that hidden expense to consider, having said that, a fax modem is a wonderful creation, if you think about how most people use a fax machine it makes good sense to have one built onto a modem, most faxes are made up of text, text that is typed into a word processor or computer then printed out and fed through the fax machine, wouldn't it be much easier to not have to print it out after you have typed it? with a fax modem you can, all you do is simply type in your fax and then tell your computer where to send it. Incoming faxes are received and stored in the computer, where they can be displayed at leisure, you can, of course, also send graphics in your faxes and a fax modem will send it to any fax machine not just another fax modem, one thing that is essential is that your modem is Hayes com- patible, Hayes are a modem manufacturer, many would say the leading modem manufacturer, and were responsible for introducing a command set that allows computers to communicate effectively with modems in a stan- dard manner, (the hayes command set is now the de facto standard, and is implemented on any modem worth it's salt, hayes commands are covered later on). You have a choice of internal or external modems, and they work in ex- actly the same manner, the advantage of the external modem is that you can unplug it from one computer and connect to another with ease, exte- rnal modems are fairly universal in that they will work with just about any computer, they also have a very visable display which may take the form of a row of flashing LEDs or in some cases now an alpha-numeric display, these displays are used to give you information about the mo- dem and it's operation, and can be very useful in tracking down any problems, the internal modems have the advantage that they take up no desk space, however, they cannot be easily transferred from computer to computer and are generally platform specific, and of course you do not get helpful flashing lights displayed either, and you use up a useful slot as well, for many Amiga owners the internal modem won't even be an option, simply because of the design of an Amiga A500 or A1200 for ex- ample, an internal modem draws on the computer's power supply so no bulky power supply unit is required. Look out for modems that feature error checking and data compression,as this dramatically improves the modem's efficiency and speed of oper- ation, at the time of writing, V42/V42bis is the standard to look for, as an example, the new breed of modem's from hayes have a transmission speed of 28,800bps but this can be increased to a theoretical maximum throughput of 230,400bps using their implementation of V42bis data com- pression which can compress data by up to 8 times in some cases. (Many modems may appear to offer exactly the same features as another that costs almost twice as much, however, make sure that you check that the cheaper modem is BABT approved). All modems must comply with the BABT approval system,which covers such things as safety issues like ensuring high voltages aren't generated on the telephone line, and usage factors like interference with other phone line users, all this costs money, a cost which is passed on to the consumer, but the important and simple fact is that it is ILLEGAL to use a non-BABT approved modem ( or even a telephone for that matter)on the UK telephone system, many people don't like the approval scheme, and many people do use non-BABT approved mo- dem's in this country, you should be aware that, possibly, your phone line could be disconnected if you were to be found using such equipment The Phone Line: You don't need a dedicated telephone line to use a modem, although some times it can be useful as you will see in moment, your standard home or business line will be fine, you just plug your modem into the phone socket and your telephone into the modem, some modems do not have a tel ephone socket to allow this, so you will require a socket doubler to co nnect both phone and modem to the same socket, and that's all there is to it, you can still use your telephone as usual, but not when you are using the modem, of course, as they both share the same phone line, a separate, dedicated, phone line is really necessary only if you want to set up your own Bulletin Board System or are likely to be hooked up for such a period of time that you will seriously annoy your partner/parent or flatmate, (do keep an eye on the REN ratings of the equipment you're using, i have a combined telephone and answering machine connected to the same line as my modem without any trouble, but if the REN total gets to high it can cause problems with extensions not ringing properly ect. Communications Software: Terminal software has one sole purpose in life, and that is to make communication between computer and modem as easy and painless as poss- ible, good terminal software maximises the power of your communications set up in addition to just providing a user friendly interface, for the software to be of any real use to you there are a number of features you should be looking for, basic (but nonetheless important) parameters need to be configurable such as data bits, parity, stop bits,duplex,and of course communication speed (or baud rate), these parameters demand some explanation, and here seems as good a place as any to give it, for two computers to transmit data effectively they must agree on certain communication parameters, just as two people speaking need to use a common language. Data bits refer to the number of bits sent for each piece of information or character, transmitted (a bit is the smallest unit of computer data, a single binary digit in fact). Parity refers to a simple method of checking the integrity of data re- ceived, in other words if the stuff sent has arrived safely. Parity checking is not the same thing as the error checking protocols that were mentioned previously, there are two types of parity checking, namely even/odd and mark/space. Of these the even/odd system is in far more common use. Start and stop bits let the receiving modem know when each character ends and the next one begins, because there are so many factors affect- ing the time it takes to send a character. A start bit is added to the start of each character, which is just a collection of bits itself, a stop bit is added to the end of each char- acter, sometimes, although very rarely, two stop bits may be used. Duplex simply refers to whether the receiving computer should echo the characters you are sending back to your computer to be displayed,setting the system to full duplex means your computer echoes characters to it's counterpart, whereas half duplex means it echos characters to your own screen. You'll soon know if this setting is wrong as it makes for an unreadable display,either nothing at all or words that have two of everything like BBuullyy BBeeeeff depending on which duplex mode isn't being correctly used? communication speed is very important of course, and refers to how quickly data actually gets transmitted, modems need to know how fast they can talk to each other, and have to be compatible with re- gards to speed, your modem may be a super fast whizz bang model capable of transferring at 28,800bps, but it can't go that fast if the modem at the other end of the telephone line is an older model that can only talk at a rate of 9,600bps, you need to know the capabilities of the mo dem at the remote connection to be able to communicate effectively and understandably, there is a whole heap of confusion when it comes to talking about modem speeds, and people who write about comms are as gu- ilty as anyone for helping to further this confusion by confusing bits per second (bps) with baud rate. Just for the record, bits per second refers to the number of bits tran- smitted every second, a baud is one unit of information per second but each unit could be comprised of one or many bits, ok. You should be looking at software that offers a good modem configur- ation menu, to enable you to get the very best out of your modem no matter which online service you are connecting to,similarly the trans- fer protocol options are vitally important if you want to be able to transfer files to and from a number of different services with maximum efficiency in terms of both speed and stability,file transfer is simply the moving of a file, which can be of any variety (text, binary, ect ) between computers, there are two basic types of file transfer, ASCII , and binary, ASCII transfer is the moving of seven-bit ASCII files, and binary transfer is more complicated and can send eight-bit characters, transferring the data in groups of bytes, binary transfers use error checking protocols to ensure that each of these blocks of information gets sent correctly, as one corrupt block could completely ruin all of that file, ASCII transfer is fairly simple and can only really be used for moving text files, although it is possable to convert binary files to an ASCII format for transferring in this way (however, this is not recommended for the faint hearted). ASCII transfers are transmitted a character at a time, just as if you were typing the text into the other computer directly from your key- board, of course, you cannot type as fast as data is sent during this type of transfer? although ASCII transfers are simple to implement and to use, their simplicty is also a disadvantage as only the simplest of files can be sent using this method, there is also a tendency for line noise (where there is a poor telephone line or connection) to result in lost characters during a transfer due to either lack of error checking, or the inability to retransmit corrupt data, this tendancy increases in direct proportion to the speed of transfer - the faster you send it the more chance there is of information getting lost en rout, many of the files cannot be transfered by ASCII transfer due to the fact that they contain 8-bit characters which would be corrupted, or seven-bit control characters that may be interpreted as a command by the receiving com- puter. So when you need to send binary data, programs ect, you have to use a binary (or error checking) protocol, binary transfers are sent in groups of characters, also called blocks or packets, which can be of varying size according to which of the many binary transfer protocols you use, information about each of these blocks is added by your computer and included as part of the block when transmitted, on receiving each block, the remote computer reads it and checks that the data contained matches the description given in this extra information tagged to it, if the block has been corrupted, it is sent again to insure the integrity of the transfer, this "extra" information is transmitted either as a block header (that is part of the block itself) or before or after the block. Further blocks are not sent until the sending computer has received an acknowledgment from the receiving computer regarding the integrity of the block sent, to prevent excessive wasted on line time when data is being severely corrupted for what ever reason, a bolck will only be re- sent so many times before the transfer is terminated, the number of at- temps can be set by the user, or may sometimes be a default number de- pending on the protocol used, there are many different file transfer protocols in use, but the most popular of them are described below. Xmodem: Xmodem is one of the most common of the error checking protocols, hav- ing been around since 1978 and being implemented by just about every on line service known to man, Xmodem works by transferring data in blocks of 128 bytes, to which a checksum is added, a chunksum is an extra bit which is used by the receiving system to check the integrity of the transmitted block, if the chunksum is wrong then the receiving machine will request that the block is sent again, if all is well it will ask for the next block to be transmitted, Xmodem can also use cyclic redun- dancy check to check for errors, known as Xmodem/CRC this adds a second chunksum bit to the transmitted block, thus increasing the realiability of the transfer. Kermit: (the frog, joke ha,ha) Kermit is another of the old school of protocols, having been with us since 1981, kermit is very similar to Xmodem in that it uses blocks and a chunksum to transfer data (however, Xmodem is not named after a green puppet frog while kermit is !), it can transfer seven-bit files, which Xmodem can't do, and is slightly more flexable than Xmodem in that the size of the blocks can be altered to best suit the receiving system. Xmodem can be troubled by the line noise, but kermit is able to resynchronise transfers in this circumstance, kermit has some other ad- vantages to Xmodem,first,it uses a form of file compression to increase transfer speeds providing both computers involved in the transfer are using the same puppet (sorry i mean kermit) protocol, secondly, kermit allows the use of wild cards for transfers, so using an asterisk to replace a name or extension will transfer a number of files, Ymodem: Ymodem transfers it's data in blocks of 1024 bytes, compared to the 128 byte blocks that Xmodem uses, this results in much faster transfers,pro viding their are not to many errors in the transmission, using a very similar checksum to Xmodem, Ymodem can be a superior protocol under ideal conditions, however, because block transmission is automatic this can slow things down considerably if there is a bad connection or lots of line noise presant during the transfer. Zmodem: Zmodem is the protocol that i use personaly, as do the majority of peo- ple who frequent the on line community, it uses larger blocks than Xmodem, 512 bytes, and doesn't wait for acknowledgements before sending blocks (it looks for NAKs at the sending side only), Zmodem is the fast est of the protocols, allows for wildcard transfers, and is simple to use, as with file transfer protocol options, the more terminal emulation options available to you the less chance there is of finding a service that you cannot use, communications packages sometimes appear to be overloaded with features that will never be used, but the simple truth is that there are so many different modems, online services, and comm- unications set ups out there that it would be sheer folly for the authors of these programs to not include every option they can think of. Features to look for: Once you get past the essential features list,and all packages will have them of course, you can start looking for the touches that will help to make your online life that much easier, in reviewing the three main terminal software programs available i have looked at five areas which are important in this respect. Phonebook: A good phonebook is a must-have if you intend to spend anytime what so ever online, you can store not only the numbers of online services here but call them up at the click of a mouse or press of the return key, but also the all the configuration details specific to that service, once you get into using comms you may find there are many different systems you will want to use, being able to store all the information that your modem and computer need to be able to talk effectively and efficiently to each one is very important, a good phonebook will allow you to enter this information easily, and offer a choice in how it is both sorted and displayed. Review buffer: A review buffer is simply a method of storing the information that is displayed on your screen during an online session, this infomation is saved to a file, a file whose size is configurable depending on the package you use, as an example, you may decide you want a review buffer that holds 400 lines of text, if you set the buffer size accordingly it will store all the information coming in until it reaches the 400 line figure, but will then discard line 1 when line 401 is received, discard line 2 when 402 is received and so on, the information kept in the buf- fer is always the most recently received, once you have ended your on- line session you can display the contents of the buffer in it's own win dow, a review buffer needs both to be flexable and to offer good text searching and saving features, you may find yourself using the buffer to read through long messages offline (so saving money on telephone connect charges), or even studying the menu structure and roadmap of a new and unfamiliar BBS so as to minimise the amount of time you spend online just trying to find your way around. File transfer: As mentioned already, file transfer protocols are essential in order to maximise the efficiency of uploads ans downloads, look for a package that offers Zmodem primarily, as this has now become a standard among online services, and as many other protocols as possible, the reason for looking for as many as possible is that there are lots of different online services available and some, like Compuserve for example, use proprietary protocols, although not all the protocols are as efficient as Zmodem, if it isn't implemented on the service you are connected to it isn't going to be much use to you? also look for such things as what information is given to you during a file transfer, file transfer status windows can tell you much more than just the name of the file being moved. The sort of information that is important includes the size of the file, an estimate of how long it will take to transfer, an indication of the actual rate of transfer being achieved, some sort of graphical bargraph display to show you the percentage of the file transferred, details of any transfer errors, and when using a protocol such as Zmodem the name of the next file waiting to be moved in a multiple transfer. Scripts: Some sort of scripting facility is important, although less so now than a few years ago, most scripts are used to automate the logging on pro- cess and then collecting unread mail and messages for download to be read offline, these days there are not many online services that don't have some sort of offline reader available that does this for you, how- ever, scripts are still useful and you should be looking for a package that supports ARexx at least, some packages have their own built in script language, which can be very powerful but you need some basic pro gramming skills to be able to utilise them. Macros: Macros help to make life easier, and online sessions quicker, by assign- ing strings of text to defined keys, usually it will be the function keys that are used, sometimes in conjunction with qualifier keys such as shift, ctrl, and alt to give more macro keys to use, a macro key could be used for something as simple as typing your username with one key press, or a more complicated macro could be defined that actually automates part of the online process. Amiga Comms packages: Amiga users are fortunate in that communications is one area where, with out exception, all the best software packages are in the PD/Shareware marketplace, there have been a number of commercial programs over the years, but all of these have fallen by the wayside in the face of exce- llent and much superior shareware competition, comms is very much a com- munity of enthusiasts, all of whom seem to want to help each other and make online life easier for everyone,of the three main software packages one is absolutely free and the other two cost only a fistful of dollars to register, to find the communications package that is best for you,and essentially it is a very personal choice, i would suggest that you read the following reviews and with them in mind go and try all three pieces of software and see which you feel most comfortable with, all three will enable you to enter the wonderful world of comms with the minimum of hassle. Term: Author: Olaf "Olsen" Barthel Brabeckstrasse 35 D-3000 Hannover 71 Germany Email: olsen@sourcery.mxm.sub.org Availability: most Amiga BBS and FTP sites, or PD libraries Cost: Giftware (see below) If you are using Workbench 2.04 or higher (and one has to ask if not,why not?)then you should seriously consider using Term as your communication software, in the best tradition of comms Term is as good as free,in fact it is "giftware" requiring you to send the author a gift of any kind which you think will suffice as payment should you like and use the pro gram,Term is a highly configurable piece of software, down to the small- est of details, this may make it's installation seem daunting, but there is a very complete manual provided as an AmigaGiude document as well as a plain text version,and using the default settings should enable you to get online before you have to worry about fine tuning your setup, Term provides all the features you need to get online, but the following are the most useful: Phonebook: This is a very nicely implemented feature, allowing every entry to be custom comfigured, every possible setup option is catered for, so each entry can use a different connect speed, terminal type, and so on, in effect Term loads a new and different set of preferences for each entry selected from the phonebook, nice touches include the ability to set rates for connect rates for individual entries, so enabling you to keep an eye on ongoing costs, the phonebook itself can be protected by a master password, when you first run Term you are then asked for the password and if you do not know it the phonebook file is not loaded,this is a very nice secure little feature that helps to prevent the curious from getting details of the entries in your phonebook, especially use- ful if you store system passwords there (and i would recommend that you don't, for pretty obvious reasons?), Term itself will still operate per- fectly normally, there just won't be the password protected phonebook available, it is also possible to get a hardcopy printout of your phone- book, the amount of detail to be printed is configurable. Review Buffer: The review buffer has a good, fast, text search, the scrolling is smooth and the review window is resizable. File Transfer: The Zmodem implementation is good, with all the options that you will need, the status window provides all the information you could possibly want regarding the file transfer, including transfer speeds, estimated transfer times, a bargraph to give a graphical display of the file trans fer, details on the next file to be transferred and so on, all in all Term is very thorough in this most important of areas. Scripts: While Term, unlike NComm and Terminus, doesn't have it's own script language it is ARexx compatible to allow for scripting, ARexx commands and for that matter AmigaDOS commands, can be executed from within Term. Macros: User defined command sequences can be attached to 40 keys(using function keys and modifiers),macros can also be mapped to buttons using the"fast? macro" feature, allowing for macro selection by mouse. Sound: Term allows the user to specify what sounds,if any, you want to hear for certain events, for example you could have specified sounds play when you connect to a BBS, when the modem rings, and when a file transfer is completed or aborted, not particularly useful maybe, but fun and a nice touch, my setup comes up with "I'm sorry Bully, i'm afraid i can't do that" when a file transfer is aborted, Term also supports speech, and i find it useful that my comms software will tell me when a file transfer is completed, so i can go and do other things in other parts of the house happy in the knowledge i'll be told when important things happen, of course, both sounds and speech are optional. Personally i find that Term is so flexable and comprehensive, with it's translation tables, terminal emulations, and almost endless configura- bility that i doubt you will ever need another communications package, it's free and it's regularly updated, i use Term every day, and i can't give a program a higher recommendation than that. NComm 2.0 - 3.5: Author: Torkel Lodberg (based upon NComm 1.9 by daniel Bloch) Pilotveien 10 N-0384 Oslo 3 norway EMail: Torkell@ifi.uio.no Support BBS: +47 2 493210 (speeds to v32) Availability: most Amiga BBS and FTP sites, or PD libraries Cost: Shareware. Registration $35(US) NComm has been around in one form or another for many years, and there are many people who swear by it, it works on any Amiga with 512k RAM or more, and so is useful for those of you still running Workbench 1.3 on an old A500, unlike Term, NComm is a shareware product that you have to register if you want to use it after a 4 week evaluation period,it costs $35(US) to register, and you this you will receive a version that no longer has the "nag requester" implemented. NComm is highly configurable, and is supplied complete with detailed documentation, the documentation is in plain text format, to allow for compatibility with WB 1.3 users i would assume, but it is a shame that there isn't an AmigaGuide version available for those who could make use of it, like Term, NComm provides everything you need to get online but the following features are perhaps most important. Phonebook: The NComm phonebook is well implemented but not as comprehensive as it could be, there is no limit to the number of phonebook entries, but the first 46 can be displayed in the "dial" menu and the first 10 can be dialled ysing hot keys to save time, the dial menu is a nice touch which displays up to the first 46 phonebook entries in menu form, and double- clicking on the entry will result in that number being dialled, if you have the "traplist.library" avaĦlable, then Fidonet users can enter a nodenumber in the phonebook and NComm will lookup the details in the nodelist to dial it,which saves having to enter all the details manually There is the standard printing facility which i find essential as a back up of your all-important BBS numbers. Review Buffer: The NComm review buffer, or scrollback as it is called, is very much up to the job in all but one very important aspect, i have had no luck in getting the text search to work properly, always being told there were no text matches even when i am looking at the words i specified?. File Transfer: NComms file transfer protocols are very complete, including options for compuserve-QuickB and the mysterious (but i suspect not very useful) Jmodem, the Zmodem options, which is what most users will require for stable and fast file transfer, isn't as comprehensive as some programs but offers all the important ones, the status window is adequate and no more, it includes the graphical "bargraph" transfer display. Scripts: Scripting has always been NComms strong point in the option of many, in- cluding myself, the NComm script language is, undoubtedly, very power- ful but it isn't exactly easy to use for someone with no programming skills,luckily there are plenty of scripts available for doing all sorts of useful things from the file sections of many BBSs,these can be easily adapted to suit your personal needs, scripts can be used for everything from automating the logging on procedure of a BBS, to almost being a small offline reader, NComm now also supports ARexx, an increasingly im- portant feature in Amiga applications. Macros: NComm allows for user defined macros to be attached to 24 keys, using the function keys and modifiers plus the cursor key, whilst extremely useful, as macros always are, i can't help feeling it could have been implemented better by allowing for more macro keys, NComm has, as prev- iously stated, been the terminal package of choice for many people for many years now, as such, there is a large experienced user base to draw help from, and a number of add-on utility programs such as log analysers to help you watch costs ect. However, i can;t help feeling that it is slipping behind the competition these days, Term is the most obvious rival because it has the great ad- vantage of being free, but Terminus is also trying to carve a piece of the action. Terminus 2.0 Author: John P.Radigan Dynalogic PO box 444 ocean city NJ08226 united states Support BBS: 609-398-7453 (speeds to V32bis/16.8HST) Availability: most Amiga BBS and FTP sites, or PD libraries. Cost: shareware: registration $40(US) John P.Radigan wrote the first "must have"communications package for the Amiga, JR-Comm really was the bee's knees in terminal software, but over the years it started to show it's age and was slowly eclipsed by NComm in particular, john hasn't sat on his laurels but has been busy writing a worthy successor to JR-Comm, and it has arrived in the guise of Term- inus, Terminus isn't just an updated version of his earlier masterpiece though, it's a completly new program, a completly rewritten replacement like NComm, Terminus is shareware and costs much the same to register, the manual, which really has to be read if you want to get the best out of a package like Terminus, stretches to a huge print-out of 216 pages?, like NComm, an AmigaGuide document would make shifting through this in- formation so much easier, Terminus does, however, make use of the Com- modore installer utility and this makes installing the software really simple and painless indeed,and so let's take a look at the all important features that Terminus has to offer. Phonebook: The Terminus phonebook is perfectly adequate for the job in hand, with a fair degree of configurability for each entry, although this only goes as far as serial and file transfer preferences together with Macro and script linking,sorting and display options are plentiful, one distinctly odd feature here is the ability to let Terminus randomly generate your system passwords, it does this by taking a password of your choice as a seed and then combining with the system name to generate a random pass- word, you can choose to alter your password after every session so as to make your system access more secure, however, while this is all fine and dandy i'm no fan of storing passwords in phonebooks, as it leaves them open to anyone who has access to your computer, there's also something odd to me about letting my computer choose my password, i'd rather trust my own common sense on this issue. Review Buffer: Terminus has an excellent multitasking windowed review buffer with a very fast text searching capability, the buffer size is configurable and has integrated clipboard support. File Transfer: JR-Comm was famous for its extremely comprehensive ZModem implementation Terminus has followed in this tradition and offers you every ZModem option you couldpossibly require, luckily the defaults are generally adequate to get you started,until you get the time to start playing with the settings to achieve optimum transfers in terms of both speed and reliability, the terminus file transfer status window is comparable to NComm, and not as onformative as the one to be found in Term. Scripts: WOW? Terminus has really got this area sewn up, not only does it support ARexx as well as it's own very extensive script language(in effect a small BASIC interpreter), but it has one major advantage over every other Amiga communications package in this aspect,Terminus has a "script recorder", this feature will automatically record an online session, for example, and then turn that information into a script, an example would be that of logging onto a BBS, sending your username and password in re- sponce to the BBS requests,collecting your awaiting EMail and initiating a download, then logging off, the script recorder will convert all of this into a script which can then just be started to allow Terminus to automate the whole process for you, the "recorder" enables those users who don't know how,or don't want to know how,to write scripts to utilise one of the communications software's most powerful aspects. Macros: Good Macro key support, with a total of 40 function key Macros available using the Alt,Shift, and Ctrl keys as qualifiers, JR-Comm was highly re- spected at the time because it was, quite literally, a market leader, Terminus does nothing, with the exception of the "script recorder" that other packages can't do, the "script recorder" really is a nice feature, and one that i am very impressed with, however, it doesn't make Terminus worth $40(US) on it's own, i really do like Terminus, honestly, but i find myself unable to recommend it over and above the equally excellent Term, which is free. Going online: So,you have all the hardware and software you need to get connected, but how exactly do you go about it? Well, let me take you on a step by step guide to going online, the most likely first point of call is going to be a bulletin board system, the majority are free to use and there is certainly going to be one that is a local call for you, we'll look at connecting to an imaginary one called for the sake of argument "BULLYS". The first thing to do is make sure that your modem is actually switched on and that you have your Terminal software running, ensure the software is configured properly, the basic parameters you will need to set are in the serial preferences section and using the following options should get you connected OK. Bits = Eight Parity = None Stop Bits = One Handshaking = RTS/CTS Check to see if the modem and your computer are talking OK by typing the command AT, which is the Hayes command for "Attention", if all is well the modem will respond with "OK", you can then either enter the details of the Bulletin Board into the phonebook for your software and ask for the number to be dialled, or simply type ATDT followed by the full tele- phone number, you should then hear the telephone of the BBS ringing on your modem's loudspeaker (if it has one, of course), when the modem at the other end answers, don't be worried by the strange noises that you will hear, all these whistles and squeaks are actually your modem connecting to another modem and telling it what sort of connection it wants to make. After a short while you should get the message "CONNECTED" output to your computer screen, at this point press the return key to get things moving, some systems require you to wait for 20 or 30 seconds or press the Escape key a couple of times as well,if all has gone as it should you will then be greeted by a welcome screen which contains the details you need to use the BBS, or "Login", there will be a prompt asking for your name, as you are a new user it won't know you and will ask if you are therefore a new user(some systems ask for your name or if you are a new user they ask you to type in "new"), as a new user you will need to complete a small questionnaire or application form, this will ask for details about yourself and your system, always answer truthfully, and if you don't know an answer about your system accept the default as this usually works fine and you can always change it later if it doesn't. Don't give a false Name, Address, or Telephone number, these are often checked out and you may find yourself barred from using that BBS if you are dishonest, the rules of a Bulletin board are there for a reason, and it is only fair that the sysop (system operator) who runs it should know who is using it, anyway, once you have been accepted as a new member, usually provisionally until you have been checked out during which time you will most likely only have limited access to the BBS, the first thing to do is check out the menus and head straight for the files that will tell you all about that system, try to find out how to Mail the SysOp before leaving, usually this will be an option before the con- nection is closed,so that you can say thanks for letting you look around This sort of courtesy goes down well with SysOps, and will be a good start to your online life, remember that everyone, even the guy who is running the board you are using, had to go through the pains of logging onto a system for the very first time. Enjoy it, nobody will think you an idiot if you don't know the ropes straight away, what you will find are lots of willing people with the expertise to help make your stay an enjoyable one............ Well that's it, as i am pissed off with typing, so i hope ya learned something from this, if not, go and buy a PC and be a braindead git like all PC owners. And remember? Be careful out there and take it easy. .