18-Dec-86 15:31:41-EST,2833;000000000001 Mail-From: SY.FDC created at 18-Dec-86 15:31:12 Date: Thu 18 Dec 86 15:31:12-EST From: Frank da Cruz Subject: New Kermit Program for IBM 370 Mainframes with MVS/TSO To: Info-Kermit@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU Message-ID: <12263844741.299.SY.FDC@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU> The new IBM 370-series mainframe MVS/TSO Kermit from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced in the previous Info-Kermit digest, is now available in the Kermit distribution areas under the prefix TSN. There are 21 files, comprising a total of about 3 megabytes, including three documentation files and a TSO help file. The program is written in "ALP", which is a preprocessor for 370 assembly language developed at NIH. The ALP preprocessor, also supplied, is written in PL/I. For those who do not have PL/I or do not wish to bother with the source programs, a hexidecimal-encoded object file is provided, along with an assembler program to decode it into a binary object file; this can be linked with a tailorable module (written in straight assembler) in which site dependencies, such as the ASCII/EBCDIC translations, are specified. Before deciding to transfer all 3 MB from Columbia over a network, first get the file TSNKER.TXT, which explains which files are which, and then only get the ones you really need. Thanks to Roger Fajman at NIH (RAF@NIHCU.BITNET) for submitting this program to us. Roger participated in the design with Dale Wright, who then did the programming. The new program has many advanced features over previous TSO Kermit versions, including server mode, binary file transfer, file interruption, 8th-bit prefixing, run-length encoding, alternate block check types, and support for both 3705-style line mode and Series/1-style full screen emulation. It is hoped that this new version will render the old University of Chicago (linemode only, circa July 1984) and University of Toronto versions (Series/1 only, March 85) obsolete. Reactions from TSO sites will be appreciated, in the interest of keeping redundant Kermit versions at a minimum. Reactions from users of the Pascal/VS version from the University of Bern (linemode only, Sept 86) will also be appreciated. For the present, the Chicago, Toronto, and Bern versions remain available in the Kermit distribution under the prefixes TSO, TSO, and TS2, respectively. For the future, there may still be another TSO Kermit program on the horizon, a result of a cooperative effort among IBM mainframe Kermit sites to develop a Kermit program that is portable among all IBM 370 mainframe operating systems (no estimate as to when this will be ready, but IBM mainframe system programmers who are interested in developments in this area may send mail to IBM-KERMIT@CU20B or IBM-KERMIT@CUVMA). -------