🚀 go-pugleaf

I would like to report that I have successfully got the Jack Palevich's
Kermit written in ACTION! running with my ATR8000 and MYDOS. What a nice
program! I am so pleased with it that I am determined to eventually add
a VT100 emulator to it when I get the time. Of course I will share it with
the net also.

I have fixed 1 bug that anybody who is using anything other than ATARI or OSS
DOS should be aware of. It has to do with the way the end of directory is
detected when it is being read through CIO. Normally the last record is
something like "xxx FREE SECTORS". However, the exact format varies with
different DOS's and you can't depend on it always being 17 bytes long
(including $9B at end). Jack however uses this fact to detect the end of
directory. He also assumes that the filespecs are that long. This is just
not the case all the time. The only reliable way I have found to read the
directory of all DOS's is to not assume anything about the length of the
filespec (use the $9B to detect the end of one) and detect the last record
by the fact that it does not start with a '*' or ' '. Thus, the fix to
make the SEND option work is as follows:

In KIO.ACT change the line
     IF DSPEC(0) <> 17 THEN RETURN(0) FI
to
     IF DSPEC(1) > 43 THEN RETURN(0) FI

If somebody with another DOS could try this out to make sure it works I would
appreciate it if you would let me know.  If it appears to work correctly for
all DOS's then maybe we should consider  putting it in the archives in place
of the current KIO.ACT.  Which brings up another point. How does one add
things to the archives? When I soup up this Kermit with the VT100 emulator
I am definately going to want to put it there.

David Young
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