🚀 go-pugleaf

Date: 22 January 87 17:59-EST
From: JEMCCABE@MTUS5
To: INFO-ATARI16@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
Subject: BITNET mail follows

The REAL Subject (not "Bitnet mail follows..."): Telecom stuff...

I have a question about the ongibit() and offgibit() calls. (XBIOS
calls 30 and 29, respectively.)  According to Abacus' Atari ST
Internals, a ongibit(4) clears the DTR line on the RS-232 port.
When I try this, however, the busy light on the disk drive comes
on, but it never reads from the disk (even works when the disk
isn't in the drive) and it never stops.  I've heard that the
Internals book is faulty, but I've never seen anyone say WHERE
it is faulty.  Maybe I found a place, eh?

Also, does anyone know where I can get my hands on the source code
of a program(s) that has all the XMODEM transfers in it, and maybe
YMODEM, KERMIT, and others?  I can get a PD program, for the IBM,
called Pibterm, that is in Turbo Pascal (I would like it in Pascal,
if possible...) and it has XMODEM, XMODEM CRC, YMODEM, TELINK,
KERMIT, MODEM7, and a bunch of other protocols.... This would be
heaven to me if I could only read the files of the disk!  (It's
a PC club, and they have this program in their disk library.) Maybe
if I am lucky, they will have it in 3.5 inch disks, which are
rumored to be readable by ST's.

I also have a suggestion for the person wondering how to autoboot
a GEM program.  Looking through the Internals book, it seems that
GEM can maybe load a file for ya... Here's what it says about memory
location $482.

$482  two bytes    _comload      default 0
If this variable is set to a value other than zero by the boot pro-
gram, an attempt will be made to load a program called "COMMAND.PRG"
after the operating system is loaded.

I've never tried this myself, but maybe it'll work.  To test it,
make a TOS program to poke this location with a 1 or something, and
stick that file in the AUTO folder.  Then, rename your .PRG file
to COMMAND.PRG, and see if everything works when you reboot.  Re-
member, I've NEVER done this before and this could all be another
error in the Abacus book, but it's worth a try.

         *  Jim McCabe                                   *
         *  G34 E. Coed Hall                             *
         *  Michigan Technological University            *
         *  Houghton, MI  49931                          *
         *  (906)487-1065         JEMCCABE@MTUS5.BITNET  *