ae

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CONTENTS

NEWS 8

FEATURES 19 Communications — A Baudy Tale 19 Bulletin Board Backchat 28

GosWie 8D The Enigmatic Tulpi Modem 44 What's in the Packet? 51 — a ee ae ee ney REVIEWS 57 The Great Database 58 Enable — Part 2 83 Search: R:Base 4000 ee ear 86 The Omni Reader___————s«d}63.-—s«sN'Surance Agents Microsoft BASIC vs__—————s«d}™8~—C Bit. Bucket 92 MacPascal Oh Brother — 94

Son of Zardax__——éCS722”~<Cs Thee: WP

Toshiba‘s 1500... ——————~CSS' eae ee eee ee eee BUSINESS 97

If the Chemistry is Right .. = 98

Viatel Grapevine sd See a eae

POCKET PROGRAMS 105 SSS SS ee ee eee INSTRUCTION SET 111

PCs in Marketing, Part 3 112 Structured Programming, Part 7 118 SSS ee eee eee PUBLIC DOMAIN 12]

Lotus Hotline 123 Your Bee 142 New Products_._—Cid' 26s: Yur C4 144

Your Bondwell [33 Books in Brief___. 145 IBM. Underground 134 ‘Bit by Bit’ 146 Your Appletosh 136 Clubfile 149 Your IBM__ es —C«~' 398s GS Sn. 156

Readers’ Classifieds 140 Ad Index and Services 160 Your BBC__— —“—~ws™S™C—:—:C«*d' YL NNW Mth = ee —C—C—CSCd

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EDITORIAL

he frenetic activity surrounding pub-

lishers of computer magazines these

days has prompted me to offer a few

thoughts on what's been happening. Before commenting, however, | ought to point out | don’t actually work at Your Computer; | consult to the publishers and haven't even seen the office for six months or more

The more time | spend on the consulting side of my business the happier | am. Frankly, | don’t really like to be associated with the low profes- sional and ethical standards becoming evident in computer magazine publishing.

It's interesting how many magazines promote and publicise the latest products and the newest technology, while at YC we seem to have become increasingly sceptical. This is because those magazines, particularly their staffs, have no investment in the technology and nothing to lose. Their advice costs them nothing, and if the readers buy their recommendations then dis- cover real problems — well, it’s not the maga- zine’s problem. The journalists can simply re- turn their borrowed machines and try the latest models.

At Les Bell and Associates, we have a large invest- ment in hardware and software, such as the IBM Pc, the Lisa, the Compupro and other machines, while YC has multiple Compupros, Olivettis and all kinds of hardware. We found even after reading the reviews and selecting exactly the right products there's a lot of work to do before everything works right. That's what YC is about.

Because there are deficiencies in other pub- lications’ abilities to properly support their readers, let alone themselves, after they've bought their computers, it would pay readers (and advertisers) to ask where the publishers’ interests lie. With so many publications in an overcrowded market, there's a lot of wheeling and dealing going on.

Circulation is the supposed ‘name of the game’. a higher circulation enables magazines

to get more advertising and charge more for it. However, at least one magazine has been

6

va. Our ‘| Noses Clean

attempting to boost a flagging circulation by sending free copies to owners of brand X machines who didn’t request it and may not even bother reading it. These copies are actually paid for by the manufacturer of brand X, who naturally expects (and gets) disproportionate coverage in the magazine.

The same magazine will not respond to re- quests for cancellation of subscriptions, they simply keep sending the magazine regardless. Advertisers must ask themselves whether all the claimed readers are actually reading the magazine and seeing their advertisements.

Other magazines are simply free to whoever wants them — but remember, there's no such thing as a free lunch. These magazines are paid for by the advertisers, and the publishers there- fore have a vested interest in promoting the advertisers’ products. With one magazine (sold on news-stands and by subscription) actually directly paid for by two major advertisers, read- ers must ask themselves what is unbiased editorial and what is disguised advertising. The other advertisers should ask themselves if they are getting a fair shake.

A brawl between two publishers in the letters

column of the advertising trade journal AdNews.

has done nothing to enhance their professional images. While each accuses the other of falsify- ing circulation figures, or at least, being very selective about the truths they tell, they have simply revealed that neither understands the nature of magazine readership research. Recently, the Advertising Standards Council upheld complaints by two of the industry week- lies that the advertising placed by a newcomer was in breach of the Advertising Code of Ethics. As an independent consultant and author, the major asset | possess is my credibility. It’s important to me to remain unbiased and free of any pressure, and important for professional success that this should be seen to be so. | feel confident that the same can be said for Your Computer's publishers and the other contrbutors and reviewers. | wish it could be said for other Magazines. LES BELL

EDITOR Natalie Filatoff

CONSULTING EDITOR

Les Bell

NEWS EDITOR

Rose Vines

SUB-EDITOR

Kate Storey

ART & DESIGN

Mark Elder

ADVERTISING PRODUCTION Danny Hooper

MANAGING EDITOR

Matt Whelan

PUBLISHER

Michael Hannan CONTRIBUTORS

Australia: Brendan Akhurst, Bill Bolton, Annette Brown, Darren Challis, Andrew Farrell, Phil Grouse, John Hepworth, Norman Kemp, Frank Lee, Peter Lynden, Bruce Mitchell, John Nicholls, Jeff Richards, Rod Stevenson, Dom Swinkels, Colin Tringham.

United States: Howard Karten OFFICE SERVICES

Felicity Skinner

SUBSCRIPTION ENQUIRIES Julie Plummer

ADVERTISING SALES

Damien Prins, Andrea Beaty (NSW Advertising)

David Farrington (Victorian Aclvertising) OFFICES

NSW

140 Joynton Ave, Waterloo 2017. (02) 663-9999

Telex: FEDPUB AA74488

Victoria

150 Lonsdale St, Melbourne 3000. (03) 662-1222

Telex: FEDPUB AA34340

Western Australia

Tony Allen and Ass.

7 Fore Street, Perth 6000.

(09) 328 9833 Telex: AA94382 POSPE Queensland

John Perry, Federal Publishing, 25 Balaciava St, Woolloongabba 4102; (07) 391 8922. Telex AA145520. South Australia

Steve Birbeck, Admedia Group,

24 Kensington Rd, Rose Park 5067. (08) 332-8144

New Zealand

Chris Horsley, 4A Symonds Court, Symonds St, Auckland, NZ.

Telex: TEXTURE 260753

Source Mail: Les Bell TCY314;

Matt Whelan TCY267.

Bulletin Board:

(02) 662-1686 — Les Bell 1085,

Matt Whelan 1, or leave a message in comments.

YOUR COMPUTER is published monthly by the Federal Publishing Company Pty Ltd. Printed by ESN - The Litho Centre, Waterloo 2017, phone (02) 662-8888.

Editorial and NSW Advertising: 140 Joynton Avenue, Waterloo 2017. Telex: FEDPUB AA7 4488. Typeset by Frontier Technology, Spit Junction NSW; phone (02) | 960-2788.

Distributed nationally by Gordon & Gotch. Registered for posting as a publication — Publication No. NBP4384. See ‘Public Domain’

section for information on copyright, contributions, reader services and

subscriptions.

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TAB CHOOSES A CHEAPIE

Punters in outback Western Au- stralia will soon be able to lose as much as their city counterparts, thanks to a $500 Commodore computer.

The TAB in WA is in the process of installing modern betting faci- lities in some of the most remote parts of the state, with a com- puterised betting service linked to Telecom’s Austpac service. Au- stpac provides STD facilities for the cost of a local call and time used on the system.

A TAB team led by Computer Services Manager Richard Bris- bane-Cohen took less than six months to initiate a service utilis- ing Austpac, a Commodore 64 keyboard, a small thermal printer, an inexpensive VDU and a modem.

According to Mr Brisbane- Cohen, the team was after off-the- shelf equipment which was robust and easy to maintain. “The most common and least expen- sive terminal was the Commod- ore 64, which was compatible with our requirements. and en- joyed the added advantage of being easy to program.”

TAB staff developed the re- quired software in BASIC and

Assembler and the program was

burnt into a game cartridge. The first location to receive the new TAB service was the mining town of Leinster in the Eastern Gold- fields. A sub-agency service now operates from a de-licensed area of the town’s ‘wet’ canteen under the direction of canteen person- nel, who were trained by TAB staff. The facility is programmed to give Leinster punters the full range of TAB services.

The TAB hopes to establish sub-agencies in the next six months at outlets such as news- agents, video shops and hoteis in locations which may include Panawonica, Denham, Raven- sthorpe, Hopetoun, Lake Grace, Shay Gap and Argyle diamond mine.

TAB staff believe the life of the technology employed in the new system will be about three years. Although the system is streets ahead of the telex method which has. been employed in remote

8

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areas since 1976, there are some limiting factors, such as the speed of entry of bets, which now averages around three per mi- nute, compared with 12 in coun- try agencies and 50 at city loca-

tions. O

COMPUTER SKILLS FOR THE UNEMPLOYED

A new computer training course, designed to give 18 young people a chance to learn computer op- erations and other office skills, has been launched in Matraville, a suburb of Sydney.

The course is being funded by a grant of $46,949 from the Federal

NewS

Department of Employment and Industrial Relations under its Ex- perimental Training Projects Program, and sponsored by Peninsula Community Services. The first session is underway, with a second already scheduled.

The training project is called

Compuskill, and to be eligible to participate trainees must be be- tween 18 and 24 years old, able to touch-type at 20 words per mi- nute, and have been unemployed for at least four months.

At the end of the course, Com- puskill staff will advise students on deciding what kind of work they would like to do and will also provide practical assistance in finding suitable positions. Stu- dents who have completed pre- vious courses have had a high level of success in gaining em-

ployment.

As the course progresses, stu- dents will learn word processing, basic computer programming and electronics and other gener- al, employment-related office skilis including receptionist duties, filing and bookkeeping.

Project manager for the course, Meg Rigby, said emphasis would be placed on encouraging stu- dents to develop additional per- sonal skills through participating in group sessions, and by using films and videos featuring office, job-search and occupational health skills. Communication and confidence-building techniques will also be taught.

‘The main object of the prog- ram is to train disadvantaged young people to a standard acceptable to commercial firms >

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NEWS

IBM ResearcHEs PARALLEL PROCESSING

IBM's Research Division is designing a research tool for advanced computer science studies — an experimental ‘highly parallel’ com- puter.

The initial purpose is to gauge the usefulness of large-scale parallel- ism — many processors working on a single task — in solving a variety of complex problems. At present, most highly parallel machines work on a single class of problem.

The machine — the RP3, or Research Parallel Processor Project — is to use operating system software designed and written by a group at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

The initial version of the RP3 is being designedas a processor unit to validate the concept and to test its ability to do a variety of tasks. By interconnecting eight of the 64-processor units, RP3 will be extensible to 512 processors, linked in parallel and connected to as many as two billion characters of main memory.

The 51 2-processor version of the RP3 should operate at a sustained speed of approximately one billion instructions per second in its maximum configuration and perform certain mathematical calcula- tions — called floating-point operations — in bursts of 800 million per second.

Challenges to parallel processing The RP3 is intended to explore the application of parallel processing to computer-aided design, so-called ‘expert systems’ and advanced artifi- cial intelligence projects, in areas such as visual perception.

The. basic ideas behind parallel processing are simple: divide ap- plications into many small sections and solve them simultaneously. Two processors will work twice as fast as one, three will triple the speed, and soon. In.addition, such an approach could have important benefits for system reliability and availability.

However, while parallel processing carries significant promise, the field is very much in its infancy and several basic issues have to be resolved, Two of these issues are obvious: one is the nature of the computational problems, and the other comes from the proposed solution.

First, not all problems can be conveniently fragmented, solved in parallel and re-assembled. Some are inherently serial, and must be solved as a series of steps, or contain small serial portions that will seriously impair parallel performance. For example, a five per cent serial portion in an application will limit the computing speed up to 20 times — no matter how many processors are used.

This means some applications will never be practical candidates for parallel processing, although it is not immediately obvious which problems are inherently serial. Studies on how to partition programs for parallel computation, and understanding the performance that can be delivered by a given computer architecture over a range of applica- tions, thus become of critical importance.

The second issue is a ‘traffic’ problem springing from the nature of parallelism. As a large number of processors engage in a task, simul- taneous attempts to fetch data can quickly create a kind of tie-up that nullifies the anticipated speed advantage of multiple processors.

The RP3 continues parallel processing research that began at IBM in 1979. This work has produced special-purpose parallel machines used within IBM for basic research and for computer design automation. The current work is an extension of collaboration. between the 1BM Thomas | Watson Research Centre in Yorktown Heights, New York, and groups in several academic institutions, most significantly the ‘Ultracomputer Project at New York University. It is one of several current [BM projects aimed at understanding computing systems with a number of proces- sors connected in parallel.

IBM hopes to share the RP3 with qualified academic and govern- ment users, and is therefore seeking partial government funding for the

construction of a hardware prototype.

NEwS

for employment,” said Ms Rigby. "To achieve this, students will be given work experience in com- mercial settings, both within the Compuskill centre and in outside business placements.”

All recruitment for the course will be handled by the Maroubra Junction CES. J

NOTATION IN NANOSECONDS

Oxford University will soon re- lease its Oxford Music Processor (OMP), a computer program likely to revolutionise the way in which musical notation is prepared for printing. It will enable the music publishing industry and musi- cians of all kinds to provide them- selves easily with musical nota- tion of the highest standard.

OMP carries out almost all the tasks which have traditionally re- quired painstaking and slow manual arrangement of musical notation on the page. With this program, the computer takes all the various rules of notation de- sign into consideration, and is claimed to produce a finished product within a tenth of the time required by traditional methods.

Richard Vendome, of the uni- versity’s Faculty of Music, de- veloped the program while work- ing on his post-graduate thesis. "My thesis presented the enor- mous task of transcribing 400 keyboard works from 17th Cen- tury manuscripts into modern notation. Over the course of several years, | developed soft- ware for the encoding, editing and printing of this music.”

Vendome’s main goal was to assemble the music in a publish- able form and to combine speed of input and quality of output. So far, nearly ten thousand pages of music have been processed, many of which have now been published.

According to Vendome, music can be keyed into the computer very easily, and the system has been successfully used by musi- clans with no knowledge of com- puting and by young children. The essentials can be learnt in one hour, with rhythm and pitch being input in separate passes through a standard computer keyboard. A four-part score would be input by

eight successive ‘sweeps’, each at roughly the speed it would take to play the music. As Vendome puts it: "The Minute Waltz might take more than eight minutes to pro- cess, while traditional methods would take hours.”

Best news about the system is that it is currently being de- veloped to run on home compu- ters. With funds from the British Technology Group and support from Oxford University Press, Vendome has been awarded a three-year research appointment to develop the system for person- al computers. At the same time, he is adding other facilities, such as word underlay, and exploring the possibility of using laser prin- ters.

The program will be published by Oxford University Press in 1986, in the form of a case-bound user's guide and reference manu- al, with a suite of programs on floppy disk. ie}

IBM EMPLOYEES DIE IN CRASH

Philip D Estridge, vice- president for !BM PC manufac- turing in the US, was one of those killed in the recent major air crash at Dallas. Estridge’s wife, Mary Ann, and about [8 other!BM employees also died in the crash.

Estridge was a major force in developing the IBM PC as the market leader for 16-bit micro- computers. He visited Austra- lia twice, once in 1983 when he was guest speaker at the NSW branch conference of the Au- stralian Computer Society, and again in 1984 when he assisted in setting up the IBM Australia PC manufacturing plant at Wangaratta. (a)

SMASHING SOFTWARE

The National Roads and Motor- ists’ Association (NRMA) has re- leased to the public a new com- puter system which caters specifi- cally to the demands of the smash repair trade. Called Mic-

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13

ness Manager, the system was de- veloped from the NRMA’s ex- isting Compuquote software.

According. to early users of the system, Microquote saves time on quoting, gives instant job cal- culations and provides profes- sional-looking quotes — as one user said, "particularly important for an industry lacking a highly credible image.”

Microquote also handles job costing and control of work flow. Graham Hart of Windsor Motors, who has used the system, re- ported: “It is often hard to keep an even flow of work and ensure you're making as much as possi- ble when you're busy. Microquote gives you an accurate picture of work being done for each [ob, how much you've made on each job and the efficiency of each area of work.” —

Working in conjunction with the Microquote system is the Microquote Business Manager. This is a cash management sys- tem which controls all debtor and creditor procedures and provides instant cash analysis.

The NRMA has. joined forces

with Intelligence Australia to supply and install the hardware and provide the training and sup- port for the system. More in- formation can be obtained from

Maria Nash at Compuquote, (02) 260 9251. (] QUEENSLAND

COMPUTER EXPO

The focus for computer shows moves north in November, with Computer Expo ‘85 to be held at the Crest International Hotel in Brisbane.

Now in its third year, the Expo attracts. exhibitors from all parts of Australia. Companies display- ing their goodies this year will in- clude Apple, IBM, Hewlett- Packard, Wang, Data General, NEC, Televideo, Epson, Ericsson, Tandy, Commodore and Mic- robee.

According to the organiser, Robert Woodland, the timing of the Expo has been perfect, as new products released at the Pan Pacific Computer Exhibition in Melbou.ne will be brought up for

NewS

display at the Expo. This will be the best chance in the year for

Queenslanders to get a close look

at a large range of the latest soft- ware and hardware. The show is not only geared

THE IMPERSONAL TOUCH

A West Coast US company, Autocomm Corporation, has developed a ‘computerised calling system’ which will automate repetitive telephone calls. The Autocomim Messen- ger uses the Texas Instru- ments’ Professional Computer and TI's Speech Command System as the basis for the system.

This friendly little package automatically dials a list of telephone numbers, plays a re- corded message and records a response. Ideal, so the press release goes, for schools wishing to report to parents.on problems such as absenteeism or failing grades, or for your

towards the business community, but also features a huge range of equipment for education, home and hobby use.

For more information contact Robert Woodland, (07) 372 3233.

bank to inform you you've hit the red.

In fact, it sounds indispens- able for any business or orga- nisation wanting to make its clients feel like numbers. Numerous uses spring to mind: replying to unsuccessful job applicants; letting welfare recipients know they've had their benefits cut; or any inst- ance when personal contact might involve emotions or time-wasting explantions.

The Messenger will handle 40 difficult customers per hour and can sort recipients into seven categories for specially impersonalised messages. When finished with its hit list, it will function as a normal TI! Professional Computer. Just the sort of product to make personal computers universa!- ly beloved.

MORE XTRAS

After restricting sales of its ITT Xtra Personal Computer to selected corporate clients, tele- communications giant STC has now decided to offer the machine to the general public.

STC's decision to tackle the PC area represents a significant shift in its marketing emphasis. The company is arming itself with products it claims will make it a force in the crowded personal computer market. At the same time, the National Sales Manager of STC’s new Personal Computer Division, Hilton Gray, says his Organisation is throwing down a challenge to the PC industry lead- er, [BM.

"STC is positioning itself to compete head-on with IBM for personal computer sales. We're now releasing the ITT Xtra to the public, and a more powerful mod- el, the ITT Xtra XP, will soon arrive in Australia. Both persona! com- puters are completely compatible with IBM PCs; however, our XP is 3.5 times faster than the standard

IBM PC.”

Hilton Gray believes a key to STC’s drive into the marketplace will be QNX, a multi-user, multi- tasking operating system incor- porating local area network sup- port, which allows STC’s PCs, [BM PCs, ATs and compatibles to sup- port ten terminals. “We believe ONX is the only operating system in Australia, or indeed the world, to offer so many advanced fea- tures. No other PC operating sys- tem has such sophisticated mul- ti-user capabilities.”

STC will use its existing service network to support its comouter

a a jose hn ee eT

ness community's PC dollars. O

PROPHET GAINS A UNIVERSE

AED has donated a Universe Su- percomputer to the Prophet Bul- letin Board; the new computer will be used as the basis of a mul-

NEWS

ti-access system. Larry Lewis, sys- tem operator of Prophet, hopes to have the multi-user system fully installed by the end of October. To coincide with the introduc- tion of the new hardware and software, a user group will be formed to allow better com- munication between the system users and operators and to en- able users to meet in the flesh. Prophet’s number is (02) 628 7030 and sysop Larry Lewis can be contacted at PO Box A497, Sydney South 2000. CO

=e

Don't forget Your Computer's synergistic beer drinking on the first Wednesday of each month. The last couple have been lively affairs, and we ex- pect the spring weather will encourage some new faces to come along and partake of the badinage and beverages.

The venue is the Clock Hotel, 470 Crown Street, Surry Hills, Sydney, and we attempt to get there around 6 pm. Come along and let us know how we can make the maga- zine better for you. CO

AITA TASKFORCE TO STAMP OUT RSI

Following hot on the heels of gov- ernment enquiries into the inci- dence of repetition strain injury (RSI}, the Australian Information Industry Association has come UD with a package to educate and train managers on health and safety aspects of computer-based equipment in the workplace.

For a neat $500, managers can obtain training and a kit, which consists of a lesson plan, a book- let entitled Introducing Computer- based Equipment into the Workplace visual material and background Papers. Areas covered in the booklet include vision, radiation and musculo-skeletal disorders, design of jobs and employer/em- ployee relationships.

The AllA, which comprises 60 companies, claims its efforts are directed at the prevention of problems, and is looking at spon-

soring a more thorough study of

RSI in the near future.

Further news on the RSI front js the release of an interim report on RSI by the RSI Committee of the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission

Some of the report's findings are:

B RSI is not an Australian dig. ease, nor js it new; there is irre. futable evidence for its exjct. ence in other developed coun. tries, and the history of psy goes back several hundred years.

@ The variety of terms used over seas to describe RSI has prob. ably contributed to the belief thatitisa peculiarly Australian CONUIUON, wren it dutualty widely recognised interna- tionally under names such as occupational cervico-brachia] disorder or musculo-skeleta| injury.

@ While most recent publicity on RSI has concerned female keyboard workers, the condi- tlon has in fact been wide- spread among both men and women in many Occupations and activities. Occupations cited in the report include pro- cess workers, shearers, musi- cians, hairdressers, telegraph- ists and cash register oper- ators.

B® RS! is preventable, and there isa large body of knowledge in the fields of ergonomics and work environment studies that can and should be productively ap- plied,

The report found current occupational health services generally inadequate, particu- larly in small firms. a)

No DEAD-END FoR VIC

Despite the commercial demise of the Commodore VIC-20 com- puter, there is still a large number of enthusiastic users remaining who have no intention of dispos- ing of their machines. To support this group, the ACT VIC-20 Users’ Association has committed itself to continuing to produce its bi- monthly magazine, Vic.

The magazine costs $2 per issue and is full ofarticles entirely devoted to the VIC-20. The asso- >

15

ciation also distributes public do- main software for a small copying fee, maintaining a library of around 900 programs. This ser- vice ts Open to non-members as well as members of the associa- tion.

Despite the end of association meetings, free advertising, soft- ware consulting and special deals on books, disks, tapes and hard- ware are still available to. mem- bers.

If you have a VIC and need some support, drop the associa- tion a line. The contact is Chris

Groenhout, 25 Kerferd Street,

Watson 2602; (062) 41 2316. O

WANG FUNDS DANCE FANTASIES

In one of the largest-ever arts

world sponsorships in Australia,

Wang Computer has pledged three quarters of a million dol- lars’ support to the Sydney Dance Company.

The move makes Wang the principal sponsar and gives the

TEST FOR SHRINK-WRAP LAW

A good deal of American software

particularly the more expen- sive variety — comes with a sim- ple ‘licence agreement’, usually inserted just beneath the plastic shrink-wrapping or on a sealed envelope enclosing the software. By unsealing the shrink-wrap or opening the envelope, buyers are assumed to tacitly accept the agreements, which have had few, if any, challenges in court.

Although some wags have alleged the law gives software purchasers the right to keep their own teeth and not much else, the provisions of the agreements are in fact fairly simple. One licence agreement, for example, states that the vendor retains ownership of the product. The Lotus 1-2-3 agreement doesn’t explicitly make that statement, but, like most licence agreements, pro- hibits unauthorised duplication and/or telecommunication of the software and manual, or mod- ifications, sublicensing or various other malfeasances.

Those licensing agreements have now come under attack in the state of Louisiana, and since both American and Australian law stem from British Common Law the outcome of the case could eventually have repercus- sions in Australia.

Americans think of Louisiana less as a high-tech haven and more as a festive location, best

16

Dance Company a financial guarantee into 1988. The three- year sponsorship was announced by Graeme Murphy, the com- pany’s artistic director, before the first-night audience of After Venice at the Sydney Opera House. It flaws on from continuous spon- sorship Wang has given the com- pany since August 1983.

The first direct effect of the new sponsorship will be the produc- tion of Murphy's most ambitious undertaking to date. Entitled Boxes, the work will be staged at the Sydney Opera Theatre from

November 7 Murphy will join forces with Iva Davies and Bob Kretschmer of Icehouse to pro- duce a musical and dance spec- tacular.

Of the sponsorship Graeme Murphy says: ‘This is a one-in-a- million sponsorship with no strings attached, and will give us even greater freedom to explore our wildest fantasies of contem- porary dance. Thanks to Wang we have not had to compromise over the past two years. Now we can plan ahead with the same sense of daring.” O

BY HOWARD KARTEN

known for the Mardi Gras, Creole food, and voodoo. However, the Louisiana Software Licensing Act is designed to put teeth into the licensing agreements. In the Un- ited States District Court in Louisiana, Vault Corporation of Westlake Village, California, ts suing Quaid Software of the pro- vince of Ontario, Canada.

Vault makes a copy-protection scheme called Pralok. Quaid makes Copywrite, a checkily- named utility for IBM PCs which allows users to copy ‘protected’ software. Copywrite is even said to be capable of copying software protected by Prolok. Vault alleges that to incorporate that feature Quaid must have disassembled or atherwise ‘reverse engineered’ Prolok — an action prohibited by the Louisiana law.

Attorneys for both sides, as well as throughout the industry, are watching the case closely in the belief that it’s a test case which will set a significant prece- dent, regardless of the outcome. Additionally, several other Amet- ican states are contemplating similar bills, although few states have actually enacted them.

IBM Buys a PiEcE oF MCI

MCI Communications Corpora- tion of Washington DC is the up- start long-distance communica- tions company which deserves most of the credit for unseating

AT&T as the sole provider of long- distance telephone services in the United States. IBM recently gave 60 per cent of its interest in Satellite Business Systems to MCI in exchange for ownership of 16 percent of MCI. The agreement between MC! and IBM enables IBM to acquire a maximum of 30 per cent of MCI, which also oper- ates a well-received nationwide electronic mai! service.

IBM has recently been invest- ing in a variety of firms in the telecommunication business. For a while it was. an investor in the American firm Mitel, and more re- cently it completely purchased United States phone maker Rolm of California. The IBM-MCI com-

bination is. [BM’s first venture with a voice communications car-

rier. However, IBM also operates

‘several networks for internal cus-

tomer use, such as its own nationwide voice communica- tions system and the IBM In- formation Network, linking sever- al different large-scale processors across America.

It's widely believed IBM and AT&T began a head-to-head bat- tle in January 1983, when the Un- ited States government ended anti-trust suits against both com- panies on the same day, thus freeing the companies for more ageressive competition. In Amer- ica AT&T markets the 6300 and 7300 IBM-campatible micros, which compete against IBM

In a separate move, AT&T and Amdahl recently announced a joint venture under which they

will attempt to market a packet- switching system to the Japanese.

Harp Disk on A Carp

Mechanical microcomputer com- ponents. in general have been coming down in size more slowly than purely electronic parts. Re- cently, however, a Californian hard disk maker has. achieved a significant breakthrough: a 10 Mbyte hard disk. on a plug-in card. The product, slated for first ship- ment (at $SUS1095) in October, is being made by Plus Development Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Quantum in Milpi- tas, Californta.

The Hardcard is 33 cm long by 10 cm wide — the standard dimensions for a plug-in board —

and only 2.5 cm thick. The unit is

said to have a disk head access time of 65 milliseconds, com- pared to the 85 milliseconds re- quired by the IBM PC XT’s hard drive. Power consumption is very modest — less than 11 watts, according to the vendor — which means it can be used without fear of blowing out the power supply of the IBM PC.

One aspect of the marketing is especially interesting: the war- ranty apparently will allow users to swap malfunctioning cards on- the-spot for new ones. This assumes, of course, that users have adequate backup of the data on their own Hardcards, and that they trust the retailer (or the ven- dor) to destroy any confidential data on the card. O

Until now your IBM

nas been working with its hands tied.

No matter how outstanding the performance of your PC, without communications its full potential has not been utilised. Now a new world has been opened up to you and your PC. The NetComm PC In/Modem is Australia’s first IBM modem to be approved by Telecom — and ifs internal, too. For the first time, packages like Crosstalk, Relay, Symphony or Open Access will work properly. And it’s fully aufomatic. tf gives you Auto Dial, Auto answer, Auto disconnect.

It's also the first HAYES SMARTMODEM compatible Australian designed and manufactured modem. Now, via the telephone network, if can put your PC in touch with both local and overseas data bases and most other PC’s

throughout the world.

A aa cee ah

T AUSTRALIAN’ PEIN sda

MVNO)

All this and Videotex too

Included with the modem you receive additional software as well. The PC Videotex software means you can directly access VIATEL, BULLETIN, AFTEL, ANZTELL as well as ELDERS IXL, plus news, stockmarket reports and a host of other information.

All this, for $848, inclusive of tax That's all it costs for what PC World has called “a landmark peripheral* and which Your Computer has judged to be the winner of its “Best Australian Hardware Award” for 1985. If you want to untie the hands of your PC, see your PC dealer

Oo ——_—_— ee ee

FREE DISKETTE OFFER Gel your FREE diskette with full operalion informatian on the PC In/Modem and the full range of NetCamm MicroCompuler | cammunications praducts, Offer expires June 30ih. TO NetComm (Aust) Ply Lid P.O. Bax 2B4, Pymble 2073 NSW | |] Pleose send me Ihe free diskette on the NetComm PC In/Modem lhavean CIBMPC (CIPCXT (1 PC Portable | MY NAME |

ADDRESS

P’CODE PHONE MY COMPANY NAME, CONSULTANCY, OR SERVICE

— Ee ee SC—n ——— ———

Australia’s Network fo the world

NetComm (Aust) Pty Ltd PO Box 284 Pymble 2073 NSW Tel: (+61:2) 498 5577 Telex: Sycom AA27113 (NETCOMM) Minerva: 58: DNC002 Viatel: 249855770

, There really is a difference in diskette brands.

It’s in the way they are made.

Because the computer industry cannot afford variation in the quality of diskettes, at Nashua we looked for, and founda __way to ensure absolute | consistency.

Here's how we do it.

Quality Circles.

At Nashua we've found the best way to attain this | ‘consistency’ is to ensure that at each stage of production our diskettes

Biitencer Te _aflord mistakes. 42

are Statistically checked to make sure the quality is ‘built-in’ every step of the | way. Rather than long production lines, we have ‘Quality Circles’ — small groups of people whose job it is to make sure that each | Nashua diskette is right in the first place.

The result is a diskette with such consistency, that it is chosen by those people who can’t afford mistakes.

Phone Sydney 958 2044, Canberra 47 0511, Melbourne 428 0501, Brisbane 369 4244, Adelaide 420021, Perth

| 3281888, Darwin 816204, Auckland 2784299, Christchurch/Dunedin Whitcoulls Ltd, PNG 256766.

ve really isa difference.

Ruwald & Skinner 40] NA/A

a a a i a a TT er ESE

—

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In a little over three years Australia has undergone a veritable data communications revolution, which is continuing with increasing technological sophistication appearing at all levels. Bill Bolton, our resident comms historian, here documents our baudy past, and samples some of the delights of the present.

t's an exciting thought to realise the number of publicly accessible com- munications ‘destinations’ in Austra- lia has increased by approximately 1500 per cent in three years. Much of this increase has come from small, micro- computer-based public access messages systems (see the PAMS listing in this arti- cle), but there have been some significant moves by commercial services into the videotex area. | Why choose only to refer to the past three years? Prior to mid-1982 the only ‘direct-connect’ modems readily available to the public had to be leased from Tele- com through its Datel service. This was an expensive and unwieldy arrangement, which meant that generally only moderate to high-volume business users could jus- tify using direct-connect modems. The alternative for low-volume users was to use acoustic couplers, which were cumber- some and, due to the general technology level involved, not particularly reliable. At that time in Australia, data com- munications was restricted mainly to dumb terminals talking to mainframe hosts, or mainframe to mainframe syn- chronous communications. One of the reasons | started the Software Tools RCPM

was to gain some practical experience with’

small-systems communications, as I'd found next to no one here who knew any- thing at all about it.

From mid-1982 Telecom-approved direct-connect modems started to become commercially available, for around $300.

20

Communications

As well as accessing Australian destinations, Austpac allows connection via OTC’s MIDAS to many other similar data-packet networks throughout the world.

You could then own a modem which was convenient to use and gave a highly reli- able data connection in most cases. Auto- answer modems also appeared, enabling users to set up their own ‘host’ systems for whatever purpose they wished. The num- ber of computer users with modems grew rapidly, and snowballed with the increas- ing number of systems available to call.

This growth took place when standard modems were using 300 bps (that’s about 30 characters a second) data rates, since that was the most commercially viable technology for establishing a modem mar- ket in Australia.

Meanwhile, in America

About the time Australia was waking up to the possibilities of broadly based public data communications, the United States was well and truly through that first phase of development. The need for faster com-

COMMUNICATION S~— A BAUD TALE

munications was driving the market froma 300 bps data communications rate to a 1200 bps (about 120 characters a second) data rate.

Telecommunications in the United States was never as tightly regulated as it is in Australia, allowing a wide variety of data communications services to develop over a long period of time. Australians looked at what was taking place in the United States market and tried to import at least some of the American ideas. A few types of data communications services have survived the Pacific crossing to be- come a great success, such as the concept of public access message systems. Others, such as commercial information utilities, have so far met with only a lukewarm re- sponse.

Performance

A good part of the success or failure of particular services has been due to the dif- ference in the commonly available com- munications rates in the United States and Australia. Just saying that 1200 bps is four times as fast as 300 bps doesn't give you any real idea of the significance of that speed increase. In many cases the psycho- logical impact of data communication speeds is considerable; things which work well at 1200 bps can be incredibly tedious at 300 bps. This is one reason why com- mercial information utilities have so far met with poor acceptance here.

For several years | have been regularly using one or the other of the two major American commercial information utili- ties. While | was only able to access the services at 300 bps, | more or less stoically accepted the general performance level, but I always felt there seemed to be little sense in the endless menus | was pre- sented with. | spent a lot of time figuring out ways to circumvent the menu systems and got lost half the time in a complex array of service choices.

About 18 months ago | started using

_ 1200 bps to access these information utili-

ties and my whole view of them changed. In retrospect, it was obvious that whoever had designed them had assumed not many users would be accessing them at 300 bps, and had carefully set everything up to work most effectively, from a human communications point of view, at 1200 bps. At the higher speed the menu systems

actually worked as ‘road maps’ through the

complexity of services, whereas at 300 bps they were more of a distraction than any-

thing else. The 300 bps rate had encour- aged me to read and answer everything while on-line, but the fast 1200 bps rate changed my. mode of operation, enabling me to capture what | wanted and read it later off-line. I'd then prepare my replies off-line and send them as files back to the utility, rather than typing them in directly. Technically, there was no reason why | couldn't have done this at 300 bps, it’s just that psychologically it wasn’t attractive to me.

The problem on the whole with Austra- lian commercial information utilities is that they have either been modelled close- lyonsimilar American systems, or if locally developed have had little thought put into the nature of their user interfaces for low- speed communications. In either case they have ended up being frustrating for 300 bps users.

Things are changing in Australia. A pseudo 1200 bps standard has appeared on many commercial modems (though for good technical reasons it is not widely used, except for videéotex), while true full- duplex 1200 bps modems are now readily available. And instead of being nearly four years behind the United States in terms of introducing new small-systems com- munications technology, as was the case with 1200 bps full-duplex modems, Austra- lia is now only a matter of months behind with 2400 bps full-duplex modem tech- nology.

Available Services

There is quite a range of public data com- munications services available in Australia today. What follows is a brief and personal overview of some of these. | certainly don't use all the types of services available, and of those | do use, | access some only occa- sionally and some intensively. You should be aware that there are more public and private communications services available than are mentioned here.

Packet Networks There are two publicly accessible, general- traffic ‘packet networks’ in Australia. Tele- com Australia runs a service called Aust- pac, which covers most capital citles and some provincial centres. Most small- system users access Austpac via casual ‘dial-up’ access ports, at 300 bps full du- plex, 1200/75 bps or 1200 bps full duplex. Most host services on Austpac are con- nected via synchronous X.25 links. Austpac communications charges are generally much lower than equivalent STD

Communications

lt seems lo me the major problem with Viatel is that the information density is too low. In other words, you have to look at several screens to get any worthwhile amount of information — and that fakes time.

phone rates. You can be charged for Aust- pac in one of two ways. First, you can apply to Telecom for an NUI (Network User Identifier). Once Telecom has issued you with an NUI you can log onto any publicly accessible packet service on Austpac or an interconnected network, and your com- munications charges will be billed to you by Telecom. With Australian host services it is possible to arrange reverse charging, which means you wouldn't rieed an NUI from Telecom. The host service provider gives you its Austpac address, and when you log into Austpac and specify that address, the Austpac charges go to the host service. The host service provider then bills you for Austpac communica- tions charges, and for your connect time to the host. Teledata is one Australian service that supports reverse charging.

As well as accessing Australian destina- tions, Austpac allows connection via OTC’s MIDAS to many other similar data-packet networks throughout the world. MIDAS is the second packet network directly ac- cessible in Australia. As well as being ac- cessible through Austpac, MIDAS can be dialled directly from anywhere in Australia — though now the MIDAS charges are set in such a way as to encourage users to access it via Austpac where possible.

MIDAS is the data communications gateway to the rest of the world. | regularly access several United States. communica- tions services using Austpac/MIDAS, and on the whole it’s not much more compli- cated than directly dialling a data service here in Australia. Of course, international communications of any sort are never cheap, but the MIDAS charges are com- mercially bearable, and in many cases data

communication via MIDAS is the only way AUSTRALIAN DIAL-UP SERWCES,,..

fr 09

to get vital business or technical informa- tion quickly from overseas.

United States Services via MIDAS

| regularly use several United States data communications services. These fall into two classes: mail systems and information utilities. Arcom Pacific, the company | work for, communicates with several of its sup- pliers via electronic mail,

The service we use most in the office is MCI Mail, a slick electronic mail system which is easy to operate and provides a wide range of facilities for delivering mes- sages electronically or generating hard copy in the United States for courier or postal delivery. You can also send telexes through MCI Mail. The interface or PAD (packet assembler/disassembler), be- tween MIDAS and the MCI network in the United States is half duplex, which means you have to be careful when entering mes- sages by hand. Though MCI is working on correcting this problem for its internation- al customers, at the moment it’s advisable to prepare messages off-line and upload them. OTC can provide information about signing up for MCI Mail.

Easylink is another American electronic mail system. I've only tried to use it a few: times — and without much success, since many of the messages I sent didn’t seem to reach their destination properly. The Easy- link user interface is complex and hard to

remember. A business associate uses >»

PA NS e on’ ey 1S

2!

Easylink just to send telexes to the United States and says it works well for that.

The information utility | use is the Com- puserve Executive Information Service (or CIS), a broadly based information utility providing a very wide range of services from home entertainment through busi- ness data, general news, airline/travel planning and booking, financial news, electronic mail, electronic publishing, file storage and forwarding, special-interest group information and so on.

Several of Arcom Pacific's software sup- pliers have special interest groups (SIGs) on CIS. These SIGs provide an important source of news, views and technical in- formation that is vital for the effective marketing and support of Arcom’s pro-

Communications

ducts in Australia and New Zealand. CIS is well maintained and easy to use.

Many features may be programmed by the

user to suit his or her particular needs, and the CIS on-line help systems and printed documentation have been well thought out. You can transfer files to CIS using either of two CIS protocols or the Christen- sen protocol.

CIS accounts have been hard to obtain in Australia, but they are available. The best places to start asking about a CIS sign-up are computer user groups, of On local PAMS systems.

Until the beginning of this year | was using the Source information utility, but cancelled my account after finding CIS to be superior. Some of Arcom’s suppliers

have now started to provide SIGs on the Source, so | may have to open an account there again. Accounts on the Source have been available in Australia for several years; again, the best places to ask are local computer user groups or PAM sys- tems.

Australian Services via Austpac

The only public access domestic service | have used via Austpac is Teledata in Mel- bourne. Teledata was formerly the Austra- lian Beginning, but has been working hard on its image and services recently. Frankly, the old Australian Beginning was not a very handy communications utility. It was difficult to drive and had no worthwhile file transfer capabilities. Teledata is im->

PAMS Numbers

Australia

Queensland (EST)

Software Tools RCPM (ST-RCPM) (07) 378 9530 24 hours

BEX li RCPM (BEX-RCPM) (07) 395 1809 24 hours Tomorrowland DIRECT (BRIS-TLD) (07) 286 2438 24 hours COMPETRON IBBS (COMPT-IBBS) (07) 52 9294 24 hours Hi-Tech C BBS (HTC-BBS) (07) 38 6872 24 hours

Texas Instruments (TI-BBS) (07) 263 6161 2100-0600 weekdays only Brisbane Microbee RCPM (BMUG-RCPM) (07) 38 4833 24 hours ACEA Commodore BBS (ACEA-BBS) (07) 341 0285 24 hours Commodore Users BBS (BCUG-BBS) (07) 808 2125 24 hours Cairns and District IBBS (CAD-IBBS) (070) 51 3582 1800-0800 + 24 hours weekends

Color Computer Link (COCO-LINK) (075) 32 6340 24 hours

New South Wales (EST)

Mi-Computer Club BBS (MiCC-BBS) (02) 662 1686 24 hours Sydney Public Access RCPM (SPA-RCPM) (02) 808 3536 24 hours Ausborne UG RCPM {AUSBD-RCPM) (02) 95 5377 24 hours Tesseract RCPM (TES-RCPM) (02) 651-1404 24 hours

Omen RTRS (OM-RTRS) (02) 498 2495 1630-0900 + 24 hours weekends

Sydney TRS-80 UG RTRS (STRUG-RTRS) (02) 332 2494 24 hours Prophet BBS (PROPHET-BBS) (02) 628 7030 24 hours

Dick Smith Electronics (DSE-BBS) (02) 887 2276 24 hours Tomorrowland DIRECT (SYD-TLD) (02) 411 2053 24 hours Sydney Apple UG (AUG-BBS) (02) 451 6575 24 hours

Texas Instruments UG (TEXPAC-BBS) (02) 560-0926 1900-0600 + 24 hours weekends |

Oracle RTRS (ORACLE-RTRS) (02) 960 3641 0-1800 weekdays, 0- 0800 weekends

Sydney Commodore 64 BBS (SYDC64-BBS) (02) 664 2334 24 hours AUGUR BBS (AUGUR-BBS) (02) 661 4739 24 hours ABCOM-IBBS (ABCOM-IBBS) (047) 36 4165 24 hours

Newcastle Micro RCPM (NMC-RCPM) (049) 68 5385 1700-0830 + 24 hours weekends

ACT (EST) Canberra IBBS (ACT-IBBS) (062) 58-1406 24 hours

22

Victoria (EST)

Melbourne CBBS. (MICOM-CBBS) (03) 762 5088 24 hours TARDIS RCPM (TARDIS-RCPM) (03) 67 7760 1800-0800 + 24 hours weekends

Sorcerer CUA RCPM (SCUA-RCPM) (03) 434 3529 24 hours

East Ringwood RCPM (ERING-RCPM) (03) 870 4623 1600-2400 daily

PC Connection IBBS (PCC-IBBS) (03) 528 3750 24 hours

HiSoft IBBS (HISOFT-IBBS) (03) 799 2001 24 hours

Computers Galore IBBS (CG-IBBS) (03) 561 8479 24 hours OMEN IV RTRS (OM4-RTRS) (03) 846 4034 24 hours

MicroPro Computers RCPM (MICROP-RCPM) (03) 568 8180 24 hours

AM-NET RCPM (AMNET-RCPM) (03) 366 7055 24 hours Microbee User Group RCPM (MMUG-RCPM) (03) 873 5734 24 hours Gippsland MAIL BUS (GL-MBUS) (051) 27 7245 24 hours

Tasmania (EST) Mike Scott's BBS (MS-BBS) (003) 34 9411 24 hours

South Australia (CST)

Adelaide Micro UG BBS (AMUG-BBS) (08) 271 2043 1000-2200 Computer Ventures BBS (CV-BBS) (08) 255 9146 24 hours Electronic Oracle IBBS (EO-IBBS) (08) 260 6686 24 hours OMEN V RTRS (OM5-RTRS) (08) 45 4666 1800-0700

NEXUS Ed. Dept BBS (NEXUS-BBS) (08) 243 2477 24 hours Multiple BBS (MULTI-BBS) (08) 255 5116 24 hours

SA Commodore BBS (SAC64-BBS) (08) 382 4631 24 hours Northern Territory (CST)

Outback RCPM (OUTB-RCPM) (089) 27 7111 24 hours OMEN 1] RTRS (OM2-RTRS) (089) 27 4454 24 hours

Red Centre RCPM (REDC-RCPM) (089) 52 8852 24 hours

Western Australia (WST) OMEN II] RTRS (OM3-RTRS) (09) 279 8555 0800-2400 + 24 hours weekends

New Zealand (NZT)

Attache RBBS (ATT-RBBS) ISD: 64 9 78 9084; Domestic: (09) 76 9084 24 hours

Rotorua BBS (ROT-BBS) ISD: 64 73 70 154; Dornestic: (073) 70 154

“There are a number of reasons why a multi-user 8086 is a good product. The most important is that small business can have several people who need access to the same database and application, and this cannot be achieved in a practical fashion by a collection of PCs or other micro- computers.”

“Have a look at the Labtam 3003, it’s running multiple users.”

“An IBM class machine running several users.”

“It was clearly a multi-user desktop machine and that was something for Australia and Labtam to be proud of.”

“T guess I regard the Labtam 3003 desktop as being more important than its UNIX (Labtam’s) machine because it is meeting commercial needs that were obvious, and which have been missed by almost every other supplier.”

] From “An Essential Reed”’. KARL REED, Lecturer in Computer By Karl Reed Science at Royal Melbourne Institute — Extract from Computerworld, of Technology. May 31 1985.

Labtam Series 3000 multiple user computer systems in 8, 16 or 32 bit configurations built for personal/ micro/ and mainframe computer applications.

LABTAM: Head Office, Victoria. Telephone: (03) 587 1444.

New South Wales. Telephone: (02) 411 2588.

ACCREDITED DEALERS: A.M.S., New South Wales. Telephone: (02) 671 5800. KPA Computer Systems, Queensland, Telephone: (07) 378 9877.

General Business Machines, South Australia. Telephone: (08) 42 0031.

(ahtam Macton Pty. Ltd., Western Australia, Telephone: (09) 382 3622. eee Labtam Computers, You now know about us.

23

plementing a new user interface which promises to be much better than the pre- vious one, and wil] also soon have Christ- ensen and Kermit protocols available for file transfers. —

An exciting development on Teledata is the introduction of ‘gateways’ to overseas communications utilities. At present the only gateway is to the ‘Official Airlines Guide’ in the United States, but Teledata is working on opening up gateways to other services such as Compuserve and the Source. The advantage of accessing these services through Teledata is that accounts can be opened locally, and you'll also be billed by the local organisation.

These new developments could make

Teledata a very useful public access com- munications utility for Australia, and the people behind the service certainly seem to be trying very hard to overcome the indifferent reputation it has had to date.

Australian Dial-up Services

By ‘dial-up’ in this case ] mean services connected directly to the public switched telephone network, rather than to a packet network.

For me these are almost exclusively public access message systerns of one sort, or another, They cover a wide range of activities, but are mostly directed at distri- buting public domain software for micro- computers. The services are characterised by being single-user, with one telephone line (though a few are expanding to multi- ple lines), and generally specialising ir only a few types of computers or operating systems. At the time of writing only two systems were supporting data com- munications rates higher than 300 bps. The Outback RCPM in Darwin supports 300

Communications

It appears even the videotex service vendors who are promoting the use of Viatel have probelms with it. | left messages to several service vendors and equipment suppliers via their response facilities on Viatel, requesting information for this article, and didn't get any replies. Maybe they don’t collect their electronic mail!

a

bps and 1200/75 bps, while my Software Tools RCPM in Brisbane supports 1200 and 2400 bps. I think this will change rapid- ly and many systems will soon provide 1200 bps and possibly 2400 bps access.

PAMS systems are a rich source of useful software and ideas, and an excellent place to find out what is really happening with small-systems communications. Your Com- puter usually carries a column about PAMS systems (not this month — you have this article instead), so | won't labour the point by going into more detail.

Viatel | eo The last type of service I use is Viatel. Now | haven't made up my mind about Viatel yet.

2A

MEANWHILE , IN AMGERAC Kore.

rr gr re

| signed up because the $12.50 introduc- tory offer for a year's subscription was too good to refuse, but until recently | haven't found much use for this facility.

It seems to me the major problem with Viatel is that the information density is too low. In other words, you have to look at sevetal screens to get any worthwhile amount of information — and that takes time. Recently Arcom Paeffic’s financial controller discovered some financial ser- vices on Viatel that were commercially useful to the business, so we have been getting some use from it lately, but that’s only a couple of, pages from the whole service.

It appears even the videotex service ven- dors who are promoting the use of Viatel have problems with it. | left messages to several service vendors and equipment suppliers via their response facilities on Viatel, requesting information for this arti- cle, and didn’t get any replies. Maybe they don’t collect their electronic mail!

At the moment Viatel just doesn’t offer many services of any value to me, either personally or professionally, so I guess it's got unti] next February when my accountis due for renewal to convince me I should renew. | have been frustrated by the fact. that I need a special modem just to access Viatel, as I find the 1200/75 modem stan- dard not reliable enough for general use. Despite several requests to Telécom, staff there won't say if it intends to provide 1200 bps full-duplex public access to Viatel, and I think the service runs the risk of being left behind if it doesn’t provide this more reli- able mode.

If you want to sign up for Viatel, just ask any Telecom Business Office for details.

Trends

The thing to look for is higher-speed com- munications as 1200 bps and 2400 bps modems penetrate the Australian market- place. Gateway services such as those coming into operation through Teledata wiil open up a broader range of data com- munications to the small-systems user. At least some of the PAMS systems will find ways of getting onto Austpac, which should make them more accessible to in- terstate callers. The sophistication of smail-systems communications software wili advance by leaps and bounds in a short time, and Australian PC data com- munications users wiil catch up rapidly with their United States counterparts in the way they use computer communica- tions.

THE GLEAR ADVANTAGE

THE OSBORNE PC .

COMPANY ADVANTAGE

Osborne has set industry standards for the computer world. We are known for producing the most reliable best selling (over 200,000 users) personal computer systems. We are proud that our designs and level of quality created a new awareness and inspired other excellent companies to follow our thinking.

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NOW you can buy the OSBORNE 16 bit PC with our name and reputation up front. This exact IBM PC compatible has’ operational flexibility and day-in day- out Osborne reliability.

Running under Osborne’s unique TRANS-NET local area network it will

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compatible micro-computers. =

COMPATIBILITY ADVANTAGE ae

The Osborne PC is fully IBM hardware and software compatible and expandable. It will run all commercially available software including Lotus 123, symphony, Framework, Flight Simulator etc. It supports all add-on boards and cards including Hercules, Persyst, 3270 Emulation and 3-Com LAN. The Osborne 2100 is ideal for CAD/CAM applications supporting all high resolution peripherals including Tecmar cards and monitors. The Osborne PC will cold boot and run PC-DOS (all versions).

PRICE ADVANTAGE — FROM $3,200

With every new release we have exceeded the specifications of most of our competitors, increased the quality and produced significant cost savings for our buyers. Osborne’s outstanding value-for-money policy is your biggest advantage.

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WARRANTY ADVANTAGE Full SIX MONTHS warranty. Service and backup Australia-wide from Hills Industries.

BONUS SOFTWARE ADVANTAGE Osborne is the only PC that offers you the Release 2 Advanced Perfect Software Library for an incredible $200.

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Ey “Y p Ta a 2 C/ | , | toy e OSBORNE | 4 NF AY | = — 4 ? ‘ Co &E 7 a B 4 : 7 93 York St., SYDNEY. Phone 290-1122.

Telex 70510. Fax 290-1558

Melbourne 20-7895, Perth 384-5787, Brisbane 870-3780, Darwin 84-4636 Caringbah 524-6240, Wollongong 27-1440, Sydney 290~1317.

GrafTalk is business graphics software that works as hard for your business as you do.

You can use GrafTalk the way you’d like.

GrafTalk is flexible in accepting commands. You can type English-language commands

interactively, run commands from disk files or the in-built editor, or use GrafTalk’s menus if you

prefer.

GrafTalk has all the graphics features you need. Choose from stacked, percentage, clustered or floating bars; exploded pies, line plots, scatter diagrams and combinations of all of these. Adjust styles and sizes to suit your needs.

REPCO Balance Sheet 1983 Total Assets

OTHER _. ASSETS A4SSET DISTAIBUTION

FIXED ASSETS

— PROPEATY

Total Assets $m

ALUKA AAA ee

1979 1980 1981 1982 PREPARE DISPLAYS FOR ANNUAL REPORTS

Chances are it works with the hardware you already have.

GrafTalk runs on CP/M-80 systems (even those without screen graphics), the IBM-PC, Sirius, DEC Rainbow, Zenith Z100, and many more. 16-bit systems need only 128kB of memory.

GrafTalk drives so many screens, plotters, and

printers that we don't have room to list them all. Development is continuing — watch for the release

of support for Apricot and the Textronic color ink-jet printer.

SALES VOLUME

(Charts shown here were produced with Houston and Hewlett-Packard plotters, on a Televideo 803.)

GrafTalk is a trademark of Redding Group Inc. CP/M is a registered trademark of Digital Research.

Graftalk is easy to use

Even a first time user can produce a sophisticated graph with a few simple commands. As you gain more experience, you can choose to use any of GrafTalk's more than 100 commands. Commands are available that allow all degrees of “fine tuning” for your graphs.

GrafTalk has excellent documentation GrafTalk’s documentation is readable, complete and easy to use. The User’s Manual consists of full color examples designed to show you step-by-step how to produce the graphs you want. The Reference Manual classifies and describes fully every available command.

The Better MouseTrap Company sales Report September, 1984

50000 1984 (actual)

4983 (actual) —— 1964 (projected)

MAR MAY JUL SEP

Monthly MouseTrap Sales

45000

40000

35000

30000 F

NOV

Features of Graflalk

Flexible Data Input

GrafTalk will extract data from any text file, including Printer files from most spreadsheet programs. Blank lines and headings are ignored. Unwanted data can be easily masked off. Commas, dollars signs etc do not affect the interpretation of data values.

Mini Spread Sheet

The inbuilt spreadsheet allows the user to view and adjust data, perform arithmetic operations, create new rows and columns, name rows and columns,create sub-sets, and output data to disk or printer. Unassigned values are allowed.

Menu Mode

High-speed screen oriented menus are provided. Write your own menus for your standard operations. Switch between menu mode and command mode at any time.

et-cell Graft

Q > QU al Q UI oO U , Lo UO O O mam

SUITABLE FOR BOTH SCIENTIFIC AND BUSINESS APPLICATIONS.

Axis Features

Adjust the number and position of axes. Select numeric labels, or text or special labels such as months, days or years. You can use automatic

scaling, or nominate the range for each axis.

Interactive Graphics Use the joystick, mouse, or light pen to select a region on the screen, and position legends and text.

Advanced Features

Declare variables, interactive sketch commands, circle and arc, absolute and relative moves, draws and marks, screen or graph coordinate systems.

GrafTalk is distributed in Australia by:

SPECIALITY HANDSET SALES

FLIP-PHONE 40%

| ke

DISITEL MONITOR 27%

TOUCH A MATIC 20% _]

ADD LOGOS WITH MOVE, DRAW AND ARC COMMANDS.

Editor

The powerful screen-oriented text editor within GrafTalk is a very valuable tool for developing graphics. It can be used to create files containing commands, data or both. The editor has commands to allow you to run all or part of a file. If errors are found during execution, GrafTalk returns to the editor, with the cursor pointing to

the offending line.

Major Sources of Government Hevenue $ million

40000

30000 20000

10000

83-84 84-B5

= Sales Tax

82-B3

i Company Tax

61-82

(eal PAYE Tax

alae le W Al) (ex Sales Tax) °

eRe a ee

95 Canterbury Rd, Middle Park, Victoria 3206. Telephone: (03) 699 9899. Telex: AA 31604.

. for i te of, oa ag " it 7 i F Pa : : J a 1. a : : ie & F ta F "i oy

a

This is the worst noticeboard | have ever called! | demand my money back or Vil sue you for $10 million, and | mean what | say. | prefer the money in unmarked 91 bills left in a briefcase outside Town Hall. Be there.”

“Excellent BBS. Had trouble with the others but this was ereat. The only one that worked properly. Keep up the good work.”

WHEN FIRST handed the job of looking after the Your Computer bulletin poard after the departure of our previous sysop, | thought id quickly have a new b through the whole system and change the shape of life on out BBS. Now. three months later, 'm still scratching the sul- face. It's not through lack of enthusiasm —

ambition has been just a teensy bit dulled _ but rather through an avalanche © usually conflicting requests and com- ments from users of the system.

In an attempt to respond to some of the pleas, criticisms, congratulations and queries. and to give BBS usels 4 taste O life on the other end of the line. | thought i'd share some of my electronic mail.

BULLETI

i iy i Ps

fi i ‘ * ; % 4 \

. The i" * : a} hh = y =e, : a» ot 4" 1

B ; . ! 4 " ; 4 ‘ | <% L | . | Thiserother BAR Is bein E cy

impressions LtStB

round the ne a a using s - ae your aaa the oni else’s ID na Sequences ae OF yo Person who thoes one Pi trouble cau. ll bear th OSE Who've “ce Of mail Seda can

CO } : mputer fraud ed! might interest

{ust checkin

look Foe your Sys-

d, we'll cal]

Q

|

Changes ; "Come on, Austpac! ... Are you still having

problems after three years? ... Where has the hard disk gone? ... Isn't this system kinda slow? ... Is that advertisement from ary 1984 still current?” afines do change on the bulletin board, but not at what you might call a frenetic pace. In the last few months we've man- aged to clean up a lot of the dead wood that’s been cluttering up the system, and software maintenance is happening often enough for regular users to notice it. _ After the system closed down for a while last year when we moved house, we lost

The Board ‘T've been wande

ages, and | stil] Can't find the

our hard disk to one of the other computer where are they? .. Your mailbo ae systems in the building, and the pol- very difficult to understand Tee tergeists have foiled us each time we've Comprehensive and complex bo d ah been about to put it up again. At the mo- excellent Structures .. ard, with

ment, we're first in line to get the Fujitsu drive which is in sick bay at Facom. If they get their act into gear, it should be up by the time you read this. That'll mean a faster system with lots more elbow room. We're also planning to implement some much needed software improvements when we get the Fujitsu up and running again. These include providing visitors with directories and descriptions of the programs available on the system (perhaps the most requested enhance- ment to the system), more programs fora wider variety of machines, including lan- guages such as dBase and C; and multi- user access. Future Paes eae eee Austpac, which should make I . ets a Httle more bearable. | stored on drive B. a UTES are currently

dumbo like me could y | is board is entered f INg ‘board’ !

the ID? on a

Se this system!”

A better way to dow

CO use a commMmunicati 3 Nications utjlit j ee adecally checks for errors in nad ee, ee aa See (a version of Yet WNICh sends data; - byte blocks, fo} lowed bya checksum to ce.

whether the data arrived rived in block is sent again) BCH {it not, the

To run XYAM.

nload a program is

S® BULLETIN BOARD BACKCHAT

MN around in Circles for

vena COmputer

‘¢

Tools for the Professional

Setanta ee eee ee

i ee ei

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C source functions which simulate BASIC

Lattice-Window......... $550 Simple to use multiple full windows for IBM-PC

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ISAM library with DBASE II or III file compatibility

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FREE C CATALOGUE SS a a er Available exclusively in Australia from:

FAGAN

MICROPROCESSOR SYSTEMS 95 Canterbury Road, Middle Park, Vic. 3206 Tel: (03) 699 9899 Telex: AA31604

29

oN,

Ue

BUL LETIN BOARD BACKCHAT

>

: a asics as the di IS the Mi iff. i-C Ow d erence be OMputer Cc} Wour Goa, Ronee oe eae ? What’ y omputer's | beards tiMBoaiaae: eg board j pit Which 'd. The Mi Comput rd is offici prod offered ens "252 er Club B ae The ae and a ecial rat consumer Hs the cup” Rodina as well computer club. theo veil ag er S.

PSurviving part of oO

-

4 The sysop’s Ear ie "its 2am and the sySoP ig nowhere to be found. We were noping to find a sysOP

nd a © okbo prog provide preakfast, an we've fou d neither. What oO sort of a clack syst© E |

As with ™m st SySO bulletin poard

is my secon first 1S king full rime for Your Computer, W js rather more than a 9 tO 5 bulletin boat . : maintenanc gets do ever }m pas- a IX sing the C° u O ave a mo ey ‘ ment to spat ything More manding ? rends to & done eithe jate at ight or ON

ou want t t attention, there are | ea boat mem ber you leave ME il vi pMAI addressed member embels and visitor an leave CO after the BYE or EF comma ds when exiting rhe syste \ generally \ this mal Vey once a WE and get 4 replying every two to three W ks unle ¢ | notice something urgen | alternatively, can U CHAT Cc mmand } HAT ca a bell to sound 4 few tim ro attract attention ynfortunatel bulletin 5° ompu ter is located d the of the ‘ corridor {ro ) wor you have to is s, be lucky tO that Way f aroun ' always “Y t swet, d you re likely to

trying tO get chings t0 work.

perhaps the most successtul way to get attentio is (02) 663 9999 juring office ours, ricwhich makes it qifficult for Me t d you. If any case the questio answet last are those whic have already een ans ont e board. Most of the informe eeded to get ground the system in th yarious blurbs oF help files av e chroughou che syste erhe system > ests you TYP ‘HELP’ and ype ‘TY BOARD.

d then lea comment about the un friendly nat Fthe boal ou'li be right!

Mostly bem {the com ynication on the poard ding people 7 bother tO \ criticls ¢ the system Despite our time and e problems we are KE en make t rd ponsive to your nee 5 50 give U \ if you wan ro see cn ge, din meantime

eM

RITRON 1 Our most popular model in a steel cabinet ta minimisa FF J. interfarenca.

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5 oe

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Check the features and the value

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@ BELL 193 CCITT V21 Compatibte.

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Qur New RITRON Multi Purpose Modem has atrived and has all the standards you require.

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NEW! 64K PRINTER

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ae eee ee eee eee a ee eee eee se ee eee eee ee ee ee eee ee see neee eee ee ee ee eH

oncomm Nat, that’s me, or so | thought after having spent my first few hours reconnoitring

) the data communications jung- le. “Impenetrable”, ] was ready to report to my CO. Pockets of resistance? Ha! Their defences were impregnable ... Well, maybe there were a few chinks in the armour, but what could one tiny combatant like me do against such monstrous adversaries? Their mastery of psychological warfare was un- paralleled: every time | advanced a few paces, their piercing war cry would shrill through the modem, everything would black out for a moment and I'd open my eyes to find the screenery had changed completely.

Disoriented (lost), I'd advance (how did | know I was advancing?) determinedly, but all the time they were shooting beams of invisible propaganda into my poor numbed brain: “You're spending too much money,” they hissed, "Time is money.” I'd begin thrashing about wildly and would inevitably find myself running in circles, or at a seeming dead end. Succumbing to afit of jungle fever, I'd start to hallucinate ... if only I could stop them charging ... Tele- com, charging, charging, charging ... Grop- ing blindly, I'd push the RESET button.

It was pitiful. Every time the enemy would dump me unceremoniously back into MS-DOS, a kind of no-man’s land as far as | could see. Where was my beloved CP/M? I was ready to go AWOL, surrender to the IBM Underground until I could be reunited with Bee; | was going to hurl my ammunition into the tangled undergrowth of phone wires and flee, but on reflection | wasn't even sure I'd started out with the

right ammunition. The fact was, and I had to face it, that I'd been unarmed all the time. That's right, | hadn't opened a manu- al, I'd been using my bare hands, relying on intuition ... and not doing too badly, if I say so myself.

Data communications isn’t quite such a hostile environment as my frenzied state had me believe at times, but the majority of people seem to encounter a whole pla- toon of frustrating situations when making their first forays into the field. In many cases, these frustrations can be related to a user not being familiar with the equip- ment he or she is using, or with the princi- ples behind that equipment .

Fitting Together the Pieces

| was the prime example. I wrote this story from home, where | usually have a Mic- robee set up with a Beemodem and Tel- com communications software, with which | have successfully sent several stories to the office over the phone lines. I didn’t exactly understand how it all worked, but was gradually piecing the datacomms pic- ture together. I was really looking forward to writing this article when the CO said he needed to borrow the Bee, couldn't | take the Olivetti home instead? | was gleeful; I've always admired the M24 from afar, but had never even had the time to run my fingers over its stylish keyboard.

So there | was, with an unfamiliar machine, running MS-DOS instead of CP/ M, using PC-Talk instead of Telcom, and wondering how I, the noncomm, was going to attach a telephone receiver to Data Net- comm’s PC In/Modem so it could function as a real modem was supposed to. I'd hada

five-minute briefing from Whelan (the CO in question), who might well find himself in a court-martial situation when he gets back from holidays, and was busting to dive right in and attack Viatel, for starters; to get in under all those umbrellas and things I'd been hearing about, and find out just what the IPs (information providers) were up to.

Beginners to computing should beware of seriously damaging their morale by pa- rachuting into the telephone wires without at least acquainting themselves with the contents of their survival pack and the whereabouts of the ripcord. That’s what Rose Vines told me after I'd been at it fora couple of evenings, but she put it in terms of having a reasonable knowledge of the operating system you're using, and know- ing the different methods of summoning help when soldiering along in remote cor- ners of datacomms territory; firing flares won't improve your position, nor endear you to the people who live upstairs — typing a question mark or simply ‘help’ is probably the preferred course of action.

The thing is, people like Rose aren't generally around when you find you've marched yourself right into a swamp, and that’s the ironic twist to the datacomms attraction: data communications brings all sorts of facilities you'd normally have to go out or telephone for (most often in busi- ness hours) within easy reach of you and your home or office computer, at all times of day. You can carry out tasks by yourself, when you feel like it, and communicate with other people without actually having to ‘bother’ them right there and then... but, of course, the very independence and>

35

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accessibility of the thing means you'll fre- quently find yourself alone at the most hair-tearing, can’t-get-any-further, don't- remember-how-to-go-back moments. There you'll be, standing outside the biggest library you've ever imagined, on some remote database like the Source, without any idea how the swinging doors work; there's no sign of a librarian, you desperately need to research some obscure subject, and it's costing you a for- tune in phone charges just to hop up and down frustratedly on the pavement. Or you want to juggle the money in your three bank accounts, so the right amount will be in the right place when your mortgage pay- ment is automatically deducted on Mon- day — you can do it while breakfasting on Sunday, with your croissant in one hand and the Weekend Australian keeping your knees warm while you access Telebank through Viatel, but there won't be a teller to help you with the transfer. Or, it’s 1 am and you need to get an electronic letter to someone so it'll be on their screen when they come to work in the morning — you won't find a postmaster to help you with the postcode, or to tell you whether you should use priority paid (1200 baud) or ordinary delivery (300 baud) in order to get it to the right mailbox safely and on time.

Remember the Novices ...

Of course, when data communications ma- tures a little more, you probably won't have to keep looking around for a helping hand (and it probably won't be as much of an adventure as now). One aspect of the field, which becomes very clear after you’ve moseyed around some, is that the people providing the facilities, especially in Au- stralia, are not yet catering for the fact that their services are being accessed by inde- pendent and often inexperienced users.

Figure |.The Mi-Compuler Club Bulletin Board's opening screen.

(Note: the prompting bell has been disabled).

What is your FIRST name ?ratlee What is your LAST name ?battletop Checking user file...

Logging RATLEE BATTLETOP to disk...

You are caller # +: 2223

Type HELP at the CP/M "OA>" prompt for assistance, or

to enter the bulletin board subsystem.

GOSH!

| enjoyed using Teledata: the screens and command card gave me all the help | needed, and knowing what my manoeuvres were going to cost and that the charges weren't exorbitant was very soothing.

They aren't yet shooting out, to your re- mote, island-like screen, all the informa- tion you need in order to achieve your

objectives smoothly. There is a special art

to presenting information on computer, and you'll know when you're in the hands of someone with skill.

| discovered one great talent during the course of my infiltration of remote compu- ter facilities: the author of PC-Talk, who created what | think is a brilliant piece of public domainery. PC-Talk is written for the IBM PC and compatibles, and enables you to do some really sensible things, like save to disk the screens you're viewing so you can look at them more closely later — when it’s not costing you a fortune jn phone bills. | never once wished for docu- mentation of this program; after I'd been told how to summon it at the MS-DOS prompt, our relationship was clear and we were inseparable.

Altered Objectives

Now, the original objective of this article was to gather as much intelligence as |

Figure2.

get help on the Mi Computer Club

get help on joining the bulletin board get help on the message subsystem

on the communications software

get help

could on various outposts of data com- munications, and report to you and the CO (grr) on what it was like to access them and what they had to offer. As you're probably aware by now, I encountered a few obsta- cles along the way. You'll hear about the obstacles in a minute, but I'll say right now that as soon as I found a service | could get into, | stuck with it, partly because | was so glad to find something easily accessible, and partly, as you'll discover when foraging yourself, because it’s virtually impossible to do a quick exploration of a sizeable facility — once you get the hang of it you want to poke into every nook and cranny.

Having conferred with the CO on my field handset, we decided there was room for more regular articles on what's going on in communications facilities both here and overseas — so look out for them in future issues, and I'll stick to general com- ments here.

First, the disappointments. As | men- tioned above, | was really keen to have a look around Viatel. About two months be- fore | wrote this article my spouse (orga- niser of all things) applied to Viatel for a subscription. At the time of writing we'd had no response, so | asked a friend if | could use his number and password. Un- fortunately, the friend lives interstate, so while borrowing his electronic dog tags was no problem, | couldn't get hold of any documentation in a hurry.

Viatel is not a good proposition unless you have that documentation, Although | got in all right, | quickly pushed myself into corners, or found myself running around in circles and paying for the same screens again and again (some areas of Viatel charge you, screen by screen, to view their information). Since | was logged in under someone else's name, I wasn’t keen to run

up unnecessary charges, and because >

MicC BB QUICK COMMAND SUMMARY

HELP CLUB HELP JOIN HELP BOARD HELP MODEM

see what's on a disk

leave the system

> see if the SYSOP is around read or leave messages enter the communications program

BOARD

_read the programs (from within XYAM)

See HELP THIS-SYS for more detailed information ++

If you experience any problems, feel free to leave comments, criticisms and suggestions via PMAIL to member number 1.

Want latest system information before entering CP/M ? yes

+ End of Category +

Type CTRL-C=CP/M, <CR>=Next Category -

37

there was no obvious and polite way to get out of some areas, I'd end up pushing the Olivetti's RESET button — a course of ac- tion which makes me feel like a real dummy.

So I'll refrain from commenting on Viatel until the means for understanding its pro- tocols are provided (hint, hint). Since you're unlikely to try to access the facility in a similarly unprepared fashion, you shouldn't let my experiences turn you Off.

Now for some Good News They turned me off. Disheartened, | thought I'd try some familiar ground and see what Your Computer's Mi-Computer Bul- letin Board could offer. My first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh (get the picture?) mistake was to try ringing it after hours — the line is almost always busy (the CO and sysop hope to do something about maybe getting multiple lines soon). When | finally did worm my way in be- tween other callers, | found procedures very simple. “How many nulls do you need?” asked the system. | knew, because the CO had told me once in the deep dark past, that my answer to this should bea zero. Could my computer display lower case? was the next question — of course, the Olivetti can do anything (sorry, Bee). What was my first name? Last name? The system checked to see if it had a dossier on me (luckily | had used an undercover identity}, Zappo, we were into a friendly and immediately instructive opening screen (see Figure |}. | chose to lookat the latest system info before entering CP/M and found a cheery message from the CO (boy, was | glad to see him): typing ‘help’ would get me help, Rose Vines is the sysop. she'd been doing a lot of cleaning up, the hard disk was going to be up again soon, and so on.

Figure 3.The Entertainment Connection menu.

EI3 Info Menu EI32 EI33 Industry News EI35 EI36 Directory EI4

MAIN Teledata Menu HELP

System News Magazine

Bboards Help Menu

Last Paragraph: 3 SEL(File) : MAIN

| humbly typed ‘help’ and got a menu of things | could ask for help with (see Figure 2). HELP CLUB was first, which told methe Mi-Computer Club was defunct, and that the bulletin board was the only remaining part of it. | knew that already, so | typed HELP JOIN and got the details you would

38

GOSH!

Figure 4.Teledata’s main menu.

-=< THE TELEDATA NETWORK >=- . What's New ? (09-Aug-85) . International GateWay Services . Personal Computing & Leisure . Entertainment & News Services , Telex & Communication Services » The Shopping Complex . Subscriber Comments & Feedback . Membership Information Guide . Network Information Guide » Signing Off

PWS nn Wh

. Subscriber Rates & Fees . Accounting Information

. Your Account Balance & Details . Changing Your Username . Changing Your Password . Membership Regulations

)

1-JUL~85

have read in Rose's ‘Bulletin Board Back- chat’ article.

Next was BOARD, and being an unfinan- cial member — that is, a visitor — | picked the ‘Visitors’ section. This informed me that, unfortunately, | couldn’t access the pocket programs, and | subsequently sus-

Figure 6. SUBSCRIBER RATES & FEES

= a a ao ao Se So oS oo a

When you logoff from the system, you will be informed of the charges incurred during that session, broken down into various categories.

(i) Weekdays: 0000 ~ 0800 § 5.00/hour 0800 = 1800 §13.00/hour 1800 ~ 2400 $ 8.00/hour

(ii) Weekends/National Public Holidays

0000 = 1800 1800 ~ 2400

$ 5.00/hour § 8.00/hour

Note ; National Public Holidays denotes a Public Holiday in ALL states!

A connection fee of 33 cents (the price of a stamp!) is charged each time a member logs on. The member is also charged a minimum time charge of 40 cents each time the member uses the system. This means that if you use LESS than 40 cents of time on the system you will be charged a minimum of 40 cents. However, if you used 50 cents worth of time, you would ONLY be charged 50 cents.

DISK STORAGE CHARGES

Each member is charged a quarter of a cent (06.0025) per kilobyte per day, for items stored in their private DIRECTORY or storage area.

People who were members of the system

pected | wouldn't be able to use the mail facilities, either. I tried the ‘Personal Mes- sages’ option and, sure enough, mail was only for people with money upfront. This screen also told me to beware of leaving anything truly confidential on the bulletin board, since although the system is fairly secure, an “inventive system-breaker”, might be able to get in.

Just one more from the BOARD menu: it had to be the intriguingly sinister option, ‘Killing Messages’, which proffered the fol- lowing: “Ideally, the sysop should never have to delete your messages. You should be doing so yourself on a regular basis, once you think they've been up for long enough to serve their purpose .. often we only look at recent messages when we log on and forget the historical gems we en- tered weeks or months before.”

1 knew Rose wasn’t there, but | typed CHAT (to talk to the system operator) out of curiosity. The system politely informed me that it would see if someone was avail- able, and would return to me in 30 seconds if they weren't. It beeped and dotted me through those 30 seconds, to let me know it was trying all the time, and then apolo- gised for the lack of response.

Only having ‘visitor’ status was terribly

prior to 30th June, 1985 and Home/Student members are charged an Account Maintenance fee of §2.00 per month to cover the costs of maintaining their data on the system.

Commercial members are charged a fee of $5.00 per month but are not charged a surcharge for access to purely commercial applications on the system.

EXTERNAL CHARGES

These are the charges imposed by Telecom and 0.T.C. for the use of their facilities plusa small T.A.B handling charge for Telexes, and are payable in ADDITION to Teledata hourly rates.

Austpac Charges (Telecom): og00 - 1800 §$5.95/hour 1860 = 0806 $4.95/hour All Weekends $4,95/hour

Telex Charges:

National (Telecom)

0800 - 1800 $0.45 per minute 1800 = 0800 $0.25 per minute

International (0.T.C.) $2.00 per minute

The Telex network transmits characters at a rate of approximately 5 characters per second. Paragraph: 18 0% left. SEL(File) /c:

Figure 7.

BREAKDOWN OF ACCOUNT

Pm er ee SS Se CURRENT MONTH

TOTAL

MAXIMUM ALLOWED ON SYSTEM

ao ee el ee ee ee ee ee ee ee

500.00 S 500.00 500,00

TOTAL TIME USE : §

SINGLE PURCHASE : TOTAL PURCHASES +: $

annoying — | couldn't really de anything. | now understand all those extremely impa- tient-sounding people who ring our office wanting to become members of the board

right away. What's $20 when you can find

out what lies behind all those menus?

Aside from this one frustration, our bul- letin board seems very easy to use. | never felt out of control, because the screen in front of me always suggested what | might do next, and I'd been informed from the start how to get help if | needed it. (If Viatel had employed similar methods | wouldn't have required a manual.)

Logging off, 1 was given the chance to leave a comment. Overjoyed, | typed a long, friendly message to Rose.

The most pleasurable thing about data communications really is communicating. At Your Computer we've always been able to send mail electronically between termin- als. Each time you log on the system tells you whether you have ‘mail’. It’s most use- ful when someone is out and you want to leave them a message, or when someone looks depressed and you want to cheer them up, or when someone has a birthday,

or .. it's just most useful. The CO often

works on the company’s systems late at night and tends to write us swags of mail while he's waiting for disks to format and the like —the mail program tells you when each message was written, so we can generally tell from how late the message was sent when to expect our leader to front up the next day, and how sympathetic we should be. Obviously, electronic mail has

Figure 8. Time Charges:

EVENING: LOGON:

28 Minutes $ Connection Fee $

TOTAL: AUSTPAC CHARGE: Press RETURN to logoff ...:

28 Minutes $

GOSH!

many other useful applications, both with- in and between computer systems.

Most communications facilities support messaging, either to users of the facility in general {advertisement sections, notice- boards, and so on), or to specific users (member to member or member to sysop). Cathy. Gray, editor of Sonics, one of our sister publications, subscribes to Teledata, a communications facility which, among other things, offers an area devoted entire- ly to the entertainment industry.

Figure 9. tee aoe eae “ke AND LEISURE

os se eee ee ee oo a i spautinl Dee ee oat Bulletin Boards » Group and Ciub Announcements

. Private/Restricted Menus

. The Amusement Arcade

. Teledata Green Pages

. CompuNews Online Magazine

. Topic Of The Month

. Dear Aunty Frank Personal Column . CompuMart - Computer Flea Market . Trading Post - General Items

. Fun & Games Joke Column

. Community Services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Yay, Teledata!

Teledata was the first unfamiliar system | had no trouble accessing and finding my way around in. The CO had supplied me with a command card, without which | wouldn't have been able to move about with as much confidence as | did.

Teledata is accessed through Austpac, Telecom's packet-switching network. So | dialled the Austpac number from within PC-Talk, which put the call through the modem. After the carrier signal had shril- led, 1 was required to type in the Teledata ‘address’ number, and could then sign on and give Cathy's password ... several times, because | couldn't remember the right combination of letters and spaces — lucky Teledata allows for that.

Since | was using Cathy's password, the system logged me straight into the ‘Enter- tainment Connection’ area (see Figure 3), but ] immediately had the option of trans- ferring to Teledata’s main menu. From the main menu (Figure 4), | chose to view the Membership Information Guide (Figure 5a), and then, still jittery about how much money Telecom was making out of all this, | thought I'd better have a look at subscri- ber Rates and Fees. You can see how reasonable the charges are in Figure 6. | thought it particularly civilised that the bill includes Austpac charges, and that it is broken down into its various components.

Figure !0.

=a< TOPIC OF THE MONTH ?=-

— Se Se Se Be RSH

. dan '85 - Life After Death ? » Apr '85 - Queensland Politics

. May '85 - Animal Research

- June '85 - World Government Y/N? . July '85 - Terrorism

. Aug '85 - Unionism

)

| had a look at Cathy's ‘Account Balance and Details’ (Figure 7): over $450 to go before | busted her credit limit — 1 was getting bolder.

| considered changing her password (option 5 in Figure 5), so only! could get in in future. She'd have to beg me, pay mea king’s ransom in coffee beans (Your Compu- ter currency) before I'd tell her the new one

While | was plotting deviously, Teledata logged me out because | hadn't hit a key for over five minutes. It politely informed me (Figure 8) of the bill I'd run up — $4.06 for 28 minutes and invited me to press return in order to complete my retreat. | did.

Logging in again the next day | thought i'd go for somerelaxation,so | chose ‘Per- sonal Computing and Leisure’ from the main menu (see Figure 9), and sauntered into the Amusement Arcade. A game of Tic-Tac-Toe sounded like something | could cope with, but | couldn't get the instructions to stop scrolling past me for long enough to read them. Lost that game, obviously.

Going to the Teledata Green Pages, | had the same problem with information on Andy's Plumbing Service. Whoosh — that was one swift plumber.

Figure I].

Shoot the do-gooders

Page Created: 00:08 08/07/85 Notice we don't hear of terrorism in Russia? Why not let us get tough too! That's all these people understand! If we're not going to carry out our threats of reprisais we shouldn't make them. Extend the same treatment to our own local trade union terrorists; we pay taxes so police & military can protect us, then remove their powers to deal with iaw-breakers because we listen to the do-gooders. If the bible-bashers believe their ravings, we'll actually be doing them a service by helping them into the next world!

Ambling through the Computer Flea Market, | couldn’t find anything that would pass as a welcome home present for my

Bee. It was good to see people had taken >

39

different approaches to advertising their wares; one user tried the tantalising tactic of making usefs scroll through a couple of blank screens between the description of what he wanted to sell and the price.

What was the Topic of the Month (Figure 10)? They hadn’t got to September yet (it was still the beginning of the month when | was doing this research), sol chose to look at July's topic which was ‘Terrorism’. The sub-menu was fascinating. Feeling per- verse, |] thought I'd look at ‘Shoot the Do- Gooders’ (see Figure | 1) — wow. ‘Be Gen- tle, But Be Forceful’, seemed like it might express a more sit-on-the-fence attitude: it did. This forum-type arrangement (at least that's what | assumed | was looking at, in the absence of any explanation) was intri- guing. How could! find out the September topic and maybe get rid of some frustra- tions myself? | never found out.

What about the Dear Aunty Frank Per- sonal Column (see Figure 12)? It was too good to miss. ‘Marooned’ was what | wanted to be; perhaps someone had writ- teh in to say they were sick of their solitary island paradise, would someone in the Teledata audience like to take over? No such luck. | thought ‘Why Dori‘t | Get Any- where’ might expose sorheone's sordid problem, but it was something to do with their-car being sluggish off the lights in wet weather. | was beginning to think Aunty Frank wrote most of her letters herself.

By this time, | had spent many minutes on Teledata, and seeing on my command card that typing STATEMENT would give me an account balance, | thought I'd check out the damage. But it only offered me the bill as it stood at the end of yesterday's communication. Oh well, there was lots more to see. At this stage | felt I was ready to digest some more sensible data and selected the ‘Network Information Guide’ and a dose of ‘The History of Teledata’.

“The Teledata Network,” said the screen, “was originally incorporated in October 1981, and whilst trading as ‘The Australian Beginning’, first made facilities available to members in March 1982 . In April 1985, ownership of the company changed | On July Ist, 1985, after a period of negotiation and redevelopment, the service was re- launched as Teledata ... It is currently the only network in Australia offering services similar to those of its counterparts in the United States — Compuserve, the Source and Delphi.”

A Who's Who of Teledata gave me “a listing designed to allow users to contact

40

GOSH!

Figure 12.

Dear Aunty Frank . General Information What will I do? Beauty Advice Please! Nail Biting. Travel Without Money? Too Many Women is my Problem! MAROCONED! BABEL FISH! LOST TOWEL! Strange Little Box CATS WANTED! Where Have My Goldfish Gone??!! QUCH! Why Don't I Get Anywhere? Please? GARDEN ORNAMENT! I HAVE A HANGNAIL PROBLEM! LISP WHAT HAS THE DONKEY GOT? BEDHEAD WANTED

Was A Ue wh Re

BOOP PDPOA OAD DSM t DDO. Dw

Figure 13 =< The seo Pea ge: >=

“ Sour Rights and Peenensinnied » How to Shop on Teledata - The Teledata Shop (Closed) - The Book and Magazine Centre . The Computer Centre . The Software House - The Modem House . The Electronic Editing Service . The Electronic Art Gallery 60. Wendy's Gift Fruit Baskets Store

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Ll

Figure 14. NEWS és INFORMATION - ae ) % ic miancevon ~ News & Info . System News . Industry News . New Products & Services - Online Magazine

. Directory

Figure 15.

. Introduction

. Audio & Sound Reinforcement . Recording & Broadcasting . Video, TV and Film

. Performing

. Lighting

. Employment

. Trading Post

. Midi

- AES

. IREE

. Jokes

“wo Os] oh OF & WN EY

other users on the system who may be able to offer help in some area, until we (Tele- data) establish an on-line ‘Users Direc- tory’.”

The ‘Gateway Services’ option told of interesting things to come: “Teledata is at present developing a number of Gateway links to various on-line information data- bases, electronic mail services and compu- ter networks throughout Australia and the world.” This will apparently enable Tele-

data subscribers to do virtually all their communications dialling through the one service, and maybe be billed for everything through Teledata’s neatly organised system.

Shopkeepers can see her coming...

Then my gaze landed on the ‘Shopping’ (see Figure 13) option again, and this time | couldn't resist. ] read the guff about rights and responsibilities and grew impatient over the how-tos, but finally | was there. Book browsing seemed a good idea, but the Holt-Saunders Bookshop had nothing to improve the mind of my Bee.

The Software House was sure to have just the thing, so | entered boldly. Hmm, Acme wasa well-known brand — | asked to peruse its range. Home Budget sounded like the sort of thing] should be interested in, but unfortunately, the salesperson re- fused to give me any details of which com- puters it would run on (what was | saying about inadequate information?).

Despairing, | turned to food; | was hop- ing to find something unhealthy in Wen- dy's Gift Fruit Baskets. Sure enough, | could get chocolate eggs at Easter, stuffed toys too, and most other things that would fit in a basket. But, curses, Wendy only delivers in the Melboutne metropolitan area .. the CO was going to be in Mel- bourne for two days ... why not send hima surprise? Wendy's last information frame let me down — | had to tell Teledata | wanted to place an order, they'd Jet Wendy know, and she'd contact me. Well, they didn't say how long all this was likely to take, so | decided not to take the risk ..

I'm a determined shopper, so | tried the ‘Electronic Art Gallery’, which turned out to have a selection of graphically repre- sented greetings. | purchased a Happy Birthday (gift box and tag) for 99 cents, and it was transferred (a word Teledata can't spell) to Cathy's directory. —

I'd spent about two and a half hours in Teledata and clocked up $19 towards Cathy's bill.

Keeping Up with the News The third time | logged into Teledata, | noticed there was a lot of news for people logging on to read; it talked about what was new on Teledata, who'd won last week's competition, and so on. The only problem was that | couldn't get this news to stop scrolling past.

| decided to hang around in the Enter-

tainment Connection for a while and let my fingers do the walking through some ‘News and Information’ (Figure 14).

I had a flip through the Online Maga- zine; after all, according to some, maga- zines and books made of paper will all be replaced someday by electronic ‘publica- tions’ such as this one. At that stage the Enconn magazine consisted of only two articles, both of which seemed as though they'd be interesting to people in the in- dustry. Another issue was apparently in the making, but wasn’t actually on-line yet — even the electronic media isn’t imper- vious to deadline hassles.

The Entertainment Connection’s ‘Direc- tory’ proved to be a variety of listings: us- ers of the Teledata entertainment industry section; recording studios in Victoria; hire and production firms in Victoria: manufac- turers and distributors of music equip- ment in the USA; and other categories were still being compiled.

My next choice from the Entertainment Connection menu was B/boards, which summoned a list of categories (Flgure 15)

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into which you might be able to place mes- sages, and from which you could read other people’s messages. (Cathy still hada Christmas greeting from the Teledata SySOp.)

The first choice on the recording and broadcasting bulletin board returned a tiny and somewhat useless message: “This is a public domain bulletin board related to recording and broadcasting, use it to- day.” But how? A quick glance at the com- mand card provided instructions, but since | had nothing to say about recording and broadcasting, | dipped out.

I peeked into the [okes Bulletin Board forsome light relief — hmm, very light. The first joke ran “How many sound guys does it take to change a light globe?” Answer: “None, that’s the lighting crew's job” (and the punctuation wasn’t quite as good as mine, either).

|] enjoyed using Teledata; aside from the occasional non-stop-scrolling problem, the screens and command card gave meail the help I needed, and knowing what my manoeuvres were going to cost

$48.00

+ $1.50 p&p

was very soothing.

What the service seems to need nowis a lot more users, both providing and acces- sing information. | believe Viatel is ex- periencing similarly unspectacular traffic volumes. Systems such as these should have a dynamic atmosphere about them — at the moment Teledata seems to be waiting for a rush of participation. In the meantime it’s building up its services, and the Gateway concept in particular should attract many would-be users whod like the whole data communications gauntlet to be more easily negotiable.

Things to Watch Out for

For future issues of Your Computer I'll be accessing some overseas facilities, and leaving messages On local bulletin boards and other services asking sysops to let me know of new developments. Really, the fun and benefits are to be gained by doing it yourself, but if you're not yet using compu- ter communications, perhaps I'll be able to tell you about something that will start the ball rolling. oO

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TULPI MODEM

PTLY BILLED AS “the intelligent modem, like no other modem”, the Tulpi is something of an enig- ; ™ ma. While it has some of the

finest Reriware I've seen in an Australian- made modem, the unit we tested also had a clumsy, difficult software interface.

The Tulpi is manufactured by Telecorp of Terrey Hills, Sydney. Managing Director Richard Graham is well-known in the in- dustry as the driving force behind Osborne Australia before the collapse of Osborne Corporation in the United States. I found Telecorp’s service both courteous and prompt, and have had similar reports from other Tulpi users.

The Tulpi is an impressively large mod- em with the box measuring 260 mm by 250 mm by 64 mm. This is larger than a stan- dard Telecom phone and I found it tended to dominate any desk it was sitting on.

Poor Documentation

The front panel has nine visible LEDs in- dicating the modem’s present state. When the modem is switched on these LEDs go through a test sequence in which they flash until the modem is ready to receive commands. Unfortunately, the Tulpi docu- mentation provides only a limited ex- planation of what these LED indicators are for, and while the functions of Power, Online, Ring and Test should be self- evident, others like RX, TX, RTS and RLSD are likely to be mystifying to anew modem user. Another LED indicator labelled Fault isn't mentioned in the documentation, and when at the end of the test period the Tulpi refused to send anything to the com- puter the FAULT indicator didn’t light up. A supplementary page covering the LEDs is now included in Tulpi manuals, and a new manual is said to be on the way.

There are no switches on the Tulpi, not even for power. While it doesn’t consume much (only 11 watts), I’m uneasy about leaving anything electrical switched on, and found it inconvenient having to reach down to the skirting board outlet to turn the Tulpi off. (Telecorp says the Tulpi is designed to run 24 hours a day, which is why there is no switch).

A DB 25 connector with a Telecom 605 plug for the RS232C interface is on the back panel with a cable for connecting to the telephone system. A cheap pushbut- ton telephone with poor voice quality (since replaced with an improved unit) was connected to the Tulpi, but as this wasn't a

44

Should you tiptoe past the Tulpi, or pluck it? Bill Bolton wasn't sure when our review unit exhibited a few shortcomings. But the manufacturer reacted to the criticisms with the promise of an update (due out by the time you read this) which could turn it into a real winner.

telephone review | disconnected the phone from the modem and restrapped the Tulpi for normal Telecom Mode 3 op- eration with a Telecom phone.

The two halves of the case clip together and it took a few moments to figure out how it came apart, as (perhaps under- standably) there were no instructions for accessing the internals of the modem.

The Circuitry

A superb piece of hardware engineering! The circuit board is of a high quality and is cleanly laid out with good components mounted on it. No circuit diagram of the unit was supplied.

The Tulpi uses the AMD 7910 ‘world’ modem chip, as do most of its competi- tors, and this largely sets the basic oper- ational performance parameters of the modem. The technical performance of the hardware was very good, with low distor- tion levels and high stability.

Telecorp claims the Tulpi has ‘exclusive longline’ circuitry, which means “if the line is so poor that reliable communication is impossible, longline will disconnect’. As

you will see, | had trouble with the Tulpi

disconnecting under what I considered to be normal line circumstances, but I'm not sure whether the longline feature had any- thing to do with this.

The Intelligence The intelligence is provided by an 8085

CPU with control software in EPROM: (erasable programmable read-only mem- ory). The various operating modes of the Tulpi are under software control, and it ‘wakes up’ into a mode programmed into the EPROM on the circuit board.

The default wake-up mode is for 1200/75 bps V.23 operation using a data format of seven data bits, one stop bit, and even parity. Telecorp will program whatever ‘wake-up’ you require into the EPROM fora nominal amount after purchase, or free if specified when ordering.

V.23 Modem Standard The V.23 modem standard isn’t really a full-duplex standard. It’s primarily in- tended as a half-duplex standard, with all communication going over the same data channel. The two ends have to agree over who is sending and who is receiving at any particular time with half-duplex operation. The V.23 standard provides a 75 bps ‘back channel’ which is independent of the | 200 bps channel, so a form of full-duplex op- eration with 1200 bps in one direction and 75 bps in the other direction is possible. Because the 75 bps channel is a ‘back channel’ rather than a normal full-duplex channel, an RS232C interface doesn’t usually bring it out to the normal transmit and receive data pins on the interface. For astrict V.23 modem implementation you'd need a different cable to connect your computer to the modem from the one you'd use for a V.21 300 bps modem. Another problem is that many personal computers can’t ‘split’ the baud rates on their communications ports. On an IBM PC, for instance, there's no choice of set- ting the serial ports for 1200 bps operation in one direction and 75 bps in the other, You can only have the same baud rate selected for both directions of com- munication.

The Tulpi Buffer

The Tulpi overcomes the two problems of the RS232C pin connections and ‘split’ baud rate by internal buffering between the phone line and the computer interface. This means you can program the phone line communication speed to 1200/75 bps or 300/300 bps while the computer inter- face is programmed to operate at. say, 1200/1200 bps. The RS232C interface brings out the transmitted and received data for both 1200 bps and 300 bps opera- tion on the normal transmit and receive

pins (pins 3 and 2 respectively).

The user can program the computer in- terface to operate at any speed between 75 bps and 19200 bps. Different baud rates for the transmit and receive direction as well as the phone line speed can also be prog- rammed; the choices range from 75 bps to 1200 bps, with the modem selecting either the V.21 or V.23 modem standard as appropriate. This phone line speed seleéc- tion is also used for setting whether the CCITT modem standards (V.21 and V.23) or Bell modem standards (Bell 103, 202) are used. The modem defaults to CCITT stan- dards unless the Bell standard its specifi- cally selected.

Obviously if the phone line speed is set to a lower value than the computer inter- face speed there must be some control of the flow of data or data will be lost. The Tulpi uses the Data Set Ready (DSR) line on the RS232C interface to control the flow of data from the computer to the modem. When the Tulpi has almost filled its buffer with data from the computer which has not yet been sent over the telephone line, it switches the DSR line on the RS232C inter- face to false. When the buffer is empty it switches the DSR line to true to tell the computer it's ready to accept mote data.

This means the communications port on the computer must be set up to respond to the DSR line from the modem as a hand- shake signal. In a strict RS232C serlal port implementation this should always be true, but some PCs won't respond to the DSR line because it's disabled in the PC hardware or the PC software isn’t program- med to respond to it. XON-XOFF hand- shaking is also provided.

Because of the two-step procedure needed to change the speed of both the line intetface and the computer interface on the Tulpi, I found it convenient to leave the computer interface set at 1200 bps and only change the speed on the phone line interface. The internal Tulpi buffer is 2 Kbytes, and although | didn't have DSR handshaking enabled on the computers | was using, | didn't have a problem with lost data when sending data to the modem at [200 bps for transmission at 300 bps as long as | didn't type too far ahead of what was being echoed from the remote system.

When using the Christensen protocol to transfer files, the computer would only send one data block of 131 bytes at 1200 bps to the modem before waiting for a response from the remote computer, so it never came close to filling the buffer, as software handshaking was preventing data loss.

TULPI MODEM

The two ends have to agree over who is sending and who is receiving at any particular time with half-duplex operation.

The Tulpi allows the data format for the computer interface (the number of data, stop and parity bits) and the data format of the phone line communications to be Set quite independently. It’s possible, for instance, to have the data format of the modem line set at seven data bits, one stop bit and even parity while the compu- ter interface is set to eight data bits, one stop bit and no parity.

The Commands

The Tulpi has 12 commands for program- ming its operation: answer, dial, equalise, format, hangup, new, orjginate, private line, speed, test, unlisten and verbose. The basic operating parameters at ‘wake-up’ after the power is turned on are obtained from the EPROM.

The commands are sent to the computer as an attention character (which defaults to a full stop, ‘.') with the first letter of the command. The user can change this to any other ASCII character with the ‘new’ com- mand. | didn’t like the default choice of the ‘’, but more of that later.

A command to set ‘originate’ mode would look like ‘.O’. The command to dial the telephone number (07) 378-9530 (the Software Tools RCPM number) from an exchange which supports tone dialling would be '.D # 073789530 T’.

The command set allows most of the important operational parameters of the modem to be changed, but some are de- signed in and can't be altered. The com- mand set is fairly logical; some commands will give English response messages, and if the Tulpi doesn't recognise a command it returns an ‘Uh?’ message (newer versions say ‘Command Error’).

The Gotchas

There were several aspects of the com- mand set which created problems for me, the most serious of which concerned the ‘unlisten’ command. The Tulpi we tested had to be commanded to go into an unlis- ten mode when it went on-line; it didn’t do it automatically. If you're using the default

attention character ’.’, and forget to set the ‘unlisten’ mode, you'll have problems ev- ery time you try to send a ‘.’ character.

Telecorp is now shipping all its modems with ‘unlisten’ as the power-up default un- less otherwise requested. That's a big im- provement, but it's still not enough — once you set it to ‘listen’ (say to hang up from your first call) it stays in that mode next time you go on-line unless you re- member to set it back.

Imagine you're entering a message into an electronic mail system and put a’.’ at the end of a sentence which finishes mid- line. You then enter the next sentence starting on the same line, and when you press return to end that line the modem comes back to you with an ‘Uh?’ message. You go back and get the mail system to retype the last line and you find that every- thing after the '.’ is missing. The Tulpi has interpreted everything after the ‘ as a command and stored it in its internal com- mand buffer for processing. It usually won't recognise your sentence as a com- mand (unless you're particularly unlucky) and so just gives you the ‘Uh?’ response.

The solution sounds simple, but make gure you issue an ‘unlisten’ command be- fore going on-line.

When using V.21 standard many users find phone lines will work better in one direction than in another. A phone line which is unreliable for data when the per- son making the call is in originate mode and the person receiving the call is in answer mode (the norm for data calls) can work fine if both ends switch modes. Some remote services, such as the Software Tools RCPM, give callers the option of ‘flip- ping’ their modem from originate to answer mode soon after logging on. (Around 25 per cent of callers to the Soft- ware Tools RCPM use this facility.)

The Tulpi can’t change modem modes effectively when it’s on-line. While dumb modems allow the user to change between answer and originate modes by a switch or a control line on the RS232C interface, the Tulpi requires software commands. Once it's connected to a remote modem the Tul- pi will disconnect if it loses carrier. When you issue the software commands to change the Tulpi mode from originate to answer, for example, the Tulpi will lose carrier unless the modem at the other end changes mode at the same time. The win- dow for the ‘same time’ seemed a lot shor- ter than the claimed 600 ms.

Most remote systems wil] tolerate a car- rier loss of several seconds (Telecom reg- >»

45

ulations allow a loss of up to 30 seconds before a disconnect must be forced by the answering end), which is plenty of time for a user to change the mode on a dumb modem.

The carrier loss disconnect also makes the Tulpi unsuitable for auto-answer op- eration on remote systems. Minor inter- ruptions to carrier due to crosstalk, ‘line hits’ and other transient line phenomena are quite common in my experience with

TULPI MODEM

the Australian telephone system, and may corrupt data, but are rarely severe enough to warrant automatic termination of the call.

When I tried the Tulpi in auto-answer mode on the Software Tools RCPM I got a barrage of complaints about premature disconnects from callers, and the number of unsuccessful calls reported by the com- munications supervisor software sky- rocketed to nearly 50 per cent (it's typically

about 4 per cent).

i found it impossible to connect to several remote systems when using the Tulpi in its normal mode, while ] had no trouble using other dumb and smart mod- ems. This. was because the remote sys- tem’s auto-answer sequences ‘glitched’ carrier slightly at answer, which was enough to cause the Tulpi to disconnect.

The solution was to use the ‘private line’ mode, in which the Tulpi wouldn't care if it

HOW MODEMS GOT SMART

Conceived in 1977, where are Intelligent Modems at today? Bill Bolton gives us the lowdown on the Hayes 300, the de facto standard for

T he concept of intelligent, or smart, modems arrived when DC Hayes Corp introduced the Smartmodem 300 to the American market in 1977. The Hayes Smartmodem 300 was a Bell 103 standard modem which could be com- manded by software to auto answer, dial telephone numbers and change the number of its operating para- meters. The user interface was well thought out, and over several years be- came a de facto standard. for Bell 103 ‘smart’ modems from other manufac- turers, |

in about 1980 Hayes introduced the Smartmodem 1200— an enhanced ver- sion of the Smartmodem 300 — which could handle Bell 212A 1200 bps full- duplex communications as well as Bell 103 300 bps. Hayes expanded the com- mand set to include a number of extra features necessary to control a dual- mode modem and added auto setting of the modem speed by sensing what baud rate the computer was using to send information to the modem over the RS232 link. The modem could also auto sense what speed an incoming call was at and tell the computer.

The expanded Hayes command set for the Smartmodem 1200 became the de facto standard for the 1200 bps mod- em market in the United States. Hayes and other manufacturers also intro- duced plug-in board modems for the IBM PC, which were generally similar to the ‘standalone’ 1200 bps products.

The Dilemma of Intelligence The problem with intelligent modems is how to get them to distinguish be-

Bell 103 ‘smarts’.

tween commands you want them to re- spond to and data you want them to send to the line. Hayes decided that to get the modem to do anything at all you'd have to ensure almost any com- mand started with a predefined com- mand delimiter, specified as ‘AT’ (for Attention). (Sometimes you'll see the Hayes command set referred to as the ‘AT’ command set.) After the initial ‘AT further commands are sent to program the modem.

As the letter combination ‘AT’ occurs in many English words, Hayes designed its modems to go into an ‘unlisten’ mode as soon as they actually con- nected to another modem.

So far so good, but what happens when you want to change a parameter of the modem when it's on-line? Hayes decided to have a period of silence fol- lowed by an ‘unusual’ combination of characters and another period of si- lence to get the modem’s attention while it was on-line. After the modem received and recognised the on-line ‘escape’ sequence (from either end of the data link) it would again respond to AT commands (from either end of the data link). A one-second silence was followed by three ‘+’ characters fol- lowed by another second of silence as the default on-line ‘escape’ sequence was selected.

Though unlikely, the ‘++-+' sequ- ence could occur in transmitted data, so Hayes allows the user to reprogram the escape sequence to use a different character and silence time. The main purpose of this appears to be for auto answer modems, which generally get

reprogrammed to something other than ‘+++’ to avoid the autoanswer modem getting reprogrammed if a cal- ler with a similar modem tries to re- program his modem while on-line.

The Hayes command set allows fairly detailed control over the oper- ational parameters of the modem, even down to the level of reading the mod- em’‘s USART status registers. The mod- em can be instructed to report ‘results’ of certain operations in either a numer- ic code or English words like ‘NO CAR- RIER’ of ‘CONNECT 1200'.

Hayes has recently introduced a Smartmodem 2400 and further ex- tended the command set to allow con- trol over new parameters associated with the extra facilities provided in the modem.

Command Set Support The fact that the Hayes command set has become a firmly entrenched de facto standard indicates that it successfully addresses most of the needs of users. Most communications software available for PCs assumes you are using a Hayes command set-compatible modem as its default. If you’re Jucky the communications software will allow you to easily redefine the modem con- trol command sets, but still usually ex- pects the replacement codes to have a general similarity to the Hayes set in terms of the parameters you're able to control. Many public domain programs support only the Hayes command set, and you have to change the program source code if you want to use a diffe- rent command set. ia]

46

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48

got carrier from the remote end or not. As the name suggests, this mode is intended for dedicated lines rather than the normal switched telephone network. Once put into the private line mode the Tulpi will only recognise one command, so private line mode won't allow originate/answer mode changing when on-line.

Most other smart modems I've seen allow the disconnect time parameter to be programmed. The Hayes command set allows programming this parameter up to 25.5 seconds, while the default on Hayes command set modems is normally 700 milliseconds.

On-Line Apart from the problems previously men- tioned, the Tulpi performed well when it was on-line and | used it extensively for V.21 300 bps operation to a large number of timeshare and PC remote systems. The amount of destinations for V.23 1200/75 operation was limited to Austpac, MIDAS, Viatel and some casual file trans- fers with other V.23 modem users. I had no problems accessing MIDAS, Austpac and Viatel with V.23. When transferring files to other V.23 ‘outstation’ modems it often took several tries to get a telephone line which would successfully support a file transfer, but this is typical of all the V.23 modems I've tested, andthe Tulpi certainly performed creditably at V.23 standard. A brief test was made locally using Bell 103 standard and no problems were encoun- tered, and no attempt was made to use the Beil 202 mode.

Documentation

The Tulpi documentation is a neat [5- page, loose-leaf manual with no. page numbers or index. It covers the Tulpi com- mand set in detail but is very light on any physical details of the modem. I'd rate the documentation as merely adequate.

The Command Set Again

The Tulpi got its commercial start in life with a commitment from ICL to buy a quantity of the modems from the initial product runs, so certain aspects of the modem were tailored to meet ICL’s needs (a feature most strongly reflected in the command set).

I've been using modems which use the Hayes command set for quite some time now and have found the Hayes commands give the user a convenient and largely un- obtrusive way of controlling a modem. Cer- tainly | haveno complaints about anything

TULPI MODEM

| can't do with a smart modem using the Hayes commands. On the other hand, ! found the Tulpi command set cumber- some to use and it often got in the way of my communications activities — but perhaps this is because I'm already used to the Hayes commands.

Some User Comments

{ solicited about a dozen comments from Tulpi users about their experiences with the modem through the Software Tools RCPM. Most of the responses were from business users, and boiled down to the same thing: “The Tulpi is a fine modem but some of its features are hard to live with.”

The Bottom Line

The hardware engineering on the Tulpi is excellent, but its controlling software leaves a lot to be desired. Fortunately, soft- ware problems are much easier to over- come than those attributable to hardware.

Telecorp has already announced some additional features for the Tulpi, including a non-volatile RAM to store the operation- al parameters so the Tulpi will remember and wake up to its set parameters after being switched off. Others such as the ‘answer page’ are also in the pipeline, but further comment will have to wait for another time.

Most significantly, Telecorp has announced support for the Hayes com- mand set. It should be available by the time you read this. The move, combined with other changes and new documenta- tion, could well remove any complaints | have about the Tulpi. The final verdict, of course, will have to wait until we've seen one.

if you need a modem for auto-answer operation or have problems with usually reliable but occasionally questionable telephone fines I couldn't recommend the Tulpi modem in the form tested. The com- mand set is usable but cumbersome and doesn't allow sufficient contro! of all desir- able modem parameters:

The Tulpi wil! serve well in an environ- ment where line reliability is good and your communications software is easily adaptable to the Tulpi command set.

it comes at a premium price with a re- commended retail of $989, although an ‘Econo Tulpi’ with all the current features but limited future upgradability is due to be released at less than $700. I'll reserve judgement on whether it represents value for money until I've seen the latest up- grades. C

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PACKETS

WHAT'S IN

THE PACKET?

Some time ago we asked Bill Bolton to review various ranges of new modems appearing on the market (the Great Modem Search?). In order to review a modem, you have to use it to communicate with something, so lately Bill has been doing a good deal of communicating. Along the way he's discovered a few things about the kind of data communications networks becoming available to Australians — so here’s both the good news and bad news about sending binary data over digital packet switching networks.

> |

COMMUNICATIONS via data packet switching networks is becoming a fact of life for many Australian PC users. The OTC data packet switching network, MIDAS, has been with us for several years now, and more recently Telecom has got into the act with Austpac. Many MIDAS users now ac- cess it via Austpac.

The other growing area for data packet switching is digital packet radio; a grow- ing band of enthusiasts combines the hob- bies of ham radio and computers. Using techniques originally pioneered in Cana- da, several local digital packet radio net- works are active in Australia. As write this, the networks are geographically isolated, but moves are afoot to establish an amateur ‘data highway’ packet radio link between Sydney, Melbourne and perhaps Brisbane.

Now digital packet switching systems are supposed to be as transparent as possible in data terms, which means they shouldn't interfere with any data passed across the network. Transparency is a rela- tive thing, though, and when someone says a digital packet network is ‘transpa- rent’ to data they usually mean it’s trans- parent to the content of the data, ratherthan to the timing of the data.

Why are we Waiting?

This means your data should arrive at the other end without corruption, but there isn’t necessarily a guarantee as to exactly when it will arrive. There can be consider- able delays between transmission from a computer sending data into a packet switching network and the reception of that data by another computer. The delays may range from fractions of a second (fairly common) to several minutes (fairly un- common). Those of you who read the Au- stralian computer industry weekly news- papers will be aware of the continuing dis- cussion, claims and counter-claims about the degree of network time delays being experienced by Austpac users, for ex- ample.

lf the network is using a Satellite some- where in the path the data is following, there is the additional real delay involved in sending the data up to the satellite and back down to earth. This certainly affects MIDAS at the moment, and with AUSSAT almost upon us will probably affect Aust- pac in the future too.

If you're simply transferring data with- out any error checking — that is, retrieving textual data from a database — the delays aren't a problem and may often go un-

32

PACKETS

At present networks are geographically isolated, but moves are afoot to establish an amateur ‘data highway’ packet radio link between Sydney, Melbourne and perhaps Brisbane.

noticed by human operators. The problem arises when it's time to get down to the serious business of binary data transfer.

The Packet and the PC

Particularly now Telecom‘s Austpac net- work is maturing, host computer systems designed for communications with per- sonal computers are starting to be accessi- ble from it — for example, the Mi- Computer Club is seriously working on getting the MiCC bulletin board system onto Austpac with a multi-user capability (don't hound the editorial offices about it

just yet, we'll keep you informed of de-

velopments).

Several host computer systems in the US which are accessible via Austpac and MIDAS offer various communications pro- tocols suitable for use with PCs for trans- ferring data. The most common of these is the well-known Christensen or Modem protocol, which i've previously described in detail.

The Christensen protocol wasn't de- signed for communicating over a data packet switching network; the major prob- lem is the delays between the two ends of the network. This means two computers attempting to communicate may not be able to respond quickly to each others’ data transfers.

There is an extension to the Christensen protocol called the CRC option. In the ori- ginal Christensen protocol, the checksum of each block is only one byte long andis a simple modulo 256 sum. This works well in practice for most cases, though it can occa- sionally allow errors to go undetected ina supposedly error-free protocol.

The CRC option works as follows:

Instead of the receiving program send- ing <NAK> at the very beginning of a data exchange, it sends the letter 'C’. If the

sending program can use the CRC option, it treats this just like a <NAK>, except that it computes a two-byte CCITT CRC-16 check value and adds it to the end of all blocks instead of the one-byte checksum. If the sender cannot use the CRC option, the ‘C’ character has no meaning and is ignored. The receiving program should try about three ‘C’s before deciding the sender will not handle CRC check values. The re- ceiving program transmits a <NAK> to start a checksum Christensen file transfer. .

Christensen Protocol Origins

The Christensen protocol was originally devised by Ward Christensen as a protocol for communications between personal computers.

The user of one PC runs a communica- tions program called Modem (or YAM, Mite, Crosstalk or whatever) and dials up another personal computer system, usual- ly an RCPM or similar system. The PC user then tells the RCPM to run a remote com- munications program called XModem or XYAM. The two communications programs then use the Christensen protocol to transfer files between the two computers.

When Ward Christensen designed his protocol he made several assumptions im- plicit to its design:

@ File lengths can be made exact multi- ples of 128 bytes for transmission pur- poses. The smallest CP/M sector is 128 bytes, so 128 bytes was the size of the smallest possible data block on a CP/M disk. .

w Data format is eight bits, no parity, one stop bit.

™ Both computers are single-user person- al computers.

= Both computers are talking to each other over a communications link which introduces no appreciable transmis- sion delays, such as a domestic phone line.

Christensen Protocol Overview

It's been quite a while since the last article describing the Christensen protocol appeared, so let's have a quick look at what happens.

The Christensen protocol is, in practical terms, a half-duplex protocol; information only travels in one direction at once. The protocol works like this:

[. When the receiving program is ready to start receiving data, it transmits a<<NAK> (negative acknowledgment) every 10 seconds or so.

2. The sending program waits for a

<NAK> or <ACK> from the receiving program to tell it to start sending. If it hasn't received a <NAK> after a certain time it sends a block anyway to see if that will ‘wake up’ the receiver. Each block has a block number (modulo 256), 128 bytes of data, and a checksum. Once the block is sent, the sender waits.

3. The receiving program verifies it re- ceived the block without errors by compar- ing the checksum sent with the block to a locally computed checksum for the block. If the received checksum matches, the re- ceiving program sends an <ACK> charac- ter, and the sender transmits the next 128 bytes of the file (step 2). If the received checksum doesn’t match, or if about [0 seconds expires before a complete block is received, the receiving program sends a <NAK> character to the sender.

4. If the sender receives an <ACK> it sends the next block of data; however, if it receives a <NAK> it re-transmits the last block.

5. Steps 2, 3 and 4 will repeat until the end of the file is found by the sender. Once this happens an <EOT> character is transmit- ted instead of a block of data.

6. When the receiving program gets an <EOT> it sends an <ACK> to the sender. The file transmission process is complete.

Christensen Protocol Timing

Since the Christensen protocol was origi-

nally devised for PC-to-PC communica-

tions, it has some problems fitting into an environment where the two computers are connected by a data packet switching net-

work rather than a simple phone line. A

packet network can often introduce long

delays in what should be continuous com- munications.

When these delays arise, the PCs. using Christensen protocol communications programs may find those programs mis- take the delays for a breakdown in com- munications. If a Jong delay occurs in the middle of a data packet, which may be in the middle of a Christensen data block transmission, many Christensen protocol implementations interpret that as mean- ing there has been data lost. These delays result in the following symptoms:

@ The receiver cannot successfully receive even the first block of data.

m@ The receiving program retries a large number of blocks (or <NAKs> a maijor- ity of blocks), although it eventually re- ceives the file.

m The receiving program suddenly aborts in the middle of a seemingly successful

PACKETS:

The Christensen protocol wasn't designed for communicating over a data packet switching network; the major problem is the delays between the two ends of the network.

file: transfer.

H@ The receiving program has great diffi- culty in receiving the file, and gives up anywhere from five to. 20 blocks into the transfer.

® The file transfer proceeds very smoothly with several successfully transferred blocks, when suddenly every block transmitted is rejected (<NAK>ed) by the receiving program.

Just to make life difficult, all these prob- lems are indistinguishable from other communications problems (such as noisy phone lines, bad parity settings).

A key question for people having prob- lems with Christensen protocol transfers over data packet networks is: ‘Have you ever successfully done a Christensen pro- tocol transfer over the network?”

Delays Within Blocks

Ward Christensen, the developer of the protocol, recommends that a gap of more than one second be treated as a break-

down of communications. On a normal terrestrial telephone line this makes sense, as there is no reason for a transmis- sion to suddenly stop and then resume. On a data packet network, however, a one- second delay is not only possible, but hap- pens frequently.

ifthe receiving program decides this de- lay isa breakdown of somesort, it will send a <NAK> to the sender, requesting that the block be retransmitted. Unfortunately, the rest of the first block is still ‘in the pipe’, and when the receiving program gets this block it may do anything from abort the transfer to ignore it.

Let’s assume the receiving program handles the rest of the block gracefully. The sender will get the <NAK> sent by the receiving program and retransmit the block. If there’s a delay in the middle of that retransmission, the receiving program will <NAK> it too, and so on forever. So when the receiving program is too sensi- tive to delays in the middle of transmis- sions, either the receiver gives up very quickly or it <NAK>s every block trans- mitted. ;

Delays between Blocks Fortunately, most implementations of the Christensen protocol aren't that sensitive to delays in the middle of blocks, but other delays can cause problems. When a block is received the PC will immediately <ACK> or <NAK> it and wait for the next block to be sent. Ward Christensen states that if the next block doesn't arrive within 10 seconds, the receiver should send its <ACK> or <NAK> again.

Now, ten seconds isn't a very long time when a data packet network is heavily

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53

loaded. The <ACK> or <NAK> will arrive at the sender, the sender will begin trans- mission of the next block, but the block won't make it to the receiving PC in time.