TAPR TNC 2 Software Release Notes . . . . . . . . . Release 1.1.1 1) The correct sign-on message for this release of TNC 2 soft- ware is: |A Tucson Amateur Packet Radio TNC 2 AX.25 Level 2 Version 2.0 Release 1.1.1 - 16K RAM Checksum $7F cmd: NOTE: The "|A" may display as a vertical-bar and any capital letter from "A" through "J". 2) New messages not documented in the System Manual are: ?not while disconnected You attempted to perform an operation that can only be done while connected. This message may appear when issuing a RECONNECT or CONPERM command. ?already connected to that station The multi-connect software will not permit you to connect to the same station using multiple streams. 3) New commands have been added since the System Manual went to press. These commands are listed on the following pages. 4) A brief description of multi-connect operation is presented at the end of this addendum entitled "Multi-Connect Survival Guide." 5) TNC 2 SOFTWARE SOURCE CODE and TNC 2 FIRMWARE Copyright (c) 1985 Systek All rights reserved. Reproduction or translation of any part of this work beyond that permitted by Sections 107A or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act (or its legal successor) without the express permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Re- quests for permission to copy or for further information should be addressed to: Tucson Amateur Packet Radio PO Box 22888 Tucson AZ 85734-2888 ATTN TNC 2 SOFTWARE There are a few operational changes from release 1.1.0 that should be noted: 1) All connect requests from stations with totally blank call- signs are rejected with a busy response. 2) The *** DISCONNECT prompt is DAYTIME stamped according to the CONSTAMP setting. 3) TNC 1-like transparent mode is supported only when one connection is established and USERS is set to 1. 4) The CON and STA LEDs (and RS232 DCD line if JMP1 not placed) now apply to the currently selected input stream. 5) "%" and "&" may now be used to clear the LCALLS list. 6) Hardware flow control is now always available. 7) A bug in the operation of 8BITCONV has been fixed. This command used to take effect in COMMAND mode with unhappy results! There are also some questions that cropped up often with Release 1.1.0. 1) You cannot connect to yourself and see your CTEXT. CMSG only takes effect if you are connected to by another TNC. 2) CALSET was erroneously documented as having a default value. It is correctly documented in the System Manual after the first printing. An error in the System Manual documentation for the MHEARD com- mand slipped past us during this edit. Please change Chapter 6, page 37, third sentence from "Stations that are heard digipeating are marked with a * in the heard log." to "Stations that are heard through digipeaters are marked with a * in the heard log." CLKADJ n Default: 0 Parameters: n 0 - 65535, specifying the correction factor to be applied to the real-time clock routine. A value of "0" is a special case and means no correction factor will be applied. If the value of CLKADJ is non-zero, then the correction factor is calculated as: 1 relative clock speed in % = 100 - ( 9.16667 * ----- ) n The real-time clock routine is used to keep track of year, month, day, hour, minute and second as specified in the DAYTIME command. It should be noted that the real-time clock is not intended to be your ham-shack reference clock, but is useful for approximate time stamping information. CONPERM ON|OFF Default: OFF Parameters: ON The current connection on the current stream will not be allowed to enter the disconnected state. OFF The current stream may be connected to and discon- nected from other stations. This command, when switched ON, forces the TNC to always maintain the current connection, even when frames to the other station exceed RETRY attempts to get an acknowledgment. RESTART and power off/on cycling will not affect this connected state. This command only takes effect when a connection is established. It functions on a stream-by-stream basis when multiple connec- tions are allowed. It is useful for certain networking applications, meteor scatter and other noisy, less-reliable links, while still allowing con- nections on other streams to operate normally (automatic discon- nect based on RETRY, etc.). CSTATUS CSTATUS is an immediate command which shows the stream identifier and link state of all ten streams (links), the current input and output streams, and whether or not each stream is "permanent" (see CONPERM). An example fo a display resulting from issuing a CSTATUS command is: cmd:CS A stream - IO Link state is: CONNECTED to 305MLB B stream - Link state is: CONNECTED to AD7I P C stream - Link state is: DISCONNECTED D stream - Link state is: CONNECTED to N0ADI via K9NG-2 ... I stream - Link state is: CONNECT in progress J stream - Link state is: CONNECTED to KV7B via NK6K-1 The example above shows the A stream is assigned both the input and output streams. The B stream is connected to AD7I "perma- nently." All other streams' states are shown as they might normally appear with multiple connections. MYALIAS call[-n] Default: Parameters: call Alternate identity of your TNC. n 0 - 15, an optionally specified sub-station ID (SSID). This command specifies an alternate callsign (in addition to the callsign specified in MYCALL) for use as a digipeater only. In some areas, wide coverage digipeaters operators have changed the callsign of their machine to a shorter and (usually) easier to remember identifier. International Civil Aviation Organiza- tion (ICAO) airport identifiers, sometimes combined with tele- phone area codes, have been used. Use of this command permits HID to identify normally with the MYCALL-specified callsign yet permit an alternate (alias) repeat- only "callsign." RECONNECT call1 [VIA call2[,call3...,call9]] Parameters: call1 Callsign of TNC to be reconnected to. call2 Optional callsign(s) of TNC(s) tobe digipeated through. As many as eight digipeat addresses can be specified. RECONNECT is an immediate command. It may be used to change the path through which you are currently connected to a station. It may only be used when your TNC is connected on the current stream to the station you wish to RECONNECT to. Integrity of frames in flight between your station and the RECONNECTed station at the time of RECONNECT is not assured. For details regarding the parameter list, see the CONNECT command inthe System Manual. RESTART RESTART is an immediate command. It re-initializes the TNC using the defaults stored in bbRAM. The effect of this command is the same as turing the TNC OFF then ON again. RESTART does not cause a reset of the parameters in bbRAM. See also the RESET command. STREAMCA ON|OFF Default: OFF Parameters: ON Callsign of other station displayed. OFF Callsign of other station not displayed. This command is used to enable the display of the connected-to station after the stream identifier. This is particularly useful when operating with multiple connections allowed. It is somewhat analogous to the use of MRPT to show digipeat paths when mon- itoring. In the example below, the charaters inserted by enabling STREAM- CAll are shown in bold face type. |A:K4NTA:hi howie hello ted how goes it? |B:WA7GXD:*** CONNECTED to WA7GXD |Bmust be a dx record. ge lyle |Aunreal ted! fl-az no digis! |B:WA7GXD:big band opening...ge etc. The same sequence with STREAMCAll OFF would look like the fol- lowing: |Ahi howie hello ted how goes it? |B*** CONNECTED to WA7GXD |Bmust be a dx record. ge lyle |Aunreal ted! fl-az no digis! |Bbig band opening...ge etc. Thus, what would have looked like "|B" now appears as "|B::". This option is very useful for human operators trying to operate multiple simultaneous connections. It is pro- bably less useful for "host" operations. Note that, in the first example, the STREAMSWitch characters "|A" and "|B" with no ":" after them were entered by the operator of the TNC to switch streams for his multiple-connect QSO(s). If you intend to operate multiple connections (as opposed to having your "host" computer operate multiple connections), use of this option is recommended. STREAMDBL ON|OFF Default: OFF Parameters: ON Double all received STREAMSWitch characters. OFF Do not "double" received STREAMSWitch characters. This command is used to display received STREAMSWitch characters by "doubling" them. The example below illustrates this action. With STREAMDBL on, and STREAMSWitch set to "|", the following might be displayed from your TNC: || this is a test. In this case the sending station actually transmitted | this is a test. The same frame received with STREAMDBL OFF would be displayed as: | this is a test. When operating with multiple connections, this is useful for differentiating between STREAMSWitch characters received from other stations and STREAMSWitch characters internally generated by your TNC. NOTE: The STREAMSWitch character must NOT be one of the stream letters (A - J) for this command to function properly. STREAMSW n Default: $7C < | > Parameters: n 0 - $FF, usually specifying an ASCII character code. This command selects the character used by both the TNC and the user that a new "stream" (connection channel) is being addressed. The character can be PASSed in CONVERS mode. It is always ig- nored as a user-initiated stream switch in TRANSPARENT mode, and flows through as data. This means that the outgoing stream can not be changed while "on line" in TRANSPARENT mode (you must escape to COMMAND mode to switch streams). For further usage of this character, see teh STREAMDBL and STREAMCA commands. TRIES n Default: NONE Parameters: n 0 -15, specifying the current RETRY level on the currently selected input stream. This command is used to retrieve (or force) the count of "tries" on the currently selected input stream. When used with no argument: if the TNC has an outstanding unack- nowledged frame, it will return the current number of tries; if the TNC has no outstanding unacknowledged frames, it will return the number of tries required to obtain an acknowledgment for the previous frame. If RETRY is set to 0, the value returned by issuing a TRIES command will always be 0. This command is useful for obtaining statistics on the perfor- mance of a given path or channel. It should be especially useful for automatic optimizing os such parameters as PACLEN and MAX- FRAME by computer-operated stations, such as automatic message forwarding stations using less-than-optimum paths (noisy HF or satellite channels, for example). When used with an argument, TRIES will force the "tries" counter to the entered value. Use of this command to force a new count of tries is NOT recommended. USERS n Default: 1 Parameters: n 0 - 10, specifying the number of active connec- tions that may be established to this TNC by other TNCs. USERS affects only the manner in which incoming connect requests are handled, and has no effect on the number or handling of connections you may initiate with this TNC. For example, USERS 0 allows incoming connections on any free stream USERS 1 allows incoming connections on stream A only USERS 2 allows incoming connections on streams A & B USERS 3 allows incoming connections on streams A, B & C and so on through USERS 10. Multi-Connect Survival Guide This section is a very brief tutorial on the use of the multiple- connection capability included with this software release. Why Multi-Connect? Multiple connection capability is a very powerful addition to your TNC 2. It is very useful for traffic net operation, multi- user bulletin boards, path checking and so forth. What is Multi-Connect? Multiple connection operation is not the same as multi-way opera- tion. With multiple connect, you may establish several point-to- point "links" with various stations. Multi-way, which is not available, would enable multiple stations to be simultaneously interconnected to each other, with each station seeing all data passed from any station in the group, error free. Multiple connection operation is another step on the road to proper networking, and networking should eventually allow mlulti- way operation. What Commands Set my TNC 2 to Normal Operation? Your TNC 2 defaults the multi-connect-related commands to the following parameters: CONPERM OFF STREAMCAll OFF STREAMDouBLe OFF STREAMSWitch | USERS 1 This sets up your TNC 2 to act just like a "normal" TNC does that doesn't support multiple connections. The key to obtaining this traditional operation is to set USERS 1. How Do I Invoke Multi-Connect? If USERS is not 1, you are telling the TNC to allow multiple connections to your stations from other stations. In addition, TRANSPARENT mode will operate differently, in that incoming data will be prefixed with the current STREAMSWitch character and identifier (such as "|A"). Thus, truly transparent operation is not possible with this software release supporting multiple connections. The STREAMSWitch character, defaulted to "|", should be set to a character you won't normally use. Note that this character may be set to a hex value between $80 and $FF. This may allow you to use 8-bit characters (AWLEN 8) if your terminal or computer is capable of generating such "characters." This could help prevent confusion in interpreting incoming data from other stations if they happen to send data that includes your selected STREAMSWitch character. Although not foolproof, enabling STREAMDBL may also help in sorting out STREAMSWitch characters included in the received data from a valid stream switches generated by your TNC 2. STREAMCAll should be especially helpful when manually operating a station in which you allow multiple connections. When in CONVERSE mode, you may switch streams by entering the STREAMSWitch character (default "|"), followed by a stream iden- tifier ("A" through "J"), followed by the data you wish to send to the station on that stream. See the example in the descrip- tion of STREAMCAll for an illustration of this. If all this seems a bit confusing, don't worry, it is! The only way to really understand multiple connect operationis to try it! Once you have your TNC 2 assembled, tested and on-the-air, and have gained confidence in "normal" packet operation, try setting USERS 2 and get a couple of friends to connect to you. Play with the commands (you can't hurt the TNC by issuing commands to it!) and see their effects. Happy packeting!