========================================================================= (C) 1993 by Atari Corporation, GEnie, and the Atari Roundtables. May be reprinted only with this notice intact. The Atari Roundtables on GEnie are *official* information services of Atari Corporation. To sign up for GEnie service, call (with modem) 800-638-8369. Upon connection type HHH (RETURN after that). Wait for the U#= prompt.Type XTX99437,GENIE and press [RETURN]. The system will prompt you for your information. ========================================================================== ************ Topic 2 Sun Dec 22, 1991 J.MEEHAN3 [>> Joe M << ] at 11:07 EST Sub: FLASH II for the ST(E)/TT "Flash II - the update to Flash! - Flash II includes many new features including flawless operation on all ST, STe and TT computers. Download the demo (file #28268), then ask your questions here." 201 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 1 Sun Mar 14, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 14:32 EST =========================== FLASH II ============================== -------------------- Now shipping version 2.1! ---------------------- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ FROM: MISSIONWARE SOFTWARE 354 N. Winston Drive Palatine, Illinois 60067-4132 United States of America phone 708-359-9565 Missionware Software is pleased to annouce the release of version 2.1 of Flash II. This is our second update in the past year. Flash II originally went up for sale in April of 1992. Version 2.0 was our first release, followed a few months later by version 2.01. Version 2.1 fixes a number of problems discovered by our customers and beta testers over the past few months. It's also our first full upgrade, and as promised, it is being sent out to all currently registered customers *for free* on a brand new disk. We'll be sending these disks out during the next couple of weeks in order of serial number. Those with low numbers will get their upgrades first. If you haven't received your upgrade by the middle of April, please contact us to make sure you are properly registered. In addition to the enhancments listed below, this upgrade is being sent out with our new installation program. You'll need to reregister (on your disk only!) this version of Flash II. Future maintenance upgrades will be handled online (you'll be able to download a patch file) so it's imperative that you properly register your new version. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Flash II is the update to the most popular Atari ST telecommunications program ever! It's available exclusively from Missionware Software and at an affordable price! Flash II is completely rewritten by Paul Nicholls of Clayfield, Australia. But don't let that fool you! Flash II has the same look and feel as previous versions of Flash...plus a slew of new features to boot! And it's just as easy and fast to use for the telecommunications beginner or pro! Take a look below for just some of what Flash II can offer you now... DO script files compatible with older versions of Flash! All macros use the familiar Flash DO script format! Easily setup the parameters for each BBS you call...this includes everything from ASCII upload/download options to baud rate! You can program up to 20 individual and separate macros for each BBS plus an additional 10 global macros ! Displays RLE & GIF pictures either on or off line! You can also save or load these pictures for later review! Supports the following terminal types: TTY, VIDTEX, VT52, ANSI, VT100, VT101, VT102, VT200, VT300 & PRESTEL. Now includes full support for RTS/CTS. This mode can now be turned on and off by the user. Includes Automatic Answer mode! Includes Auto Boards mode - Preselect the board(s) you wish to dial and when Flash II is launched either manually from the desktop by you, or automatically by some other program launcher, Flash II will wakeup and dial the board(s) you've got selected. It will also wait for the proper time to dial these boards. Includes full featured GEM text editor with: merge, block commands, cut & paste, search & replace, paragraph reformating; user tab settings, page width, full keyboard cursor and delete control and more! Supports the ST, IBM and DEC character sets, including IBM graphics characters! Includes Silent Line for background file transfers! Supports the following upload/download protocols: ASCII, Xmodem, Ymodem, Ymodem-G, Zmodem, Modem7, WXmodem, CIS B, Kermit and SEAlink! And all of these protocols are built into the program...no external modules required!!! Zmodem now supports the selection of AutoStart and Streaming options. If you prefer to use an external Zmodem protocol with Flash II, you can now force Flash II's Zmodem autostart mode to off. For BBS' that don't support "streaming", this too can now be turned off. Logs all on line time and calculates your approximate costs for you! New version written in assembler! Fast! Runs on all ST, STe and TT's Now supports "Install Application". You can create a DO script that can be used to launch Flash II from the desktop and force it to dial up and go online for you, all automatically! Both the Terminal and Editor have been enhanced significantly for both speed and ease of use. You'll be amazed at how fast the new Flash II is! A new "BReak" script command is added which permits the sending of a terminal break to the host computer while a script is running. Missionware Software's upgrade policy remains the same for the new Version 2.1! We will continue to upgrade any old version of Flash! (copyright Antic Software) for just $30 US, plus $4 shipping and handling (US and Canada), $8 worldwide. Or, you can purchase Flash II, version 2.1 outright, for only $49.95 US plus the shipping and handling charges applicable to your area. To order, or for more information, contact: Missionware Software 354 N. Winston Drive Palatine, IL 60067-4132 United States of America phone 708-359-9565 ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 2 Sat Mar 27, 1993 A.B.SMITH [Barry] at 06:10 EST John- Any idea why with the new upgrade I have click on TERMINATE CALL after I log off one BBS before I can dial up another. I never had to before. I mean most of the options under that menu are greyed out until I do this until I do this. Did I set something wrong? Thanks. - Barry ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 3 Sat Mar 27, 1993 B.CONNOLLY1 [Bud] at 16:26 EST I got my upgrade to Flash 2.1 about a week ago (thanx John!) and have noticed one problem with downloads. Zmodem will download at about 850-880 bytes per second, but Ymodem-Batch crawls at 450 bytes per second. These are downloads on a Zoom V.32 modem at 9600 Baud to a local BBS. Has anyone else seen this speed difference? or is it just me? I would expect either one to run in the upper 800 bytes per second. John T. - a feature that I'd like to see on file transfers, Total bytes to download on each file. It let's me know if I have time to run and do something else. My version of multitasking! Bud ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 4 Sat Mar 27, 1993 R.NELSON48 at 19:22 EST OK Hot Shots, give me an answer for this one. . . (It is probably a novice GEine problem, not related to FII) When I am trapped in a long mess of text and don't want to hang on for a thousand more lines I hit the ESC key. This is the key that GEine and I have agreed will get me out of trouble. Doesn't work. The Flash II capture buffer keeps doing its job, I watch with dismay as my Cap: nnnK decreses madly I hit ESC ESC ESC, still not a prayer of stopping the input. Then at last success but now I can't type on my screen and nothing is coming in. I go to my capture screen and low and behold there is new stuff there, plus my key presses. I go back to terminal screen, nothing. back to capture, there are my latest key presses and anything GEine is doing in response. The only way out of this is a quick BYE and re-boot. What am I doing wrong???? ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 5 Sat Mar 27, 1993 R.WATSON15 [Wayne Watson] at 20:11 EST I get better results using Zmodem than I do using Ymodem-G with any program I have ran. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 6 Sat Mar 27, 1993 R.BINGHAM2 [Da Sloth] at 23:35 EST Escape is a bad break key. I know it causes MAJOR problems in Air Warrior and I wouldn't be surprised if it was fiddling with VT100 simulation or some such in Flash2. Get ye hence to the SETUP page and change your break key to Control-C or some such. You can use Control-S and COntrol-Q to stop and start the text. When the buffer gets full, hit control-S, save the buffer, clear the buffer, and hit Control-Q. Or is it that you are just not able to see ANYTHING on the terminal screen? ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 7 Sun Mar 28, 1993 F.GORON [Frank] at 00:03 EST Hi John, Got the 2.1 update earlier this week & it looks very nice, BUT... (John says "..uh oh.." ) there seems to be a problem with the color pallette that wasn't there in 2.01. If I boot with either Neodesk 3.03, the Neodesk control panel, or XControl (with the color CPX) then the terminal mode displays background and text in the same color. At least it does it when I have the terminal setting "light/dark" with light selected. Haven't tried dark yet. In the top right corner, the time/dollar display is still there, tho. I looked out in the capture after logging on to Genie & the data is all there, so it's defintely the color pallette doing somethin goofy. I even see little blinking flashes of light scrolling down the screen as the data comes in but nothing more. I should mention that I have my Neo & desktop pallettes set with black & white reversed so that the "light" setting would normally give me white letters on a black background. But that shouldn't be a factor since with the exact same setup, this problem wasn't/isn't there in 2.01. On a positive note, the problem I was having with the DX command seems to be gone, I can now set it to the root of an empty drive & it won't give me that invalid directory message I used to get. Lastly, I was dl'ing a couple of files a bit ago & I was thinking about the layout of the status window. In the total file size line, you have listed the number of total Xmodem blocks, yet in the current size line right below it, the number of blocks appear to be 1k blocks? Perhaps you can arrange to have the same type of blocks in each line so that there can be a common point of reference between total blocks & number of blocks currently dl'd. When we talked about the Status window last, you said you weren't too crazy about it yourself & that it was going to be redone. This is one thing that can definitely improve the window. Another would be to have it in a gem window so it could be displayed/ moved. I think you said that a gem window was already planned for it? Thanks Frank ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 8 Sun Mar 28, 1993 F.GORON [Frank] at 00:52 EST Another suggestion for the next update. Currently for the T/A you can swap the Enter & Return keys' functions. How about another option, to have both Enter and Return send the T/A to the modem. I find I rarely if ever use the T/A for more than one line of text, & I like to use whichever key my pinky is closest to to send the T/A buffer. Good Idea, no? Frank ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 9 Sun Mar 28, 1993 M.DEVENEAU [M.D.] at 01:14 EST John, Thanks for the info. I odered it last Wednesday and it arrived today. Looks like it is going to be quite a nice program. All I have to do now is figure out how to logon automatically. Thanks again... See you on the board. Michael ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 10 Sun Mar 28, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 01:39 EST You're not using Aladdin, that's all you are doing wrong. :) I think you'll have to have FII and GEnie agree on what constitutes a true BREAK. That's all that seems to be the problem. Al ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 11 Sun Mar 28, 1993 F.GORON [Frank] at 10:32 EST Well John, I temporarily switched black & white in my color pallette, & sure enough, the symptom of "black on black" or "white on white" in the terminal disappeared. Yes, the problem is there when the terminal option is set to dark as well. Perhaps there might be a quick little patch that Paul could do that could be u/l'd here on Genie? or maybe all that's needed is to "zap" a byte or two in the file? I hope so, 'cause I gotta tell you, I consider this a major "oops". Thanks Frank ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 12 Sun Mar 28, 1993 F.BELL1 [Frank @ Home] at 12:51 EST R.Nelson48, Al's suggession is the best: get Aladdin for GEnie and then use normal VT52 keyboard codes, for example Control C to 'break'. Flash2 is for everything else (well, it won't do the dishes...yet). John, Here in Austria the every-day, run-of-the-mill, postman delievers among other things 'monthly cash payments' to the un-employed. That means, if you're out of work and registered at the un-employment office, all you have to do to collect your monthly un-employmment money is to stay at home and wait for the mailman. Needless to say there are times of the month when the mailman (generaly a kid around 20 or a grandfather - nothing in between) is walking the streets with tons of money in his mailbag. I'm, of coarse, not the only who knows this - its general knowledge. Anyway, while waiting for my copy of Flash 2.1 (day after day after day after day...) my mailman (a kid around 20) was starting to get a little worried as 'that time of month' was nearing and 'what the heck was that old man doing hanging around the mailboxes' day after day after day...? The day after you made the Flash 2.1 announcement I started hanging around the appartment house mailboxes. The mailman (a grandfather that day) asked 'what the heck was I waiting for?' and didn't beleave me when I said 'Flash 2.1' (in German I must have said something like 'lighting strike again', or 'the second strike of lighting' or maybe even 'the second comming' (I was nervus and doddering in anticipation) and he didn't beleave me. Neither did the kid the next day. Or the day after that. Or even the day after that... Well, un-employment cash payment day came around and so did the mailman (the kid again) and two policemen (kids around 20) and what was I doing (besides waiting for the 'second comming')? Ya, just hanging around the mailboxes. Just as the bigger one was opening is mouth ('alright you no good bum, you old man, you American, your comming with...') the mailman pulled out, from in- between thousand and thousand of Schillings in cash ($17.25 US), an airmail floppy disk mailer (do not fold or bend). 'Well I'll be darn' were his words, but in German, 'Missionsoftware! You were waiting for THE SECOND COMMING - geewiz, lighting strikes again'. Anyway, Flash 2.1 has arrived in Vienna, has been installed in Vienna, has made the first suggessful up and downloads in Vienna and I wasn't even present when the mailman came (a kid around 20 by the way). Thanks for the better scripts, the better Silent Line, the better Zmodem options and everything else. :-) Frank... Oh, bad news too. I just reread your 'README'. I too have the problem discribed concerning Silent Line operation on the TT but I own a MegaST4. Maybe higher resolution screens or faster machines cause the problem - I use an overscan type card and run with a Turbo20 card. It really wouldn't be a problem but it seems that the configuration is saved to the FLASH2.LST file (even if the file isn't saved which is another problem). It also seems to hand up the modem too (I mean REALLY HANG THE MODEM UP - no more dialing from the 'board' concerned is possible until everything is but back to normal. Like Wayne I think Ymodem running under Silent Line is dead in the water. Alone it seems to be ok but under Silent Line the RXD speed drops to at least half its normal speed (I haven't tried uploading yet). P.P.S. I have a story (true this time) about installing Flash also. But will save it till you get back. Its not an install problem, its a user problem (was a user problem). ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 13 Sun Mar 28, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 13:16 EST Hi all... I'm back for a while. Spent the last couple of days in Milwaukee. My dad is doing better, although it looks as though he's going to need a bit of therapy before getting back to his normal, feisty, self again. He suffered a mild stroke after what was supposed to be minor surgery. Sigh... "You're welcome" to all of you who offered a "best of luck". I really do appreciate it and I'll make sure to let him know about all of his "GEnie friends" here. My presence here may continue to be eradic so again, please bear with me for the next couple of weeks. Thanks. Cliff... Well, since my records indicate #00265, consider your serial number to be that. I have no one else on record for either 265 or 268, so what the heck. Something got messed up somewhere, I guess, but no big deal. Brian... The Flash II serial number is not something that others can really use since it's deeply embedded within the program. In order for someone to abuse Cliff's number, they'd have to get into my database and make changes. That's unlikely. Thanks for the concern though anyway. Hydraxxus... Glad to hear that version 2.1 is working great for you. Good deal. Yea, I'd LOVE to come to Hawaii, but right now I can't afford it. However, although this won't occur in May, I may be in Hawaii on business in August (my Real Job will be paying the way). Nothing is firmed up yet and I'm not even sure on which of the islands the meetings are to take place. Barry... In 2.1, Flash II now looks at the serial port to see if it's active. If F2 thinks it is active, it then disables those other selections in the Phone menu until you terminate the "active" call. This was done for a number of reasons by request of a couple of the beta testers. I won't get into all of the details now (unless someone is interested), but generally, the reason for your problem is that F2 thinks it's online when it first boots up. Obviously you aren't online, so chances are your modem's DCD line condition is not set properly. If you have a newer modem, you'll probably have to change the DCD configuration using the &C1 mode. Assuming you have a Hayes compatible modem, this switch forces DCD to track the actual condition of the modem. (DCD = Data Carrier Detect) If your modem is online, the DCD line will be "active" and if the modem if offline, the DCD line will be "inactive". You can check the state of the &C switch by switching F2 to terminal mode and typing in AT&V. The modem should dump all of it's current mode and switch settings to the screen. If you've got an older modem, you may actually have to set a physical switch inside the modem. Your modem's operations manual will supply the details. Bud... Ymodem, batch or non-batch, is much slower than Zmodem. Generally speaking it's about half the speed. Remember, Ymodem is not much different from Xmodem in that every packet needs a reponse from the host before the next packet is sent. This greatly slows down the transfer rate. Zmodem, when set to streaming mode, does not need this packet handshaking, and therefore can reach the theoretical limits of your connection. Ymodem-G is another story. Ymodem-G is a streaming Ymodem protocol which can be as fast, or faster, than Zmodem. However, Ymodem-G has no built in error correction. If an error occurs, the protocol just cancels the transfer. You can use Ymodem-G for computer to computer transfers (using a null modem cable) or with error correcting modems. We're planning on a major revamping of the file transfer status box in the next full upgrade. We plan on making it a lot easier to read. BTW, with some protocols, it's impossible to display a "total bytes to download" because F2 has no way of knowing that information. The older protocols like Xmodem do not send that information to the receiving computer. If we don't have it we can't display it! :-) R.NELSON48 What Sloth said... I would also highly recommend that you change your GEnie "break" key to something other than Escape. F2 should send out the Escape keycode without any problem (there's a BBS I call regularly that looks for the escape key during logon, and it works just great) so I'm not sure what your problem is. Most everyone uses the standard "Control-C" break here, and you really ought to consider doing that as well. If you don't want to have to hit two keys, you can program a ^C into one of your function keys - say, F1 (right above the Escape key). Also, just as Sloth recommended, if you need to pause the incoming data so that you can read it, just press ^S to stop it, and ^Q to start it up again. And once again, you could program a "Control-S" and "Control-Q" into function keys to save from having to hit two keys on the keyboard. If your capture buffer continues to accept incoming data, but the terminal screen isn't displaying it, my guess is that somehow you've changed the text color in terminal mode to white. You may have white characters over a white background, which would be impossible to see. Frank... Glad to hear that you've solved your DX command problems. As I mentioned above, we are planning major changes to the transfer status window in a future upgrade (hopefully the next major upgrade). I agree regarding the Xmodem blocks display. That does need to be fixed. And yes, I do plan on having the status display in a GEM window. For MultiTOS purposes, this really needs to be in a window so that it can be moved around and resized while running other programs. TA Enter/Return Keys: Hmmm....well, I'll have to think about that I guess. The trouble is, the TA itself may see major changes in the next full upgrade too. Again, for MT purposes, we'll probably want to put this in a full window and also make it bigger than 3 lines (if that's what the user wants). Perhaps if the user sets the TA to 1 line, we could automatically make both the Return and Enter keys work the same - but if the TA is larger than 1 line, then kick in the options. We also plan on adding a TA history feature in the next upgrade. Color problem: Well, before we fix anything, I'm still not really sure just what your problem is or what's causing it. I do not use Neodesk 3.03 or the Neodesk control panel, however, I do use the Xcontol panel and have not had any problems with messed up colors in terminal mode. Most of our beta testers also use Xcontrol, and once again, we've had no complaints. I always boot F2 in "light mode" as do most of our users, and again, no complaints. I see that you have your desktop colors reversed (white where black is and black where white is). Then you're setting F2 to "Light" background. What may be happening is that you've totally confused F2 as to what colors are what. There was a bug in 2.0 and 2.01 when choosing "Dark" background which is probably why this worked for you. I'll look into this and see if I can figure out something. If indeed there is a bug of some sort, we'll get it fixed in 2.2. Michael... If you are trying to log on automatically to GEnie, version 2.1 includes a GEnie logon script which should work just fine. All you need to do is enter your GEnie ID number and password into the "Logon ID" area in Edit Boards, enter your local phone number, and you'll be all set. I use the same script regularly without a problem. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 14 Sun Mar 28, 1993 K.HULET [Ken] at 14:31 EST Received my upgrade yesterday and installed it no problem. GREAT support. I do have a problem dialing anything using F2 though. Whether I try dialing a board or dialing a number nothing seems to happen. I see a few LEDs blink on my Zoom 2400 but no dial tone and no dialing! Flash 1.60 and Aladdin work fine. There are so many options and configurations I have no idea what to change. Already tried sending &C1, still no luck. Any ideas? ..............Ken ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 15 Sun Mar 28, 1993 BRIAN.H [ST~SysOp] at 14:57 EST I am glad your Dad feel better. The serial number warning is part of the service on GEnie [grin]. Some developer are annoyed over it being published. I knew you weren't since you left it in a message. It was just a reminder. I am glad you don't "need" it . Again, I hope your Dad continue to improve. Take care. *******Brian********* Written on Sunday 28 March 1993 at 03:39 p.m. AST ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 16 Sun Mar 28, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 21:23 EST R.Nelson48, Esc is not a good choice. Change it to Ctrl-C (which is what I use), or something similiar. As somone else suggested, it's probably causing your terminal to switch to VT100 or some other emulation which is in turn causing the text to be invisible in your terminal screen. Also which version of F-II are you using? If your still using the release version and haven't received the update yet then that could also be a problem. I do remember in the release version that what you describe concerning the invisible text and not being able to see what's happening was a more common thing. --------- K.HULET, What are your strings set to in the modem settings for F-II? I mean the command strings, not the error strings. :-) Depending on what you have in there it could cause a problem. Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 17 Sun Mar 28, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 21:58 EST Frank... Well, thanks for that wonderful story! :-) I really enjoyed it. Glad to hear too that 2.1 is working good for you! Silent Line... Hmmm...ok. Unfortunately, I don't have a MegaST4 to do any testing on, and I don't believe that any of our beta testers do either. It's very possible that the Silent Line "TT bug" also occurs on a MegaST4 - however, now that I think about it, I'd say the bug is probably tied more to the TOS version being run than the machine. By any chance, are you running TOS 2.06 on that machine? I don't think you'd see the problem with the old Mega TOS 1.02. Yes, the messeed up configuration is saved to the flash2.lst file, but only if you have "Auto Event Log" turned on in the Phone menu. If you don't want your .lst file to be updated (meaning that the statistics also won't be updated) then just turn "Auto Event Log" off. Your flash2.lst file will not be affected then. The reason you probably can't dial out anymore is because Flash II itself *really is* running at 5N2R F 50. I seriously doubt that your modem supports that baud rate! :-) The best way to reset is to reload your default file which brings your terminal back to where it should be. I tested Ymodem with and without Silent Line and I didn't notice much of a difference. Perhaps there's some specific mode that didn't get tested that affects the transfer rate. Generally speaking, I got a cps rate about half the theoretical maximum based on the baud rate (9600 baud: maximum 960 cps, actual ~450 cps). These tests took place on BIX via Tymnet. Naturally, the actual rate should be higher on a non-networked connection. It's possible that some Silent Line bug still exists regarding Ymodem, but I don't think so. Silent Line does still need some work. Right now it's the weakest link. We probably could have spent another month or two tweaking it, however, we didn't want to hold the release of 2.1 any more than we already had. We will continue to work on it though, so if you find anything specific, please post a note. And if you do, we'll need all of the important info on your connection - RS232 Options, Terminal Options, network or local BBS, file size, RTS/CTS mode, etc. That information is essential in trying to debug these types of problems. Thanks for all of the info Frank! I really appreciate it. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 18 Sun Mar 28, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:44 EST Hi Ken... You didn't mention this, but I assume that an earlier version of Flash II, like 2.0 or 2.01, did dial properly? Hmmmm.... Quite honestly, I'm going to need a bit more information before this problem can be debugged. My first guess is that you aren't using a baud rate that permits communication with your modem. Switch to the terminal screen and check the status line at the top. If you are operating at 2400 baud, you should see something like "8N1 F 2400" up there. If the baud rate is set to something other than, say 1200 or 2400, your modem won't work. If that looks ok, try entering AT&V in the terminal. Press [Return]. Your modem should dump out a bunch of configuration data to the screen. If that works (assuming your modem supports the &V command, which it should) then F2 and your modem are communicating. The next step is to check the RS232 Options dialog and Modem Options dialog (both found under the Options menu). Make sure that all of the RS232 options are set properly (as noted above - they probably should be set to 8N1 2400). Then check your Modem Options dialog. The program comes preconfigured for the Hayes command set, which your modem supports. Make sure that all of that stuff is programmed in there. You should see ATDT for the dial prefix, for instance. If none of the AT commands are present, somehow your flash2.def file is either missing or messed up. If that's the case, you'll need to reset all of this stuff. Let me know and I'll tell you what to enter (or check your modem users manual for details). Once you make it this far, let us know and we'll continue to help you work your way through this. Brian... Gotcha! :-) I figured your serial number warning was something official you had to do, but I just wanted everyone to know that it really didn't matter. Now, if they decide to start posting passwords, Visa/MasterCard numbers, etc., _then_ I'll be concerned! :-) R.NELSON48 - I checked again and F2 does indeed send out the Escape code. I dialed into a BBS that uses a full screen ANSI editor this afternoon, and Escape is used to exit the editor. It worked just fine. Be that as it may, Escape is still a bad key to use for "breaking" here on GEnie. As you see, most folks are suggesting ^C, and as I posted earlier, you can program that into a function key to make sending it as easy as pressing Escape. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 21 Mon Mar 29, 1993 F.GORON [Frank] at 23:21 EST John, About the color pallette problem - it does the same thing in both light and dark modes. With black and white reversed in either the Neodesk pallette (if I boot Neodesk) or in the Xcontrol pallette if I'm not using Neodesk, I get black on black in the terminal with light selected. And I get white on white in the dark mode. Let me know what info I can provide for you to see if we can track what might be happening. Frank PS. Sorry to hear about your father, hope he makes a speedy recovery. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 22 Mon Mar 29, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 23:28 EST Frank... I've now been able to recreate your palette problem so I've already sent a message to the author (Paul Nicholls) about it. Hopefully we'll have a fix real soon for you. Thanks for your input... John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 23 Tue Mar 30, 1993 F.BELL1 [Frank @ Home] at 16:08 EST John, So thats what 'Auto Event Log' is for (RTFM Bell). I thought it was for something completely different. Great, one bug less - thats a real feature. Frank... ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 24 Tue Mar 30, 1993 K.HULET [Ken] at 18:44 EST Thanks to everyone offering help to get F2 to dial out. So far no luck. Terminal Window status line shows 8N1 H 2400 for my Zoom 2400. Should be OK, right? And yes the AT&V does dump the config info out, but no dial tone, no dialing. Flash 1.60 and Aladdin work OK. I'm sure I'm missing something, guess I'm just too close to the problem. ..........Thanks, Ken ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 25 Tue Mar 30, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:22 EST Frank... :-) Yup - see p. 5-44 in the manual. Auto Event Log is explained in all of its glory there. Gee, I thought I mentioned that to you before. I hope I didn't forget. Ken... I'll tell you - I'm really stumped. If you are able to dump your modem config (AT&V) using F2, then certainly F2 is talking to your modem. Take a look at this. Go to 'Options|Modem' and see what value is entered for DCD Connect Time. Make sure that it's set to at least "30" seconds. If it is, then go to 'Phone|Edit Boards' and click on the board that's giving you the problem. When the 'Edit Boards' dialog opens, click on the 'Modem" button. Check DCD Connect time there too. Again, if it's anything less than 30 seconds, you'll have a problem. At this point the only thing I can think of is that you've got Connect Time set to something like 1 second. That's just enough time for F2 to send out the dial command, but after 1 second it immediately terminates the call. You may want to list all of your Modem Options here so that I can take a look to see if something is obviously wrong. Oh yea, also make sure that "Enabled" is selected in 'Modem Options'. If it isn't, F2 won't send out the Hayes command prefixes you see entered there which means your modem won't dial or do anything. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 27 Wed Mar 31, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 01:27 EST John, Maybe Ken should send you (I'd be willing also) his FLASH2.LST and FLASH2.DEF files? It might save some time in tracking down the problem. Maybe he should also send along the capture buffer of his AT&V command so we can be sure there isn't a problem with his modem configuration? Without actually seeing his setup it's hard to figure out what is happening. I did have a problem when I tried to set up an initialization string for the modem and did it wrong. Until I fixed it my modem wouldn't dial either. I'm guessing he probably has something askew in the modem strings. Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 28 Wed Mar 31, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:49 EST Wayne (and Ken)... Sure, I don't have any problem with that at all (sending the .lst and .def files for review). If that what it takes to get the problem solved, then certainly I'm willing to do that. In fact, I've done that quite a few times this past year for other users having problems. My only problem, at the moment, is the extreme lack of time due to the family problems discussed late last week. Although my Dad's condition is getting better, there's still a lot of phone traffic and chasing back and forth to Milwaukee (well, now Memononee Falls since he's been transfered there). It's really been cutting into my time. But yea, I want Ken to get his problem fixed, so let's have at it. BTW - for those of you not yet Flash II owners, you now have absolutely no reason to *at least* check out the program. Darlah, and the rest of our excellent GEnie ST RT sysops, have decided to release our new demo as a Treat of the Month! See the ST RT banner for more information. We're also planning an RTC sometime down the road so that you can ask any questions you may have about the demo or about the program in general. The dates have not been set yet, but again, it'll be announced in the banner when you log on. We'll make sure to post something here too. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 29 Thu Apr 01, 1993 F.BELL1 [Frank @ Home] at 14:27 EST Ken, Try taking ALL moden initialization commands out of your F2 configurations, such as ATZ. Then try dailing out. Does your modem do anything, click? beep? buzz? do the dishes? If you hear nothing from your modem (and I would like to try THAT configuration out on the dog next store) and John's suggestions don't help then we are all at a loss. I forgot what version F2 you're using. Have you taken a look at your cable? Those is have 7 or 8 or use all 25 lines? Frank... P.S. Wayne's idea isn't bad. As John is short on time, and we feel with you John, I'm willing to have a look at your files too. Just pack them, LZH or whatever, and drop them in EMail (remove any User Ids and Passwords first - you can leave your girl freind's telephone number in though). ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 30 Thu Apr 01, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 23:14 EST Ken sent me his files although I doubt that I'll be able to look at them until Sunday... If anyone else has any suggestions - go for it! John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 32 Sat Apr 03, 1993 H.SCHEIE [HALS] at 10:11 EST I mailed my reg card last week and have yet to get the upgrade. Did you get the card and if so whats my status? Thanks Hal Scheie ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 33 Sat Apr 03, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 13:17 EST Hal... Yes, I received your regi card, but no, I haven't sent out your upgrade yet. With all of this chasing back and forth to Milwaukee that I'm doing, I'm afraid I'm getting a tad behind. I'm going to try to send out another batch on Monday. Larry... Regarding your Flash II question posted over in Cat 24 Topic 2... Set path/file function: You can set two separate paths using script commands either within a short DO script, or from the terminal command line. To set a path for saving text and such that you enter into the capture buffer, use the DPath command. To set a path for uploading and downloading, use the DXpath command. These commands are used either with a script or from the command line as follows: >DP c:\textpath\| >DX c:\xferpath\| You can also do this stuff manually. Let's say you enter some text in the capture buffer. To save it to a particular path, just click on "Save File" from the File menu, set your path using the file selector, and you're all set. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 34 Sat Apr 03, 1993 C.HAYWARD [Clar] at 19:52 EST John T...I downloaded the demo today and finally DX works for me. Do you remember an early problem with ANSI and Warp 9? I can get ANSI displays only if I turn Warp 9 screen acceleration off then on again after running the capture review. I think I sent you the captures from a couple boards last year. It's still a problem with the FLASH II demo. I'm using Warp 9 3.60, so it may be OK with newer versions. Clar ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 35 Sat Apr 03, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 20:02 EST John, I'm going to try and be here for the RTC, but I'm changing work shifts and most likely stations at the firehouse late next week. I haven't looked at what my new schedule is going to be. Once I know for sure I can let you know if I'm going to be able to make it or not. Glad to hear your Dad's condition is improving. If Ken has no objections, you could send me the files John and I'll take a look at them and get back to you and Ken. Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 36 Sun Apr 04, 1993 B.CONNOLLY1 [Bud] at 13:47 EDT John T. and Ken Don't know if you have tried this yet, but I had a similar problem for dialing out, no go, until I put two commas after ATZ on the Initialize String in the modem options. Everything would just sit there, no dial tone, nothing. See page 5-64. Bud ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 37 Sun Apr 04, 1993 R.BINGHAM2 [Da Sloth] at 17:48 EDT Here's one to watch out for. I was just uploading messages on GEnie when suddenly GEnie stopped accepting my messages. I did a *UP and hit control-Z (my break character) but GEnie wouldn't take the message. It just sat there looking stupid! I hit my break a few more times and got the 'break acknowledge' message, but it still wouldn't do anything. I found the reason just now. The messages I was uploading had control-S characters still in them! Seems those make GEnie's message loader get a bit mangled in the head. (Errr, make that a bit MORE mangled in the head. ;) ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 38 Sun Apr 04, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 18:06 EDT Bud, I thought it might be something like that. Because of this problem I've left the initialize string blank on all my boards. Normally I don't see a need for it. I can put any changes I want into the dial string itself. Usually all I need is to turn compression on/off, and possibly lock the modem so it will only connect at the speed set in the RS232 as opposed to connecting at the highest possible rate (I have a 14,400 Supra) Something that worked for me with Aladdin that I didn't try in F-II is to put a CR at the end of the initialize string instead of counting on F-II to do it. Until I did that in Aladdin it would send the dial string before the modem was reset from the ATZ command. After I put the CR into the init string in Aladdin (using Ctrl-M) the modem would reset and dial out properly. Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 39 Sun Apr 04, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:09 EDT Hi Clar... First of all, you should have received version 2.1 by now if you are properly registered as a Flash II owner. Version 2.1 and the demo are the same, except that the demo has a bunch of stuff disabled. Anyway, there are no longer any problems between Warp 9 and Flash II in version 2.1. I use ANSI regularly with 2.1 and everything works great. There is no longer a need to toggle W9 off and on. You should upgrade W9 to the latest version, which I think is 3.75. I haven't checked to see if the ANSI problem exists in the demo, but it really shouldn't since it no longer exists in 2.1. If you haven't received 2.1 in the mail and you think you are registered, contact me by email. Send me your serial number and I'll check the database. Wayne... Sure - let me know your new schedule. I'd love to have you (and everyone else) around for the RTC. It should be a fun time! BTW, I think I've solved Ken's problem. I just got done looking at his files and they wouldn't permit dialing with my modem either. I've already sent Ken a reply in email, but basically he had two problems. First of all, he is sending a very long init string. Apparently his modem takes awhile to process this, and it was loosing the "atdt" command, which F2 sends immediately after the init string. (It took my modem about 3 seconds to process the sequence.) I added a couple of pauses (commas) after the string, and everything started working just fine. The second problem wasn't as serious, but it wasn't necessary either. He added a comma (pause) after the "atdt" command. I'm hoping that after he makes these changes, everything will start to work for him. Ken... make sure to let us know, ok? Just read your second message Wayne... I've always used a comma or two to force a pause, but perhaps an extra CR would do the same thing. Hmmmm..... Sloth... How did the message you were uploading get ^S characters in them in the first place? Actually though, I'm surprised that GEnie would barf on that, especially during an uploaded message. I can understand why GEnie would stop input during a non-uploaded message. Strange... John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 40 Mon Apr 05, 1993 M.MASTALER [Mike] at 02:50 EDT John, ... I am trying to use the function keys in the macro section. When I log on to a BBS, (full duplex ) I hit my function key to send my first and last name, and nothing happens. What am I doing wrong ? My function key was written like this: >MICHAEL MASTALER| My understanding was to use the ">" and "|" characters at the beginning and end of a macro. Thanks in advance. >Mike| . ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 41 Mon Apr 05, 1993 SFRT-ASST [Kenne@SFRT] at 03:09 EDT In the _old_ Flash you just told the program to execute the command ">MICHAEL MASTALER|". In order to send text you need to use the SEND command. ">SEND" ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 42 Mon Apr 05, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 18:48 EDT >Wayne... > >Sure - let me know your new schedule. I'd love to have you (and everyone >else) around for the RTC. It should be a fun time! I should find out within the next couple days unless the decision gets delayed on their (the Chief) end. It was supposed to happen last week, but got delayed because they all (the Chief and the 4 deputies) couldn't agree on who was going where. It always happens when transfer time rolls around (usually when promotions and/or retirements/new employees come around). All the deputies are trying to get rid of their dead wood, and steal the good people from the other deputies. I am one of the "good" people. I was loaned to my present shift last year due to excessive openings on one shift due to retirements with the understanding that when the new recruits started I would go back to my old shift. My new deputy however liked me so much he held onto me through trickery when some new people came on 6 months ago. Boy was my old deputy PO'ed! :-) >Just read your second message Wayne... I've always used a comma or two to >force a pause, but perhaps an extra CR would do the same thing. Hmmmm..... I think what happens is that the CR in the string starts the modem doing it's reset and puts the CTS line low so that the computer can't send any commands. That way either the program waits, or the dial command sits in the output buffer until the modem is ready to accept data and sets the CTS line back. That worked with Aladdin. My old 2400 baud modem didn't need the CR because the reset time was very fast, but the newer high speed modems take a bit longer to reset via the ATZ command. Mine takes about 2-4 seconds to reset. -------- Mike, As SFRT said, you should use >SEND "MICHAEL MASTALER"| to send the string. Either that, or leaving off the > might work in your example. I.E. Use MICHAEL MASTALER| which may also work. I know it used to on Flash 1.6, but I don't recall if it does in F-II. I know that works in .DO files, but I don't have any examples of that in my function keys so I'm not 100% sure it would work there. Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 44 Mon Apr 05, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:10 EDT Mike... Ken and Wayne beat me to the punch. They are both correct. There are two ways to send a string within a function key: >SEN "MICHAEL MASTALER"| "MICHAEL MASTALER"| I generally use the second form since it saves me from having to type a few extra letters! (Am I lazy or what???) You need a '>' only at the beginning of commands, such as SEND, WAIT, PAUSE, etc. The '>' tells the Flash II parser to expect a command name next. "MICHAEL" is not a command name, which is why the command failed. The status line at the top of the terminal screen should have warned you of the error. Wayne... Gee - politics at the old fire house, eh? Sounds like you've got a good boss though, and that's important these days. Also sounds like you enjoy your work! John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 45 Mon Apr 05, 1993 R.BINGHAM2 [Da Sloth] at 22:38 EDT John T: I got the ^S in by using ^S/^Q when reading messages. Then, when I wrote up my reply off-line, I quoted a passage that happened to have a ^S in it. I just noticed yesterday that sometimes bell characters don't ring. Haven't been able to repeat it yet, though.... ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 46 Tue Apr 06, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:43 EDT Sloth... Ah - so YOU put those characters in the text! :-) Now I get it! Uh, the bell characters aren't really "bell" characters. When you see a bell character in the capture, that's really a line feed character. Press ^G in the editor. You'll see that the bell character is actually the character that you see in the upper right corner of a GEM window - the "full" button. Now, you ask, why are these characters displayed this way? Heck, I don't know! You'll have to ask the folks at Atari why they mapped these characters where they did. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 48 Wed Apr 07, 1993 F.GORON [Frank] at 22:00 EDT Mike, I believe one other method could be used to send a string. Instead of using the "Send" command or enclosing the string in quotes, you should be able to follow the string with a carriage return, which is produced by Control-M for example: MICHAEL MASTALER"cr" where the "cr" would be replaced by Control-M. Oh, I almost forgot, you'd follow the Control-M with the "|" character. John T, I came across a really tiny little thing but you & Paul might want to take a look at it. Whenever I call up the RS232 options dialog, then when I'm done with it, if I click on OK with the mouse there's no problem. But if I hit Return or Enter, about 4 or 5 LF's get sent to the Capture. No biggie, but I thought you might like to know. Frank ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 49 Wed Apr 07, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:50 EDT Wayne... Well, I have to say I enjoyed your post. Sounds almost as much fun as working at CBS!!! Frank... We've been fighting that RS232 Options dialog thing since day one. This appears to be caused by a conflict within TOS itself and involves the rsconf() call, which we use for setting up the port. You can get this same effect in a few other places as well, but I'll leave it up to you to figure out where! :- ) Try as we might, we haven't been able to get rid of this problem. It really doesn't cause anything serious to occur, but it is annoying. We're in the process of redoing this dialog and the code that it drives for support of all of the serial ports (as well as permitting higher speed port access). Perhaps this "problem" will go away when we get that finished. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 50 Thu Apr 08, 1993 M.MASTALER [Mike] at 03:17 EDT Thanks all; will try out the "SEND" command . Mike ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 52 Fri Apr 09, 1993 B.CONNOLLY1 [Bud] at 23:12 EDT John Trautschold Hope your dad is up and around soon. I have a couple of questions. Do you know of any reason why FLASH II 2.1 would bomb (two of them) whenever I start Flash and my modem is not turned on? Unfortunately, this is VERY repeatable. And, what does AUTO EVENT LOG really do? My boards seem to update without it checked, and I could no get into the plant security modem (You know the one I mean, nuke plant...) and as soon as I turned this off, the problem went away. One last question, the plant computers are VAX 11/780's and I have double high/double wide characters on the welcome message, these are often times garbled when I log in. I went with 8 bit characters and that seemed to help for awhile, but now they are garbled again. This is not serious, just a curiosity. Bud Connolly ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 53 Sat Apr 10, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 02:08 EDT Hi Bud... Yea, thanks for asking. My Dad is doing a bit better day by day. The therapy seems to be doing the trick. We're going up to visit again on Easter Sunday. On to your questions. First of all, no, I can't imagine why F2 2.1 would bomb when you boot it without the modem turned on. Interestingly, I had one other person call to say the same thing happened to him, but only when the modem was turned *on* when he booted F2. F2 does go out and look at the serial port when it first wakes up to see if the port is active. If it determines that it is active, then it sets itself (terminal mode) up to whatever the port settings happen to be at the time. Are you using any external serial port programs, such as serialfix? These types of programs might cause a conflict, and they are unnecessary with F2 since F2 takes total control over the port and solves any of the problems programs like serialfix fix. As usual, try booting F2 without any auto folder programs or desk accessories to see if the problem remains. I've booted 2.1 with all different modem configurations (on, off, online, to another computer with a null modem, etc.) and I haven't had any problems at all. Regarding your second question, Auto Event Log, when checked in the Phone Menu, it causes F2 to keep track of your online statistics via your flash2.lst file. When it's turned off (not checked) it doesn't keep track of your statistics. The statistics are written to the file when you terminate your call. You say you couldn't log into your plant security modem when AEL was turned on? Are you operating from a floppy or a hard drive? When AEL is turned on, when the board you are calling first connects, F2 reads information out of the flash2.lst file. This slight delay may be causing the problem in logging in. When AEL is turned off this delay does not occur. Weren't you the one that sent me the double-high VTxxx characters a long time ago? That problem should have been fixed. Do these characters extend across all 80 columns of the display? If so, I'll bet that you have word wrap and cursor wrap turned on for your Terminal Options for that board. If they are on, turn them off and I'll bet that your problem goes away. If that isn't the problem, then please email me a capture of the garbled welcome message so that we can fix (or at least investigate) the problem. We're working on a 2.11 upgrade to fix these kinds of small problems that have cropped up. You probably will need to set your terminal to 8 bit characters and control codes. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 56 Sat Apr 10, 1993 B.CONNOLLY1 [Bud] at 14:26 EDT John T. Ignore the second post of my message, I've been having a LOT of trouble with GEnie Friday night and Saturday morning (4/9-10). I got a lot of garbage on the line Friday, and Saturday, it just sat there. Good thing I was watching! No, I am not using Serialfix, just Tosfix and Poolfix. I am running off a hard drive (Megafile 30). As for the double high, double wide characters, that problem is intermittant. They worked just fine last night. I check the wraps, I'm pretty sure word wrap is off. Bud ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 57 Sat Apr 10, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 18:58 EDT Hi Bud... You no longer need to use TOSFIX with F2. I don't think you need it with Aladdin either since we both go directly to the serial port for control. It shouldn't cause a problem with either program, however, it is just so much extra baggage. It's strange that the double high/wide problem is intermittant. It doesn't seem likely that F2 would be able to display this sometimes, but not other times. I really don't have more of an answer for you at this point. Is there something you do differently sometimes to your system than others? If so, and if these changes track the problem, then you've found a relationship. FOR EVERYONE: I've noticed lately that the message count displayed during the deader for this topic does not always match the actual message count. For instance, when I logged on this afternoon, the header said "3 new messages.", but the only one I found was the one from Bud. There was no line noise or any other problem. My question, I guess is, is there a bug floating around in the GEnie software. Is this only affecting this particular cat/topic? Am I _really_ missing messages? I've noticed this more than once lately and my main concern is that I'm not missing someone's message. Has anyone else noticed this? Sysops - can this be checked into please? Thanks. Happy Easter everyone! And thanks for your support of Flash II. I really appreciate it! :-) John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 61 Sun Apr 11, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 01:45 EDT Brian... Thanks. Interestingly, this time when I logged on I got "3 new messages." and, in fact, there were three new messages! :-) Strange... Clar... Yea, I've seen that a lot with forwarded messages also. I've always kinda figured that was just some weird message forwarding problem. In this case though, no messages were forwarded (that I'm aware of) to this topic. BTW - received your disk today for upgrade. The upgrade is done and it'll go back in the mail on Monday. Hope you enjoy the new version! You are now in the database too! :-) John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 62 Sun Apr 11, 1993 POTECHIN [Nathan] at 09:58 EDT No mystery John. If I started typing at you live, like I'm doing right now, and I realize that instead of waking up I must have been still sleeping and typed "this program grates on my nerves" rather than what I meant to say "this is a great program" and then *Sent it semi-consciously JUST as I realized what I had done. Ohmygoodness, ARGGHH. As the author, I have the ability to delete my message which I would then do immediately. Then I would attempt to type it back in properly and then *Save it again. If you then got here to read you would encounter the "2 new messages" when in fact, there was only one. This is the most common reason for the misleading new message message. ;-) The second most common is when I get mad and start typing all those words that I'm not allowed to use like *)&^*(&%&^$$^&# and _*&%^&*^%^%$^% which Brian then deletes on sight, again throwing off your new message count. ;-) Aren't you glad you asked? ;-) Nathan (Atari RT Sysop) ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 63 Sun Apr 11, 1993 B.STOREY [Billy B.] at 11:26 EDT John, the message count includes the intro's, also. I sent off my order yesterday. Bill ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 64 Sun Apr 11, 1993 C.GRIMSBY at 11:31 EDT Hi! I downloaded the Flash2 demo, but I'm having some problems with it on my TT in TT Medium resolution. The editor portion works fine, but the online side is un-useable, and I've been unable to evaluate it. The problem, I'm sure, is with my color set up, which admittedly is rather "weird". I've got my colors reversed so I get white text on a black background. Here's my color line from my NEWDESK.INF file: #c7770007000600070055200505552220770557075055507703111103 (At least, I _think_ that's the color line. It's been a _long_ time since I've played with desktop.inf or newdesk.inf files!) Anyways, I've tried both the Light and Dark settings in the terminal menu, but it doesn't seem to matter. All I get, except occasionally, is the corner $ and clock, which shows up in red. Sometimes, usually the first time, I get a black screen. No cursor (reguardless of cursor settings in the terminal menu) and text comming in from the modem does not show up. (It's there in the editor though, so I know the connection is there.) Right after I change the colors (using COLOR.CPX and switching to "bank 1") to be a white background and black text, and the terminal menu set for dark background, I _do_ get the top line display (capture size, line settings, $ and clock), until I got back to the editor. Subsequent flips to the online "window"(?) give me a white screen without the status line or incomming text. Changing the light/dark setting in the terminal menu doesn't make the text and status line show up. I do still get the corner $ and clock, and the background does change to reflect the setting. Going back to the COLOR.CPX, the colors in "bank 1" have changed to be those in bank 0. Switching back to bank 0 then again to bank 1 fixes that, so at least that's not a problem! When I go back to the online window, I've got text again, and the colors I want, until I go back to the editor and then the whole thing starts all over again. I don't know if this is a problem with Flash2, my settings and/or understanding of the program, or just a problem with the demo version of Flash2. I'm rather interested in getting a new terminal program, as my old Flash! (v 1.6) doesn't work in TT resolutions and I must admit I'm rather tired of switching to ST High res whenever I want/need to use a terminal program. With the text disappearing every time I switch back and forth from the editor to online though, it's a little hard to evaluate. I tend to do a lot of switching back and forth to edit/quote/edit/reply in my BBS use. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me on this problem. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 65 Sun Apr 11, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 12:16 EDT John, I've noticed the message-count bug (or whatever it is) also. I've been assuming that it is counting the topic-header message, adding 1 to the count, but now I realize this can't be the case. BTW, that's interesting, not needing TOSFIX with F2. Towns sort of indicated it was needed with all operations on STs with those versions of TOS that had that little bug. I'm not even sure that TOSFIX takes up any space in RAM, since it's just a patch, so it may not be the best advice to avoid it with F2; after all, if you exit F2 and run some other application that doesn't have F2's port-handling routines, you could be in trouble.... Al ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 67 Sun Apr 11, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 14:18 EDT FLASHER.PRG, available I the library, lets you set the colors used by Flash, and I'm sure it will work just as well with F2 if you either rename F2 to FLASH.PRG or edit FLASHER with EdHack or another binary editor to run any other program. FLASHER works fine in TT Medium. I'll try editing it in binary mode and see what happens... ... No, it just bombs, both when I rename F2 to FLASH.PRG and when I edit FLASHER so that it looks for FLASH2. You might try using a boot utility such as SuperBoot to create a NEWDESK.INF file that has normal colors for F2, with your normal colors otherwise. Al (John, looks like Aladdin decided to post my earlier msg twice. Must have been important enough to show again! If I could just get my delete-msg script workking....) ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 68 Sun Apr 11, 1993 B.MENAGH [Bill] at 16:59 EDT Thanks for the most recent upgrade to Flash2. I've tried to load it and have had success. I've edited and saved the dial boards successfully. Unfortunately I can't seem to switch from terminal mode back to edit mode. I get a busy bee cursor that seemes rather shakey and when I move the mouse, four bombs crash my ST MEGA4. I have not dietiezed the appropriate files as instructed. Any suggestions regarding what is happening? Thanks in advance for any help. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 69 Sun Apr 11, 1993 B.CONNOLLY1 [Bud] at 17:55 EDT John T. No bug, that was me! I tried uploading my questions to GEnie on Friday night, but go hung up and Aladdin thought that the message was still waiting to be uploaded. The friendly Sysops delted that message. So, you had one for the header, one for the message you did see, and one for the deleted message. About TOSFIX, it also fixes a problem shel_find, albeit, supposedly rare, I'll haul the baggage :^) I'll try to keep an eye on the Double/Doubles, they are working very well right now though. Oh, and thanks for hot tip on Warp 9/Flash II compatibility with the 2.1 version. Things are just a bit quicker now that I have Warp 9 back on. Bud Connolly ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 70 Sun Apr 11, 1993 B.WILLIS3 [Bill] at 19:48 EDT C.Grimsby, Coincidentally, I had the exact same problem with Flash II the other day. Every time I'd go to the terminal screen the colors would get screwed up and I couldn't see anything. The only reason I could come up with is that I had just set up Warp 9 to use a .PNT picture as a desktop background. I assume that loading that picture replaced a color palette somewhere, and that's why I kept getting black type on a black background. Anything sound familiar there? ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 71 Sun Apr 11, 1993 C.HAYWARD [Clar] at 19:52 EDT J.TRAUTSCHOL..Message 61 Thanks, John. Clar ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 72 Sun Apr 11, 1993 R.BINGHAM2 [Da Sloth] at 20:05 EDT ON the bell character a few weeks back.... I'm not talking about bell shapes in my capture buffer, silly person! I'm talking about when a Control-G gets sent to you over the terminal. (Like when moving on to a free flagged page.) Most of the time you hear the bell chime. Once I noticed that F2 had stopped doing that. (The sound was working fine since I could hear the keyclick 'clicks' through the monitor speaker.) I haven't gotten the bug to repeat yet, so I guess it's a pretty rare critter. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 73 Sun Apr 11, 1993 F.GORON [Frank] at 21:48 EDT Gang, On the color pallette problem - I mentioned this to John T. about a week ago & he checked it out & said that there was indeed a little bug that crept into 2.1 (don't know about the demo but if it's based on the 2.1 program it's a safe bet that it's the same bug), and that he was going to get Paul (the programmer) right on it. I've always had black & white switched in all my pallettes,both in Xcontrol & in Neodesk. If I had either activated the problem in F2 would show up. The only thing I could get to work for me was to either boot w/o either one, or else set up alternate Neodesk .INF files with the white & black switched back to their "normal" positions, and to do the same in Xcontrol for when I ran F2 outside of Neodesk. John, In the next update would it be possible to be able to configure the dollar & clock displays in the terminal mode? As far as I can tell they can't be configured. I'd like to be able to switch either on/off independently & also to be able to switch the clock between time online and time of day. That last thing might be possible, since it was in Flash 1 but I'll have to look around some more in the manual. Frank ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 74 Sun Apr 11, 1993 F.GORON [Frank] at 21:54 EDT In fact, what I'd REALLY like is to be able to display both time online and time of day at the same time & drop the dollars. Perhaps you can give us the two display slots & allow us to fill in the displays of our choice, among dollars,time online,time of day,perhaps some other choices might also come to mind. frank ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 75 Sun Apr 11, 1993 B.WILLIS3 [Bill] at 22:21 EDT Is there a known bug in v2.1 that makes the backspace key unusable in the type- ahead buffer? I can only edit the buffer using the cursor keys; the backspace doesn't properly erase characters. (Very un-GEnie-like) Anyway, I never noticed this happening until I installed 4 megs of TT RAM. Before that, I was using only ST RAM. Can that have something to do with it? (It doesn't seem to matter whether I'm running Flash II in ST or TT RAM.) I remember reading here about something like that, but I don't remember if it was this version or the last one. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 76 Sun Apr 11, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 23:13 EDT Nathan... Ah, ok, yea, I understand! :-) In other words, the message count doesn't really accurately represent the number of active messages - just the number of messages that were attempted (or something like that!). C.GRIMSBY... Ah, another one of those that reverses the white and black colors, eh? :-) Unfortunately, we discovered a bug in 2.1, which also affects the demo, in cases like this. What happens is F2 is forcing the text color to black in all cases, when it should be using the proper color palette. When you change your background to black, F2 tracks that, but ends up putting black text over a black background. We're working on a fix for that which will appear in version 2.11, a patch that will be uploaded here. You guys must like looking at film negatives too! Al... Townsend is right that TOSFIX is needed for programs that access the port via the OS. However, F2 controls the port directly through interrupts and in essance, we grab the interrupt vectors away from TOSFIX. This was not the case with version 2.0. AAMOF, we initially shipped F2 with TOS14FX2.PRG to solve RTS/CTS problems which we did handle via the OS at that time. As you know now though, F2 handles that directly. Bill... When switching back and forth between the editor and the terminal, the cursor should just disappear (in terminal mode) and reappear in the editor. It should not be switching to the busy bee at all during this process. My first suggestion is the usual one to boot F2 on a clean system. It sounds to me like something is interfering with F2, like an auto folder program or DA. I haven't had any other complaints about a problem like this. Keep in touch and let me know if you make any progress. It's possible you have a corrupted copy of the program, although that's doubtful. Bud... Ah, so you were my GEnie bug! :-) I think I understand the process GEnie uses now and it makes sense. I think... Sloth... Well, you *did* say the "bell character", right? :-) I figured you meant the actual character shaped like a bell! Anyway, I'm glad that the bell is working ok for you now. I get lots of little dings while I'm online and hadn't noticed a problem. Let's hope whatever caused yours is now gone! Frank... Thanks for the suggestions. We've already had other similar requests for the ability to switch between an online timer and a clock display in the terminal mode. It's on the list for our next feature upgrade release. I'll also add the suggestion to be able to separately display the dollar and clock displays. Bill... Turn Rubout off in Terminal mode. Backspace should work fine then in the TA. There is a bug that's already fixed in our beta 2.11. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 77 Mon Apr 12, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 20:33 EDT John, The message about the Time and charges line reminded me of something I've been meaning to ask. Is there any chance of getting an option in the rates section so that you can put down the hourly charge instead of a per minute charge? Most online services like GEnie, Delphi, etc charge by the hour. It would save us trying to figure out the per minute charge for that and let F-II figure it for us. On Delphi it's $1 an hour for my plan, so it comes out to 1.66666...... cents per minute. Since F-II only allows us to put in whole cents per minute it wouldn't be very accurate in this case. 1 cent would show an unrealisticly low charge, and 2 cents per minute would show almost a 33% overcharge. Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 78 Tue Apr 13, 1993 J.GERMAN3 [Hydraxxus] at 00:13 EDT John, Since recieving my upgrade I still have yet to use another term program, great job One question I do have is about sound. What support can there be for sound Other than the bell in script files? I like hearing when my downloads are done and miss it. Guess I'll have to get to work on a new scrip! Hydraxxus ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 79 Tue Apr 13, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 19:06 EDT Hi Wayne... I think your suggestion already appears on our "to-do" list. I'll remind Paul about that anyway. Paul and I had discussed your proposal some time ago. I think what we'd decided way back then was to make it an option to either enter $/min or $/hour. I'm not sure if we ever came up with a way to easily do that, but it was discussed. And speaking of the charges information, I should remind everyone that generally speaking you only need to enter information in one column of each set. The set's include $/min and $/KB. There are two sets of those columns, one for peak charges and one for off peak. I just got done helping a customer over on another service. He'd entered the cost (00.21) in both the $/min and $/KB columns, and was wondering why F2 wasn't properly tracking the charges. He should have only entered 00.21 in the $/min column. F2 tracks charges two ways - by time and by quantity. When he entered 21 cents in both columns, F2 not only added the 21 cents for each minutes, but also added 21 cents for each 1024 bytes on incoming text. If you read text as it is received, you can easily get between 4K and 5K of data in a minute. At 21 cents per each K, F2 was tracking his charges at over $1 per minute! By having him change his setup to just $/min, everything started working ok. As Wayne says, most online commercial services charge by the hour or minute and do not charge for the number of bytes of data received. Leave $/KB set to 00.00 and you should be fine. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 80 Tue Apr 13, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:22 EDT Hydraxxus... I'm glad you like Flash II! Right now there is no support for anything other than the bell. There are two bell commands, B1 & B2. B1 rings the bell once and B2 rings it until a key is pressed to stop it. That's not a bad idea though to add other types of sounds to the program. I guess we'll have to look into that. Thanks. Are there any types of sounds in particular you'd like for us to include? John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 83 Thu Apr 15, 1993 J.DINGA at 23:16 EDT I have v2.1, and am very pleased to finally have some bugs quashed since leaving it on the shelf after buying it at ACE'92 buying it at ACE'92 (ser#0288) :) I have a MeagaSTE 4/50 with a Crazy Dot DDots 8 graphincs card and have experienced recurring 'insufficient space' on disk' DL aborts, even though there is plenty of room on either the floppy or the hard disk. Also I _only once_ had a situation where my capture buffer shrunk from 3000+K to 53K in the blink of an eye. I wonder if its only me and and my setup, or anyone else? Thanks, and BTW, FLASH II looks nice on a 19" monitor...........:) Jon ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 85 Fri Apr 16, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 19:24 EDT Jon, Does the DL abort partway through, or right at the beginning? That almost sounds like a bug that was squashed in 2.1. If it's starting right at the very beginning of the DL then check your DXPATH setting and make sure it is a valid path. DXPATH is the path for file transfers. I've never had any problem with the capture buffer suddenly shrinking, so that's a new one to me. Maybe it's got something to do with the 19" monitor/driver/screen mem???? Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 86 Sat Apr 17, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 00:16 EDT Jon... I recall one other person complaining about something similar to your problem. I don't recall if we ever came up with any concrete solution, other than what Wayne already mentioned. Make sure you are using a valid path - if you are entering a path and such from the command line, it's very easy to mistakenly enter something wrong. I've done it myself many times. If you are using the command line, try starting the download by forcing up the file selector. You can do that by entering only the download command followed by the protocol. For example, for a Zmodem download, enter only "dl zm" and press return. You can then use the file selector to set the path. Are you using Data Diet? If so, F2 could be getting confused over the amount of storage its got available. I don't use DD myself though, so can't confirm that. I've never seen the capture buffer shrink down like that. Since it only happened once, let's hope it doesn't happen again! :-) BTW, if you have F2 grabbing all of your memory for the capture, you may want to change that to something less than "ALL". Generally, you don't need 3000+ K of capture. If you are running the XControl Panel it'll need some of that memory you are grabbing (unless all of your CPX's are resident). I usually grab about 1 meg of ram on my TT and that's more than sufficient. Yup - I use F2 on my TTM195 all of the time. It is nice! :-) Brian... Gee - I wonder what that new term program might be? Uh, let me guess... Ah, so the tunes are built in. OK. Guess I'll have to put some of my musical training to work. Anyway, I've added your request to the list and whenever we get around to starting work on Flash III, we'll see if something like that couldn't be included. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 87 Sat Apr 17, 1993 R.NELSON48 [Grouch (:{] at 01:27 EDT This reply typed in Aladdin off-line. I have changed my break key to Control- C. Flash II is well behaved and working good. Aladdin is very interesting. I have spent a lot of time getting it going and I think it may be worth the effort. Already paying off in downloads. Thanks for advice and council. Good help to be found all around this board. Makes me wonder why I have spent so many years on CompUserve. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 89 Sat Apr 17, 1993 B.STOREY [Billy B.] at 10:13 EDT John, I am in the "RTFM" stage, getting things set up. I tried a couple of calls. I like the ANSI color, but it is very hard to read thru in the editor. I haven't found a way to strip out the color info to the editor, but there must be a way. I tried disabling it in the editor, but it still comes thru. Oh, well, I will probably find it soon. Bill ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 90 Sat Apr 17, 1993 B.CONNOLLY1 [Bud] at 12:44 EDT Jon Dinga I've seen that error as well, I believe it was fixed by putting a trailing "\" on DXpath. Bud Connolly ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 91 Sat Apr 17, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 17:24 EDT Grouch (:{ - Ya gotta admit - that's a nifty smiley icon! :-) Glad to hear that F2 is working well for you. Aladdin is an excellent addition to F2 for automating your GEnie online time. I obviously prefer F2, since I sell it , but even I use Aladdin at times to save some time. F2 comes in handy for the special stuff I need to do here on GEnie. Sometimes I actually run Aladdin within Flash II! That's fun! Billy B. To strip out the ANSI escape sequences from the editor/capture buffer, go to Terminal Options for the board in question (or Terminal options under the Options menu) and turn on (select) "Filter Escapes". That will get rid of all of that garbage so that rereading the messages later in the editor is easier. Another way to reread your messages is to use the "Review" function in Flash II. After you get off line press the [Clr Home] key while in the editor mode. That'll move your cursor to the top. Then go to the Capture menu and click on "Review". F2 will switch back to the terminal and begin to show you everything exactly the way it looked while online. To move forward through the review process, press the cursor-right key. To move backwards, press the cursor-left key. Note: If you wish to use review mode, do NOT turn on "Filter Escapes". Eliminating the escape sequences will no longer permit actual reviews of your capture. DXpath: You should be able to enter a path either with or without a trailing '\' in 2.1. There were some problems in that regard in 2.0 and 2.01. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 92 Sat Apr 17, 1993 B.STOREY [Billy B.] at 19:31 EDT John, I have run into another problem: when I am writing .DO files, I always get the LF char (bell) at the beginning of each line. I can't find a way to turn it off. A board I have been working with to test my setups, connects, then waits for me to press RETURN before responding. It always responds with "name "DZ @DZW" not in files. What is your LAST name?" It only responds this way when I call from Flash 2. I can't find what is sending that string. I am running a 4-meg 1040 STe with TOS 2.06. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 93 Sat Apr 17, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 19:39 EDT >If you are using the command line, try starting the download by forcing up the >file selector. You can do that by entering only the download command followed >by the protocol. For example, for a Zmodem download, enter only "dl zm" and >press return. You can then use the file selector to set the path. Will that work with Zmodem since the sending end gives Zmodem the filename? I haven't tried that, but wouldn't it just try to use the default DXPATH and download it there with no file selector popping up? Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 94 Sat Apr 17, 1993 C.HAYWARD [Clar] at 21:21 EDT WAYNED....Message 85 Wayne, I just received the 2.1 upgrade and if I try a Capture Buffer of 512k or less and the "USER" setting it goes to 128k and "ALL" when I save defaults. I'm using a TOS 1.04 ST with 4Megs. Clar J.TRAUTSCHOL...Message 91 John, thanks for the upgrade. I had never used Silent Line so I decided to give it a try today. However, I can't get Aladdin to run after running Flash II with Silent Line installed. The usual Aladdin initiation doesn't display on the terminal screen, although it seems to dial and my modem indicates a connection. Is there something I'm missing? Clar ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 95 Sat Apr 17, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 22:46 EDT John makes a good point about running Aladdin within Flash II -- F2 is able to run practically anything inside it (in other words, while using F2 as a sort of shell for other programs). But a word of caution: Don't try to have both F2 and Aladdin accessing the modem port at the same time! Billy, Turn off the display of symbols (I've forgotten the exact menu item) for F2, and you won't see the LF char on the editor. Al ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 96 Sat Apr 17, 1993 C.HAYWARD [Clar] at 22:54 EDT J.TRAUTSCHOLD John, I replied to an earlier message from WAYNED about the capture memory going to 128k and All if I tried to set a User buffer of 512k or less. It also seems to happen right on 64k boundaries after 512. 576,640...and so on. However, there appears to be no problem with 575,577..639,641 or whatever. Clar ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 97 Sat Apr 17, 1993 C.EVANS5 [Michael] at 23:31 EDT Jon:I've been pretty happy with the F2 demo and want to order F2. I want to upgrade from the flash1.6 that I have now. How is that done? (send in the old disk?). Also I've got a problem with the vidtex mode and CI$. when CI$ sends a page of news, at the end of the page the cusor will go up 3 or 4 lines and cover the last couple of lines of the news page. any thoughts? mike in albq. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 98 Sun Apr 18, 1993 R.CARPENTE18 [Bob C.] at 01:38 EDT Clar, I believe that the 2.1 upgrade does NOT fix the conflict between Aladdin and Silent Line. Ever since I found the problem originally, I haven't had Silent Line installed. I'm sure John will be able to say for sure whether the problem has been corrected. Your comment seems to indicate that it hasn't since that's the exact same problem that was originally there. To be honest, 2.1 concentrated on fixing the problems that F2 users had with the original release (and 2.01). In doing that, I think 2.1 has been very successful. Hopefully, the problems that Silent Line has will be fixed soon enough. As an avid Aladdin user, I would really like Silent Line and Aladdin to "play well together". Bob Carpenter ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 99 Sun Apr 18, 1993 CBARRON at 02:50 EDT I use FII on CIS in vidtext mode daily. I do find some terminal screen info is 'erased' by vidtext cursor control. It happens occassionlally but all the info is in the capture buffer. for a quick read right click, shift home and the missing text should be right there. I capture 90% of what I read, so it is no major problem. I have not used vidtex in another program so it might be a vidtext problem. Is CIS and your terminal configured for the same sized screen? Note each baud rate there is a possibly different configuration. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 100 Sun Apr 18, 1993 B.STOREY [Billy B.] at 07:53 EDT John, I did try clicking on "Filter Escapes", (in both places) and I still get the escape sequences! ??? Review looks good, but I can't print out the buffer (or parts of it) with the escape seq's in there. I am very happy with Flash II otherwise. (Once I get the problems solved.) I will try running Flash II from a blank boot-up, then try it, in case there is something messing it up. I'll let you know. Billy B. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 101 Sun Apr 18, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 13:51 EDT Billy, What's worse, is that the LF character is still there if you turn off display of CR and control characters in the capture buffer. It has been mentioned by many of the Beta Testers and hopefully will be adressed. Ohhhhh John......see it's not just me! :-) Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 102 Sun Apr 18, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 14:46 EDT Clar, To be honest, I haven't played around with the Capture Buffer memory settings all that much. I did when I first got it, but haven't even looked at that in a long time. I'll check and see what mine is doing. I do believe that Aladdin still won't work with Silent Line installed. John knows about my reservations concerning Silent Line. I truly despise the double boot it uses. CodeHeads, and other have reset-proof applications that don't require a double boot and I wish Silent Line would be brought up to those standards. As you can probably tell I don't usually install Silent Line on my setup. :-) Only use it when I'm testing it out. Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 103 Sun Apr 18, 1993 C.HAYWARD [Clar] at 19:49 EDT C.EVANS5 I had the same problem until I changed the page width in my CIS profile from 80 to 72. You might try and see if it works for you. R.CARPENTE18 WAYNE.D I had never used Silent Line and I probably won't use it in the future unless it works with ZMODEM. It's just that I was installing 2.1 and "took a look". Clar ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 104 Mon Apr 19, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 02:00 EDT Gee... How'd all you folks know I'm out of town this week and unable to quickly answer your questions? :-) Can't win for trying! I guess I shouldn't complain too much since I'm in Las Vegas for a week. Of course, I'm spending more time in meetings and on the convention floor than I am gambling!!! Anyway, with my trusty Stacy in hand, let's see if I can't answer some of these questions for you... Billy... Your first problem isn't a problem! The LF character is supposed to be there. If you don't want to see it go to Options|Editor and click on the button called "Display Control Characters". When the button is no longer selected, you won't see the little "bells" anymore. BTW (this is for Wayne too), the LF character *has* to be there for proper ASCII text formatting. What we're looking at for a future version is an option that will _hide_ the LF character which will also make it non-editable (the CR and LF characters would then be handled in pairs which is what most word processors do). However, we won't be eliminating it. That would be non- standard. Regarding your second problem, I have no idea at all where the "DZ @DZW" response is coming from. If you are using Edit/Dial Boards for connecting to this board, go to "Edit Boards" for the board in question (under the "Phone" menu) and click on the MACRO button. Check to see if there's anything in the "Auto" macro line. If there is, erase it. Whatever is in this line is activated as soon as you connect. If you *aren't* using Edit/Dial Boards and just dialing out manually, then I'm stumped. Regarding "Filter Escapes" - as far as I know that is working just fine. In version 2.1, "Filter Escapes" only filters out escape sequences, not control characters. Are you confusing the two, perhaps? In our next release we're changing the "Filter Escapes" to "Filter Non-ASCII" which will get rid of both the escapes sequences and control characters (except for the CRLF pair, if they exist). Wayne... Well, I guess that Zmodem example was a bad one. However, if "Autostart" is turned off for Zmodem options, then you could use the example I gave. Perhaps a better example would have been to use "dl xm" for xmodem downloads. See? That's what happens when I rush through replies just hours before leaving on a business trip! Clar... I can't imagine why your Capture Buffer memory setting is switching from USER to ALL and getting reset to 128k. We've had no other complaints about a problem like that and I regularly set my capture memory options on all three Atari computers. Try selecting HALF and see what happens. Ah - I just read your second message. So the problem only exists when trying to set capture less than 512k. Perhaps there is a problem that I'm not aware of. I'll have to check into that. Thanks. Silent Line and Aladdin do not get along at all. You can not use Aladdin when SL is loaded into the system. We've tryed to figure out a way around the problem, but so far we haven't been able to. Generally, if SL is loaded but F2 is not run before Aladdin, then everything is ok. But once F2 runs, Aladdin gets locked out of the port. We're continuing to work on the problem and perhaps we'll come up with a solution eventually. Sorry about that... Michael... Glad you like the Flash II demo. I believe the information on ordering appears at the end of the read.me file that came with the demo. In any case, to upgrade you need to send me your old F1.6 master disk. I'll send it back to you with a new disk and manual, etc. for F2.1. The cost is $30 + $4 shipping (USA & Canada). Send the stuff to: Missionware Software 354 N. Winston Drive Palatine, IL 60067-4132 Regarding the CIS Vidtex problem, I hadn't noticed that with our production version. It's possible that a problem exists in the demo that we're not aware of. I'm on CIS regularly and hadn't noticed this. You may want to double check and make sure that both your CIS options and F2 terminal options match. In other words, if you've got CIS set to a page height of 24 lines, make sure that F2 is also set to 24 lines. Other than that, everything should work ok. Clar makes a valid point also. Make sure that the CIS page width is set to something less than 80. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 105 Mon Apr 19, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 03:26 EDT Wayne and Billy, I need to make a confession. (Sorry, John!) I became annoyed at the display of those bell characters when I first saw them as a beta tester and switched to STeno as the word processor of choice while using F2. Using a DA like STeno also makes everything simple, because you don't need to worry about the F2 buffer. Al ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 106 Mon Apr 19, 1993 R.NELSON48 [Grouch (:{] at 23:05 EDT ~~~~Brian.... Fooy Patooy! Yes, I have printed out reams of BBS Q & A and tried to read the manual twice keeping in mind that if all else fails then RTFM. The Manual is good for setting up, but use I think must come from practice. So a practicing I be, this message written off line in Aladin. Captured yours the same way. Only thing is, I don't know what you were replying to when you wrote me. Grumble Mumble. -=-=-= Grouch (:{ =-=-=- ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 107 Tue Apr 20, 1993 C.KERNS [Craig] at 00:14 EDT I've been trying out the Demo of Flash II because I'm looking for something that will do VT102 emulation for a system I call. After setting up the Function keys for the escape sequences I needed, every thing worked well expect for two items. First, the Enter key on the keypad seems to be sending out the same sequence (Esc O s) as the numeric keypad '3' key instead of Esc O M (I set up a function key so I could get around this for trialing the Demo). Second, every so often the screen would reverse from black text/white background to the reverse and then later change again. Can't remember if it was at the same spot on the system I was using, but thought it kind of unusual. I'm using ST high res, BTW. Overall the program seemed to work smoothly, and I would consider buying it. -Craig ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 109 Wed Apr 21, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 01:37 EDT Craig... We discovered a bug in 2.1 (which also affects the demo) in regard to the "Enter" key for VTxxx emulation. We've already got that fixed in our latest beta. Although the version we're still shipping, 2.1, has the bug, there'll be a free upgrade available for everyone to fix that and a couple of other things found as well. The upgrades will be uploaded here or you'll be able to send your 2.1 master in for a free upgrade. Once everything is done, we'll start shipping the fixed version. I've not aware of any problems with the screen switching back and forth between negative/positive displays. Perhaps that was only a glitch you experienced? I hope so! :-) John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 110 Wed Apr 21, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 20:39 EDT >BTW (this is for Wayne too), the LF character *has* to be there for >proper ASCII text formatting. What we're looking at for a future >version is an option that will _hide_ the LF character which will >also make it non-editable (the CR and LF characters would then be >handled in pairs which is what most >word processors do). Hiding the LF character would be fine. Perhaps make that another option along with CR in the capture settings. Either giving a seperate button to LF's, or making the CR setting into a CR/LF setting. No other terminal program or word processor has had the LF character "there". For instance in the sentence that begins "No other terminal......" if I were to mark the block in the capture buffer it would be " No other terminal.....", whereas in every other terminal program or word processor I've ever used the is not there. As you state, the CR/LF are usually handled in pairs which sounds fine to me. I really don't see a lot of use for the LF by itself so it would work fine being paired with the CR character IMHO. >Well, I guess that Zmodem example was a bad one. However, if >"Autostart" is turned off for Zmodem options, then you could use the >example I gave. Perhaps a better example would have been to use "dl >xm" for xmodem downloads. I forgot about having the autostart shut off. You're correct that it should work as you described if autostart was off. But why would anyone turn it off? :-) --------- Al, Shame on you! :) The bell (LF) does annoy me, but not to that extent. Until they "fix" that I leave the CR and escape character turned on so I don't forget to pull the LF before uploading or saving a block. -------- Craig, RE: the screen flip-flop on color. You aren't using a screen saver that flip-flops the screen in the same manner you're seeing are you? I wonder if it's the screen saver kicking in for some reason? Were you doing any typing or mouse movements during that time? If not maybe that's the "culprit"? Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 111 Thu Apr 22, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 09:07 EDT Wayne and John, When F2's editor works like a regular editor, more users will take advantage of it. If this ain't a forest-for-the-trees situation, I don't know what is. There's no reason odd characters need to show up in the text, especially at the beginning of lines. :) Al ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 112 Thu Apr 22, 1993 J.ROGOZINSK2 [Rogo] at 18:50 EDT >Until they "fix" that I leave the CR and escape character turned on >so I don't forget to pull the LF before uploading or saving a block. > I am having problems with this CR and LF thing. It seems when I type a message or do an Email on line the message/Email is sent double spaced. How to I get single spacing not double? What and where are the correct settings? I also have tried to send an acsii block from the capture buffer and nothing happens. What am I missing here? And what does "...so I don't forget to pull the LF before..." mean? === Joe Rogo === Thursday, April 22, 1993 6:30 pm ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 113 Fri Apr 23, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 01:24 EDT I think it was here about a week ago that someone posted a message regarding a problem with the B2 bell function. It apparently caused a script to hang whenever the B2 command was processed. Could whom ever posted that message please send me the script in email so that we can check out the problem? We've done some tests and couldn't find a problem, so it may be directly related to a sequence of script commands or something else unusual. If the script isn't too long you could post it here as well. Thanks. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 114 Fri Apr 23, 1993 TOPNOTCH at 04:37 EDT What is the current version of Flash II? How do I upgrade? Rick ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 115 Fri Apr 23, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 19:32 EDT Rogo, You probably have the CR -> CR+LF turned on for SEND in the terminal options dialog. You should only need it at most for receive and possibly not even for that depending on how the host you're calling handles this. At the very least turn off the SEND portion so you aren't sending a CR and LF for every line, the host is handling the LF for you which is why you're getting an extra line feed (double spacing) On the ASCII uploads, take a look under the transfer menu, and select ASCII. Then take a look at the ASCII options. There are several things there that might be causing the problem. Most likely you want the prompting off, and if you have a fast modem you may want to put a 1 or 2 second line pacing in. You should enable DC2/4, and strip line feeds. That should enable you to do ASCII uploads. The "so I don't forget to pull the LF before...." is when I mark a block there's a line feed character at the beginning of the line and I pull it out. If I shut off the viewing of the control characters I can't see it and forget to do it. :-) Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 116 Fri Apr 23, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:42 EDT Wayne... Well, like I said, we're definitely going to be taking a look at the handling of the CRLF characters in the next full upgrade. There'll be some sort of option included for this. At the same time, we need to keep the editor capable of editing everything, so with the help of you guys (and gals), we'll get something figured out! :-) Al... Although I don't want to take up a lot of space here debating the F2 editor, there are reasons why it is the way it is. I'll be the first to admit that having to worry about the LF and CR characters can be a bit annoying, although I've personally gotten used to it. The F2 editor was designed to be an edit-anything editor. That means it can edit binary files as well as text files. It can also load and edit GIF files. These types of files must be displayable in the F2 editor and since they do include the LF and CR characters as a part of their code, we have to be able to display them for editing. Ideally what we need to do is create two edit modes - one for text and one for binary files. That should solve our problem. Paul and I have discussed this extensively and although we didn't have time to make the changes in 2.1, we are planning on making changes for the next major upgrade. It's at the top of my list. Regarding Zmodem autostart - I agree - I wouldn't want to shut autostart off either! :-) Rogo... Chances are the double-spacing of your uploaded text has nothing to do with the CR LF discussion. There's an ASCII upload option called "STRIP LINEFEEDS". Make sure that is turned on. Many BBS' expect to see only the CR character at the end of a line. The BBS translates the CR into a CRLF. If you also send an LF then spacing between lines gets doubled. I use block uploads all of the time. What kind of problem are you having? I mark the block in the capture using either the function keys or the mouse, then switch back to the terminal screen and enter "ul bl as" in the command line. The block gets sent and everything is ok. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 117 Sat Apr 24, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 00:50 EDT Rick... The current version of Flash II is 2.1. If you had registered your previous version with us (2.0 or 2.01) you should have received it already. If you never registered your copy just send in your blue registration card. Make sure you include the serial number off of your master disk, and put a note on the card asking for the 2.1 upgrade. Once I receive your card, I'll send you out a new disk. Coming Home... I'll be heading back home tomorrow from my business trip in Las Vegas so things so be back to normal soon. Thanks for putting up with the tardiness of my replies. And mucho thanks to Wayne for helping answer questions here. In case you all didn't know, Wayne is one of our top beta testers and manages to fill in during those times that I'm busy with something else. Wayne's done a good job of answering questions this week, so could we hear a round of applause? John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 118 Sat Apr 24, 1993 R.WATSON15 [Wayne Watson] at 03:10 EDT I downloaded the demo and it Flash 2 looks good. One thing though, does Flash 2's REVIEW feature allow use of VT52 codes? It filters out the ESC character and thus no VT52 effects. I have VT52 selected as terminal type. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 119 Sat Apr 24, 1993 TOPNOTCH at 13:48 EDT John, I'm still at 2.0 so I'll need to upgrade. I'm fairly sure that I registered but it might be under my old address. I'll E-Mail you my info so you can double check it for me. (If you wouldn't mind) Thanks, Rick ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 120 Sat Apr 24, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:46 EDT Wayne... Yes, you can review VT52 as well as all of the other emulations. I guessing that the reason the F2 demo is filtering out the escape sequences is that FILTER ESCAPES is turned on in Terminal Options. This is a feature that can be set globally or for any specific board. Rick... I'll look for your email and reply there. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 121 Sun Apr 25, 1993 R.NELSON48 [Grouch (:{] at 01:58 EDT Woaah I'm becoming conversant with Aladdin Lag. I remember sending you mail about a reply where I didn't remember what you were replying to, now I read another message that makes me think we are having a conversation, but once again I've lost the topic. Yes! Flash II is usefull, I like it. Yes, Aladdin good. GEine big, lots o' messages. Still trying to catch up. Once again, thanks for the reply, I'll bug you later when I have a point to make. Right now I'm just browsing the board off-line. Who knows when this will be posted. Written 10:30am PDT 4/23/93 -=-= Grouch (;{ =-=- ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 122 Sun Apr 25, 1993 R.WATSON15 [Wayne Watson] at 11:47 EDT John, I finally figured out what I was doing wrong in the demo for viewing ANSI, VT52, etc. I loaded in an ANSI file with the extender .ANS and the review worked good. I couldn't understand why it wouldn't do VT52 and so I decided to change the ANSI file's extender to TXT and it would NOT review it properly. This leads me to believe that Flash 2's review is tied into the extender of the file you load in. If this is the case, I believe it needs to be changed to where you can display a file using what you have set in the Terminal section. I would like to look at my VT52 screens for my BBS BUT, they have the TXT extender. PLEASE consider changing this. It would be a pain to rename them for viewing and then rename them back so the BBS will find them. BTW, what is the extender for VT52? ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 123 Sun Apr 25, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 12:27 EDT John, That would be a good solution. Al ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 124 Sun Apr 25, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:24 EDT Wayne... BINGO! You win the prize of the day, which is... (well, uh, there's no prize of the day! :-) ) Yes, the extension you save a capture under is very important for review purposes. As you found out, review won't work right with the wrong extension. That's why F2 automatically chooses an extension for you when you go to save the capture to a file. It's trying to force you to use the proper one! Naturally, you can override it as long as you are willing to lose the review options. (Of course, all you need to do rename the file with the proper extension and that solves that problem too.) The extension for VT52 is "052". Your proposition creates a bit of a problem. If Terminal Options selects the type of emulation and someone decides to review a file using something other than that emulation, then what happens? Believe me, we spent a lot of time mulling over this situation and we decided that the best way to handle this was the extension method. I'll talk to the author about it again though. Perhaps a solution would be to use the Terminal Options emulation when loading in a file without one of our default extensions. If a file is loaded with a default extension, then override the default with that. Tis never easy! :-) John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 125 Mon Apr 26, 1993 R.BINGHAM2 [Da Sloth] at 01:12 EDT Hope the fix to the RUBOUT bug in the type ahead buffer will be in the next update! ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 126 Mon Apr 26, 1993 R.WATSON15 [Wayne Watson] at 05:27 EDT John, If the user chooses the wrong emulation, then all he would have to do is choose the right one. The problem I have with it is that I do not have the control over this situation. I can understand your problem with dealing with different types of emulation but, I feel the user should have some control over this. To have the program determine and regulate what you see by an extension is to take away control from the user. It would be great if you did allow an option in this. It would be better if, when you load a file with an extension (ANS for instance), then the program would automatically switch to the proper terminal settings BUT, the user user could also flip over to the terminal screen and change it if they want. This would give the user the control over what he wants done and also offer an automated switch to what Flash thinks is the proper emulation. The loading of this kind of file would go something like... 1. Load in a file with ANS extension. 2. Flash 2 switches to ANSI emulation and IBM character set. 3. File had wrong extension so user goes to terminal mode and selects VT52 and Atari character set. This would override Flash's auto-set of emulation. The above may be an exageration as a VT52 file is not normally named with the ANS extension but, I think you get what I am saying. You could replace the above with TXT and the action Flash takes for TXT files. Just allow the user the choice to override. I just like to have control when possible. If I KNOW the file is actually a VT52 or whatever text file, then I ought to be able to set it so that it will review it properly. Thanks for listening. I will be sending in my update soon. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 127 Mon Apr 26, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:24 EDT Sloth... Yup - the RUBOUT bug in the TA is already fixed. I'm waiting for a 2.11 version from the author, and once it passes muster with our beta testers it'll get uploaded here. Hopefully I'll have that version in a few days. Wayne... I've already passed on your suggestion to Paul Nicholls. I don't see any major problem in implementing it. I doubt that the change will occur in version 2.11 discussed above, however, it should happen in the 2.2 version we're also working on that will address MultiTOS and the Falcon. Thanks. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 128 Tue Apr 27, 1993 B.STOREY [Billy B.] at 07:05 EDT Perhaps developers should consider setting a standard for naming of extenders? It really shouldn't matter what the developer wants the program to look for. If everyone uses the same extender for the same data, it should work out nicely in the future. There is a finite limit to the possibilities for extenders, but if totally different applications use the same extender it shouldn't present a problem. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 129 Wed Apr 28, 1993 M.SCHOEDEL [Michael] at 23:20 EDT I seem to be having trouble where proper colors are concerned. When in VT VT52 mode, green comes out as a dark, unreadable blue. ASNI gives only red and b red and blue, and not always in the correct order. I've seen some of the ANSI BBSes on a PC, and what's red comes out as white, green is blue, yellow is red, etc.. I have an old 520ST with TOS 1.0 and 512K. I run nothing else due to memory restraints. Could this be from my old machine, or is the program a little "off"? Dialing and file transfers work well, I'm pleased to report. Michael ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 130 Thu Apr 29, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 18:45 EDT Micheal, Are your colors set up stock as they come on the desktop if you don't have a Desktop.inf? If green is coming out as a dark unreadable blue, I'd bet that your background color on the desktop is a dark blue? If I recall, (I don't use VTxx because it slows things down on any setup) the 4 standard colors on a medium res desktop are white, black, green, and red in that order. I may have white/black flip-flopped, and green/red flip-flopped also. As you can tell I don't use color very much, I usually use monochrome for everything except for graphics games. Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 131 Thu Apr 29, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 23:11 EDT Michael... What Wayne said... The trouble with ANSI color emulation on an ST is that there are really only 4 colors to fool around with - at least in medium resolution, and two of those include black and white. You may have to fiddle with your system color palette a bit to get the colors to work right for you. Flash II uses the colors that are available in the system for these emulations. BTW, what version of F2 do you have? If you don't have version 2.1 you need to upgrade. Version 2.1 does a better job at trying to guess what colors to use and generally defaults to just black and white if there is no good combination. 2.1 is a free upgrade. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 132 Fri Apr 30, 1993 J.GERMAN3 [Hydraxxus] at 00:46 EDT John, In regards to sound support, I was hoping for something that would be configurable or would have different sounds for different events, ala FZDS Term I had been a longtime user of that program and the only thing I miss is the sounds it uses. I like to know when my download is done correctly or if there has been a problem. I could write a .DO file, but the only sound support is a bell or a continuous bell. I think this is about the only contribution I can make towards improving your already impressive work. I use it for all of my telecoms and enjoy it very much. BTW I have shown it at a users meeting and got a few good responses. Hopefully everyone will see things my way ;) -Hydraxxus- ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 133 Sat May 01, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 00:49 EDT Hydraxxus (BTW - just what does that interesting handle of yours standfor?)... Well, you'll be happy to know that we've added extra sound support to our ever- growing list of enhancements for future versions. I have no idea what form that sound support will take at this time, or even when we'll try adding it to the program, but it's now on our official list. That's always a good sign! :- ) I can definitely see the benefit of having different "tunes" available for different functions and that really shouldn't be too hard to do (just have to start practicing my Dosound() commands again). I'm glad to hear you like the program. If any of your user-group friends have any questions, please have them ask. I'll try to get an answer back ASAP. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 134 Sat May 01, 1993 B.STOREY [Billy B.] at 09:17 EDT John, just a thank-you note. Thru your assistance and guidance, here and in e- mail, I have managed to get Flash II working very nicely. This is an excellent program. There are a few minor enhancements I would like to see in coming versions, and I have seen you taking notes, so I expect that in time we will have all the bells and whistles buttoned down tightly. Good job! Thanks again! Billy B. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 135 Sun May 02, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 13:43 EDT Sounds good Billy... Glad that I was able to help. And don't forget to drop into the RTC this coming Wednesday where we'll be answering even more questions and looking for suggestions. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 136 Tue May 04, 1993 M.MASTALER [Mike] at 18:27 EDT John, Love the new update. BUT..... I can't seem to upload files on genie. I choose [xmodem CRC ] , then try the uplaod, but the upload prompt says "waiting for NAC" , then error. I tried to send via xmodem CRC , it as an xmodem and Ymodem, to no avail. Any suggestions Thanks. Mike ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 137 Tue May 04, 1993 M.SCHOEDEL [Michael] at 22:37 EDT John, I have version 2.1 of F-II. My desktop is stock, meaning good old green. It's a real mystery. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 138 Wed May 05, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 19:35 EDT Mike... Check to make sure that you've got your Xmodem options in Flash II (for your GEnie setup) set to: Pad Last Block Ctrl-Z Checksum CRC16 Timing Loose Batch Mode Off Block 128 More than likely you've got Block set to 1K instead of 128. If that doesn't help, let me know and we'll try again. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 140 Sat May 08, 1993 B.MENAGH [Bill] at 16:02 EDT I had asked previously about a problem with F2: my system would crash when I went to dial - the dial screen would appear, I would select my choice and the mouse arrow would appear, flicker and upon moving the mouse, I would get 4 bombs. It was suggested that I re-install F2 and check other ACCs and AUTO programs. I have re-installed, F2 worked once then crashed on the second try. I have not yet tried the various combinations of other programs because of lack of time. Perhaps this month. I am using a Mega4ST with Warp9 Maxifile, Rambaby (not run with Silentline),Multidesk, Neodesk, SLM804, Cal63, Superboot8, Datadiet (with appropriate F2 files not dietized), JAR10, LGSelect, TOS14FX2, Are there any suggestions which one(s) I might check on first? Any help appreciated. Bill ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 141 Sat May 08, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 20:09 EDT Bill, Try shutting everything in the AUTO folder off. The only things I see in your Auto folder that are things I don't have are SLM804 which I assume is a program to set the screen dump to work with an SLM804 or something, and Datadiet. I'd un-dietize any boot files, and any F-2 files and shut that off also. I have a Meag4st and can assure you it does work with that computer. :) What TOS version are you running? I'm running Tos 1.04. Also concerning Datadiet you say "with appropriate F2 files not dietized". What exactly does that mean? Are you dietizing some of the F2 files that you feel are appropriate? If I had to guess which program(s) are causing the trouble I'd have to say Datadiet, then Rambaby, then SLM804. All the others I either do, or have run with F2. Of course others may use one or more of those on my list and be able to confirm or deny my suspicions. With the suite of CodeHead programs you are running I'm surprised you aren't running the CodeHead ramdisk. It's a great ramdisk and the one I use. Just an FYI. :) Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 142 Sat May 08, 1993 BRIAN.H [ST~SysOp] at 21:27 EDT I think this is my first question in this topic. I have been increasing my usage of Flash II and use it frequently when editing stuff, such as RTC. Ok, what I have seen happen twice was I get part of a message and not the rest. Like this: > ************ >Topic 15 Sun Oct 25, 1992 >E.BAIZ at 08:53 EST >Sub: AMBERSTAR for the ST > >An excellent Role-Playing game for the ST. > >1 new messages. > ************ > ------------ >Category 9, Topi That's it! What am I NOT Flash II doing wrong? Brian ... Written on Saturday 08 May 1993 at 09:55 p.m. ADT More questions to follow. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 143 Sun May 09, 1993 CBARRON at 03:09 EDT Brian, is your modem using the same flow control as you tell FII to use? My genie terminal is setup as distributed on the originals. No text lost in capture if flow control matches up. No text loss with proper flow control for ages, in any tos I used 1.0,1.06,3.06.... ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 144 Sun May 09, 1993 BRIAN.H [ST~SysOp] at 11:04 EDT CBarron, Problem is it is an occasional thing. Not a regular occurrence and it works with STalker, Stealth and Aladdin. I use the "none' setting. Besides, isn't flow control more important for uploads, my problem is missing text while doing some "bro". Thanks for the suggestion. Brian ... Written on Sunday 09 May 1993 at 10:50 a.m. ADT ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 145 Sun May 09, 1993 B.STOREY [Billy B.] at 11:13 EDT I have gotten Flsah II working extremely well, and I like it. I have one little problem I haven't been able to correct: After telling a BBS "G", and disconnecting normally, I have to click on "Terminate call" before proceeding to make another call. Otherwise the "Dial boards" option is greyed out. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 146 Sun May 09, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 17:03 EDT Bill... There should be no problems at all with any of the CodeHead products. I use many of them myself and F2 always coexists well with them. Although this shouldn't cause a problem, there is no need to use TOS14FX2 with Flash II from version 2.01 on. If F2 is the only serial port program you are using, then you can boot up without the program. F2 handles internally what TOS14FX2 does. I'm not familiar with "Rambaby", although I'd guess it's a ram disk. I'd try eliminating that to begin with. I assume that Cal63 is a Calculator DA. I'm not familiar with that either, so that's a good possibility. I assume you've got our latest release, 2.1, correct? If not, you should get it. If you are registered you should have received it automatically by now. What bothers me is why the program would run once, then crash from that point on. Do you have to reinstall F2 to get it to run again, or will it run again *1 time* after rebooting your system? If that's the case then it's possible that Data Diet is causing some sort of contention. Let us know what you discover. Thanks. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 147 Sun May 09, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 19:11 EDT Brian, What version of Flash II are you using? In the initial release version certain characters being received could lock up the port and nothing could get in. It was fixed in subsequent releases. Other than that the only things I can think of is GEnie lag during peak times,(i.e. are you waiting long enough for the rest of the text) and the size of the capture buffer you have set. You can set Flash II to use all available ram, or tell it to only take a portion of available ram for the capture buffer. Maybe you're buffer is full? ----------- John, RE: Bill's troubles..... You can eliminate Cal63. I use it all the time and there's no trouble. You are correct in that it's a calendar utility, but that description doesn't do it justice. It's the best one I've ever seen. I have all my important dates set up in it. Another bonus is you can have Cal set HotWire alarms for an event when it comes up. I have everything from TV programs I want to watch, to trash and recycling day set up in it and it reminds me of these and other important events like ....... Mothers Day! (gotta call Mom later) It's shareware and in the libraries. Well worth the look for a busy person such as yourself. Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 148 Sun May 09, 1993 BRIAN.H [ST~SysOp] at 19:27 EDT Wayne, The latest version direct from John about three weeks ago. If I hit "y" I normally get the reply command. Therefore, GEnie should be sending but I am not getting it. It probably isn't F2 but if it isn't then I don't know what it is. No difference in time of doing it either; near empty buffer or not. Thanks anyway. Brian ... Written on Sunday 09 May 1993 at 08:27 p.m. ADT ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 149 Sun May 09, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 20:00 EDT Wayne and Bill... I'm pretty sure that the SLM804 program that Bill is talking about is the Diablo Driver/Emulator used to redirect parallel port stuff to the SLM. Although I don't use the driver regularly, I do use it enough with F2 to be pretty sure it's not the problem. Brian... Gee - that's really strange. I'm not sure what you are doing wrong, if anything. Many moons ago we had some strange problems similar to what you've described, but that was in our first release, 2.0. What emulation are you using here? It should be TTY. You may also want to check and make sure that you've got 7 Bit Control and Character codes set. These settings are all found in Terminal Options. When this happens, have you noticed whether or not data continues to be received at the modem? If it is still coming in but nothing is displayed, then it sounds like the serial port hung. Try pressing the [Clr Home] key to reset the terminal. Also, what baud rate are you using? Are you splitting your data rates? This is what Carl was hinting at. For example, if you always connect to your modem at a higher data rate than the modem connects to GEnie, then you *must* have RTS/CTS activated in RS232 Options. Data will get lost otherwise. Some modems permit connecting to them at, say 9600, while they then negotiate the highest rate possible with the BBS' modem. Billy... You're telling the BBS you are disconnecting, but you aren't telling F2. If you use DCD Connect, then that happens automatically when the NO CARRIER string is seen in the terminal. (The modem toggles the DCD line which tells F2 that you've disconnected.) However, if you are using STRINGS to connect, then until you tell F2 to disconnect, it won't. The best way to handle this is through a simple macro. You said this board needs a 'G' for "goodbye". Let's say the last thing the board says before it disconnects is "So long from XYZ BBS!". Write the following macro and stick it in, say, the F10 key for that board: >LI ON|G|>WA BBS!|>HG| What that does is turn LIst mode on (for troubleshooting), sends the 'G' for goodbye, then waits until the final goodbye string is received from the BBS. When F2 sees that, it does the HG (hangup) command which terminates the board for you. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 150 Sun May 09, 1993 BRIAN.H [ST~SysOp] at 22:06 EDT I have the correct emulation and control. I haven't got an error correcting modem this could be the problem. I know to well not to blame any one program and thus it is important for people to realize it could be F2, GEnie or more probably me [grin]. Brian ... Written on Sunday 09 May 1993 at 11:05 p.m. ADT ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 151 Sun May 09, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:51 EDT Wayne... Gee, we're criss-crossing our answers back and forth! :-) That's ok though - you might come across something that I didn't, or vice versa. Sure is nice having you around to help! BTW, Brian has version 2.1. He just purchased it. FB on Cal63. I won't worry about that one anymore. Thanks. Oh, it's a "calendar" accessory - I thought it was a "calculator" accessory - or did I say calendar. Whatever! :-) John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 152 Mon May 10, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 19:27 EDT >FB on Cal63. I won't worry about that one anymore. Thanks. Oh, it's a >"calendar" accessory - I thought it was a "calculator" accessory - or did I >say calendar. Whatever! :-) Hmmmm maybe you did say Calculator, but my brain read it as Calendar? At any rate, check it out I think you'll like it. I never thought I needed a Calendar/alarm accessory but now I don't know what I'd do without it. My computer now reminds me of things instead of having 50 bazillion post it notes stuck all over my desk. :) Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 153 Mon May 10, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 19:39 EDT Brian... Ah! Without an error correcting modem it's very possible that some line noise received by F2 is causing it to get hung. Pressing the [Clr Home] key should definitely clear that up if that's the case. You might also switch to the capture buffer and turn on "Display Control Codes" in Options|Editor. Look for any weird symbols (other than the "bell" characters which are line feeds, or the "cr" characters which are carriage returns). You can translate those weird symbols into control characters by using the chart in Appendix B of the Flash II User's Manual. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 154 Wed May 12, 1993 B.WILLIS3 [Bill] at 22:25 EDT How about this one... I've got drive C opened a few directories deep on the desktop, and I decide to load Flash II via a function key. (TT030) The Flash II files are at E:\FLASH\. Flash II loads, but it can't find its defaults. If I open a file selector, it goes to that drive C path I was looking at earlier. Is this a known phenomenon? ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 155 Thu May 13, 1993 CBARRON at 02:22 EDT Bill , There are a couple of buttons on the dialog obtaind from the TT's desktop menu item Install application. Set it to look for files in the APPLICATION's folder. It works, FII is called on my TT via F1, plenty of times, regardless of any open windows of the desktop. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 156 Thu May 13, 1993 M.MASTALER [Mike] at 03:57 EDT John . I have v2.1 and wrote to you last week about not being able to upload on genie via X modem. (see message#138 here) I DID have some differ different settings ( Was set to "tight" and "1K" ), so I changed those. However, I'm still not able to upload x modem. Now, with Genie, I have been choosing option 3, [xmodem CRC]. Is that right ? not [xmodem] ? When the status window came up, it said NAK and then ERROR. Any ' suggestions ? MIKE ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 157 Thu May 13, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 23:18 EDT Bill... What Carl said. On the TT you kinda-sorta have to be careful how you've got the Flash II icon configured on the desktop. There are basically two choices: Application and Top Window. If top window is selected, then whatever window is topped is the path that's sent to F2. Naturally, F2 uses this path to try to find it's def and lst files. If it can't find them, it sets up its internal defaults. Use Application for your desktop configuration. The desktop will then pass the path that F2 resides in when it is started up. That should solve your problem. Mike... Sure, you can use GEnie's Xmodem-CRC mode but then you must make sure that F2's Xmodem is also configured to use "CRC16" in that same option dialog. If that is not selected, you'll have a problem if you use the CRC option on GEnie. Naturally, if you decide not to use CRC, then make sure that F2 is configured to not use CRC16 and choose the appropriate GEnie option at upload time. If you continue to have problems, you may also want to check your modem options and terminal options. I've had the best luck using modem options 8N1 (8 databits, no parity and 1 stop bit) and setting the terminal options to use 7 bits for both Control and Character options (this is in the second dialog of Terminal Options - click on More Terminal Options to get to that dialog). John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 158 Fri May 14, 1993 B.WILLIS3 [Bill] at 00:30 EDT Carl & John, Thanks, that makes perfect sense. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 159 Fri May 14, 1993 R.BINGHAM2 [Da Sloth] at 03:28 EDT I've also just developed this problem with Xmodem uploads. It aint the CRC folks. If you wait for GEnie to send its "READY" prompt for your upload you'll notice that instead it says "ADYNPU" and then doesn't send the NAK code at all. Now, whether this is GEnie's fault or Flash 2's I don't know. Pretty strange to get the ready prompt messed up! BTW, I'm in TTY mode. My Xmodem settings are irrelevant, I think, since the problem comes up even before I start doing anything with Xmodem. Hmmm, if Mike was getting the problem last week then it's gotta be Flash 2. [BTW, anyone can try this. Just start to upload any file then tell GEnie not to keep it after you're done.] ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 160 Sat May 15, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 00:29 EDT Sloth... Now I'm confused... :-) You say that a problem _just_ developed with you now trying to do Xmodem uploads? But it had worked fine before? If so, then it can't be F2 - nothing's changed there. If you're getting the wrong prompt from GEnie, but everything else you get from GEnie looks ok, then I'd venture to say the problem is with GEnie and not F2. Then again, I haven't heard of any GEnie problems either... Strange... Your Xmodem settings would be irrelevant if the GEnie prompt is wrong before you even started the upload, but they would be relevant once the upload begins. Your last line has me totally confused. "Just start to upload any file then tell GEnie not to keep it after you're done." Huh? If the file gets uploaded but you then tell GEnie to reject it, that means the upload worked! :-) You can also test uploads in GEmail. Just send mail to yourself and attach a binary file. The GEnie page for doing that is "m200;11". BTW - I just sent myself an email binary file and everything worked wonderfully. No problems either uploading or downloading the file. I did the test with the production version of Flash II, 2.1. (It's been a long week... ) John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 161 Sat May 15, 1993 M.MASTALER [Mike] at 03:59 EDT John. About our Xmodem upload problem; could it be that "Immediate" wasn't ticked ? If you DON't' have immediate ticked, do you have to type in something to START the Xmodem ? I'm used to downloading Zmodem; where you do nothing. Maybe I'm not doing something right... Mike ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 162 Sat May 15, 1993 M.MASTALER [Mike] at 04:09 EDT John. That was the problem !!!! I didn't have "IMMEDIATE" ticked on in the transfer menu! BTW, If one doesn't tick immediate, what command do you use to start the transfer ? Thanks Mike ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 163 Sat May 15, 1993 B.MENAGH [Bill] at 07:42 EDT Thanks for the comments from all those trying to assist with my F2 problems. I'll try the variouis suggestions and report back. Bill ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 164 Sat May 15, 1993 R.BINGHAM2 [Da Sloth] at 12:33 EDT 'Just' means within the last month or two. At least in this case. It worked fine before version 2.1. I *think* this was the first time I tried with the 2.1 version, though. What I meant by the last line was that anyone could test for this bug without fear of cluttering up the library. In fact, I'm gonna go do that now whilest on this DOS clone thing to see if a different program gets the same error. Mike: ALT-G starts transfers up, I errr I'm pretty sure. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 165 Sat May 15, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 20:08 EDT Mike... Ah Ha! Yes, if "Immediate" isn't ticked in the Transfer menu, then you must manually start *any* upload, not just Xmodem. Once your file is preselected in the menu and you are online, you need to press Alt-G to start the upload. So, just to review the procedure: 1) Go to Transfer|Upload. 2) Select file to upload - click on OK in file selector 3) File selector reappears - click on OK again (no file selected in the file name text field) 4) F2 switches to terminal mode... 5) When GEnie sends READY FOR INPUT, press Alt-G to start the upload. There are other methods for doing an upload also. For single files, quite honestly I find it easier to just start the upload manually from the command line. I press the [Insert] key to activate the F2 command line, I then enter UL XM (or whatever protocol desired) and then enter the name of the file in the file selector. When OK is clicked on the transfer starts immediately. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 166 Sun May 16, 1993 R.BINGHAM2 [Da Sloth] at 03:38 EDT Tried uploading on a DOS machine, worked fine. Came back and tried with Flash 2 again and got ADYNPU. It's F2 for sure, or more specifically Flash 2.1. Let's see, I've got TTY mode on, Capture buffer, wordwrap, and rubout all on. I've got good old TOS 1.0 . Everything seems to work fine everywhere else. It's just GEnie's starting of Xmodem uploads (with or without CRC) to the library that doesn't work. Once I hit control-X and abort all the output is fine again. Strange but true. Also rather annoying. What should I send you? ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 167 Sun May 16, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 14:08 EDT Sloth... I'll admit I'm still really stumped here. Are you saying that all text being received by F2 is ok until GEnie sends "READY FOR INPUT" which comes back as "ADYNPU"? If so, that makes absolutely no sense at all. You haven't started (or at least you shouldn't have) the Xmodem upload yet at this point, so why should F2 cause this problem? I'm mystified! :-( Have you tried sending yourself an email upload? If so, does that work? I know you know this, but just in case, remember *not* to have F2 start the upload until after READY FOR INPUT is received from GEnie. If you do the Alt-G thing before that is received, or if you have "Immediate" ticked and activate the upload that way before READY FOR INPUT is received, then most likely the upload will fail. > What should I send you? Oh, how about a hundred bucks or so! :-) Seriously, there's nothing you need to send me - wouldn't do much good. Perhaps you could send me a capture of this mucked up text from GEnie, but even that probably wouldn't prove much. I just really am lost as to why you are having this problem. Doesn't make any sense... Sigh... Has *anyone* else seen this? Any ideas? Any hints? Any help? John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 168 Sun May 16, 1993 R.BINGHAM2 [Da Sloth] at 15:23 EDT Hehe, maybe I should not try to fix the bug and instead sell tickets to pro bug-finders to watch it. You got it. Everything looks fine before the READY FOR INPUT prompt. That prompt comes out as ADYNPU . No C's appear like they normally do when GEnie is trying to get your Xmodem started. Once I hit control-X, though, the 0 frames transmitted and all the rest of the text that follows works fine. I've done this with Flash2's transfer pulldown having only ASCII checked - no files ready at all. Yep, I know that about not starting. (Actually, uploads seem to work just great when you start them early. Or at least they used to. But that's beside the point because I'm not even trying to upload anything and this bug is hitting. If I do try to upload, the Xmodem simply times out.) I thought maybe GEnie was sending some odd control or escape codes out but TTY terminal mode shouldn't care, should it? I'll go check out Emailing files. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 169 Sun May 16, 1993 FB [ST Librarian] at 18:48 EDT Da Sloth, Try setting your RS232 for calling GEnie to 8N1 instead of 7E1. I just tried using the 7E1 and got exactly the same six letters and had to abort the upload. Fred Beckman ST Librarian ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 170 Mon May 17, 1993 R.BINGHAM2 [Da Sloth] at 00:50 EDT Will do. The DOS machine is on N81. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 171 Mon May 17, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 06:57 EDT No, John, it's a stumper. Makes no sense. Are all the params set properly? A mismatch could cause something like this. (Ah, I see Fred confirmed this. Thanks, Fred.) Al ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 172 Mon May 17, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 09:52 EDT Sloth... No, you're correct. TTY mode shouldn't react to any odd control or escape codes. GEnie doesn't send them out anyway (as far as I know) so that's probably a non-issue. (You know, this kinda problem would *only* happen to Da Sloth, right? ) OK - let's attack this from a different perspective. What are your RS232 Options for your GEnie board? I usually use "8N1" at 2400 baud (8 databits, No parity, 1 stopbit). I then strip the 8th bit in terminal options, just to get rid of any strange noise that might occur in transmission on that 8th bit. In Terminal Options, that mode is set by selecting "7 BIT" Control and Character Codes. What type of modem are you using? It doesn't have some automatic mode that switches between 7 and 8 bit data automatically, does it? If it does, perhaps you need to switch that mode off (you'll have to check your owners manual for details). It's possible that when the modem "thinks" that it's about to do a transfer, it's switching databit modes causing F2 to get confused. I'll admit that I know of no modem that does this, but then again I've had customers call looking for help trying to get a modem to work that is totally non-standard. Keep plugging at this Sloth... There's got to be an answer here somewhere! John T. P.S. Just saw Fred's reply - that confirms what I just discussed above. Good luck! ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 173 Mon May 17, 1993 R.BINGHAM2 [Da Sloth] at 16:22 EDT It's the 7E1 and 8N1 difference for sure. I switched to 8N1 and it worked fine. I switched back to 7E1 again and it broke again. I tried switching to 8E1 real quick to try and figure out if it was the bits or the parity, but things freaked out bad at that setting. I also have the 8th bit stripped under terminal options. I'm using an old (5 years maybe?) Supra 2400 baud modem. Not MNP capable by a long shot. Now, why does it work at 8N1 but not 7E1? With the loss of characters, it's probably the parity. Perhaps GEnie is switching parity on me just as it starts to get to the upload? ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 174 Tue May 18, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 10:52 EDT Sloth... Well, alrighty!!! Glad to hear that switching to 8N1 fixes this for you. Yup - 8E1 almost certainly wouldn't work since, in essance, you've switched to a 9 bit word at this point (8 databits and 1 parity bit). I'm not aware of any BBS' that support that. I'm really not aware of any BBS support for 9 bits. 8N1 uses 8 bits - 8 databits and no parity, while 7E1 also uses 8 bits - 7 databits and 1 parity bit. The Supra modem shouldn't have any affect. I think you hit the nail on the nead - GEnie must be switching to 8N1 for the transfer right before it sends the "READY FOR INPUT" message, and since F2 is still in 7E1 mode, things get mucked up. F2 *does* switch to 8N1 for the transfer, but not until you hit Alt-G or start the upload using some other method. Happy uploading! :-) John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 175 Wed May 19, 1993 R.BINGHAM2 [Da Sloth] at 00:44 EDT Hmmmmmm....wonder if it'd work if I started the upload right away.... Ah well, heck with it. GEnie supports 8N1 just fine. &S ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 176 Wed May 19, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 03:25 EDT Yes, John, GEnie (and every other system I know of, including my own BBS) switches to 8N1 for protocol transfers. Al ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 177 Wed May 19, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 18:22 EDT Sloth, It's not all that uncommon to have different parts of a system as large as GEnie with little "glitches" like that. For instance over on Delphi when I was calling under, hmmm forget what system I was calling through (TymNet, or ??) but when I logged onto the node I got gibberish unless I set the terminal to 7E1, but once I got onto Delphi I had to use 8N1 with or without the strip bit on. As I said I don't recall which "net" I was calling through then, but I use TymNet now and it doesn't do that. I know that some transfer protocols require a minimum setup as far as data bits, etc so maybe the code was making some "ass"umptions and due to your setup it was causing the troubles. At any rate it all doesn't matter since you have it working now. :-) Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 178 Sun May 30, 1993 A.B.SMITH [Barry] at 13:36 EDT John- Any idea why sometimes I can't force a marked block to append to another file. I was just appending some recent genealogical messages onto their appropriate files. Two blocks appended readily while the third refused to go to it's file. I finally got it there with a file merge. This has happened before. If I don't hear my HD give a few clicks, then the merge wasn't successful. Any ideas what might be the differance betwwen one block and another or perhaps one file and another? ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 179 Sun May 30, 1993 B.MENAGH [Bill] at 14:52 EDT Thanks to those who, a while ago, offered assistance in my effort to get F2 up and running - F2 always hung up when entering the terminal mode. It was Silentline that was clashing and my problem is now resolved. However, perhaps I am mistaken, but I thought Silentline now ran with ZMODEM. Am I confusing my facts with what is in an intended upgrade. I am now using F2.1. Thanks, Bill ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 180 Sun May 30, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 23:09 EDT Barry.... Nope - there shouldn't be any difference at all between one block and another when appending blocks to a file. I do it myself rather regularly and haven't had any problem. If no error dialogs pop up, everything should have worked just fine. The next time it happens, try remarking the block, changing it by a character or two and see if that helps. The only thing I can think of is that even though the block shows marked, it may not be. We had some block problems in 2.0, but those should be more than gone by now. Bill... Sorry, but Zmodem is not a part of Silent Line just yet. It's being worked on but it's taking much longer than we expected because the code needed to support Zmodem is rather complex and large. Trying to get it all to work in Silent Line hasn't been as easy as we'd hoped for. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 181 Mon May 31, 1993 J.GERMAN3 [Hydraxxus] at 17:44 EDT Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you, I have been away on buisness John, I like the idea of several configurable sounds, but what I have used in the past is GEMSOUND. It is easy to configure the way I like and I can add whatever samples I like (I have a sample cart). Homer Simpson screams when my u/l or d/l is done (when I used that other term program), Kirk tells Scotty to beam him up when I go the the file selector. Sounds like that make it easier and friendlier to use. I can do something similar with the bell on Flash II but it is realy limited because it is only one sound ;( So far the program works well, I would like to see Zmodem work with Silentline (just like everyone else) but other than that I don't have anything to add. - * Hydraxxus * - ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 182 Mon May 31, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 21:38 EDT Hydraxxus... Sounds good (pun intended)! I'll admit that adding sound capability to Flash II is low on the priority list at the moment, but it *is* on the list and we'll get to it eventually. Gee, Homer Simpson screaming (at Bart, I presume) certainly would be different! :-) Hopefully we'll get Zmodem included in Silent Line one of these days. Unfortunately it's been more difficult to do than we anticipated. -------------------------------- On a slightly different topic... (since I've got nowhere else to post this at the moment...) I'm working on an upgrade to one of our other programs, lottODDS, and need some beta testers. If you play your local lotteries and are interested in checking this program out, please contact me in email. I'll only be taking on a few testers at this time. This is the first major upgrade to lottODDS and concerns itself mainly with MTOS compatibility and resolution independancy. I'll be adding more features as time goes on though (in the middle of all of this Flash II stuff we're working on! ). Again, if you are interested, please see me in email - not here. This topic is for Flash II! :-) (Hope Brian does get too ticked about an off topic posting here! :-) ) John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 183 Tue Jun 01, 1993 B.MENAGH [Bill] at 19:41 EDT OOPS! My joy at finding my solution to getting F2 to stop bombing has been short lived. I just rebooted since I thought my difficulty was resolved and 4bombs when I try to dial - the pointer flickers and then bombs when the mouse is moved. I'm back trying the Auto Prgs and Desktop one by one. At the moment, I get a lockup when DATADIET, JAR10, NEOLOAD, WARP9, NEOCNTRL, WARP9_CP are running. The F2 folder is not dietized. All others have been deleted. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 184 Wed Jun 02, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 19:14 EDT Bill... What does JAR10 do? I'm familiar with a cookie jar program that's run as a normal app, but I'm not familiar with a program that runs as a TSR. It's possible there's some conflict with that. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 185 Wed Jun 02, 1993 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 21:47 EDT John, JAR10 is needed by the newer NeoDesk. If I recall it expands the size of the "Cookie Jar". Wayne ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 186 Thu Jun 03, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 07:46 EDT John, Jar is Dan Wilga's Cookie Jar Manager, a freeware item. Here is a section of the Jar doc: ... When Atari documented how to use the Cookie Jar, it outlined how programmers should create new cookies and how to see what value a particular cookie has. Unfortunately, the procedure for doing this is not all that simple. The result was that some programs either go about it half-heartedly, or do not work correctly in all cases. What JARxxx does is take the "dirty work" away and simplify the whole process of using the Cookie Jar. It provides a standard way for programs to look for cookies and create new ones. It also establishes a new jar, as large as you want it to be, for all future programs to use. If you received this program as part of another package, you will probably need it in order for the other program to run properly. NeoDesk, for instance, requires JARxxx, so that it can create a cookie to use later on. Even if you do not have a program which takes advantage of the code in JARxxx to look for and create new cookies, you can still benefit from its ability to enlarge the Cookie Jar, since some programs which create cookies will give an error message when the Cookie Jar is full, rather than making it larger. ... I an send you more info by email. Al ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 187 Thu Jun 03, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 20:36 EDT Al... No need to send more information. I'm aware of how the cookie jar stuff is supposed to work. It sounds like JARXXX is a work-around for programs that are handling the cookie jar in non-standard ways. Sigh... Any registered developer should have the information needed to properly handle this as it was published some time ago in one of the developer newsletter. I can see how NeoDesk might need to handle this separately so that it can properly handle noncompliant programs. In any case, it was only a guess that perhaps this program was causing some sort of contention with Flash II. It should be easy enough to temporarily eliminate it as a check. Flash II does look at the cookie jar at boot up to see if Silent Line is loaded. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 188 Sat Jun 05, 1993 B.MENAGH [Bill] at 15:13 EDT I'm glad that I'm asking questions that provoke some discussion - although into concerns that I had not anticipated. I'm still having difficvulties getting F2 to run without bombing (4 of them) when I move the mouse immediately after going to terminal mode and pressing the mouse button to get the dial directory. The dial screen does not get a chance to appear. I have tried all suggestions from a) reinstalling numerous times; b) getting rid of all Autofolder and ACCs; c) using the Application on the Desktop menu. No luck. Now I have had the program working immediately after a new installation on GEnie and a local service. However, F2 will not even do that now. Thanks for the help from those who have tried. I'll keep working at it from time-to- time. Thanks - Bill. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 189 Sat Jun 05, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 18:44 EDT Bill... Well, if you tried booting F2 on a totally clean system and the program still does this, the only conclusion I can come to is that there is a fault in the program itself. The only way to determine that, I guess, is for you to send the master disk back to me so that I can check it out. Is using the mouse in terminal mode to pop up the Dial Boards dialog the *only* action that causes F2 to crash? If so, then don't do that any more! There's no reason at all why F2 should be doing what it's doing. Perhaps your flash2.lst file has bad data in it? That could cause a problem. Try loading F2 *without* flash2.lst (rename it to something like "flash2.lsz") and see if the program still crashes. If it *doesn't*, then most assuredly you've got a corrupt .lst file. Rebuild a new one from scratch to see if that helps. There may also be corrupted data in the flash2.def file. Do the same test as above to see if that helps. Again, feel free to return your disk. Make sure it includes the .lst and .def file so that I can check them out (erase your passwords from the .lst file first though please). John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 190 Sun Jun 06, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 03:24 EDT Bill, Is the fast-load bit turned off for F2? Are you sure the DESKTOP or NEWDESK information file is not corrupted? Al ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 191 Sun Jun 06, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 18:56 EDT Al... Good point on the desktop/newdesk.inf files. Corrupted files have caused weird problems with other programs. The fast-load bit shouldn't make any difference. I've got all of the usual flags turned on all the time (fast load, Use TT ram, Run in TT ram) without any problems. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 192 Mon Jun 07, 1993 A.B.SMITH [Barry] at 06:34 EDT John- I'm still slightly baffled on this APPEND BLOCK problem. I did some experimenting this morning. The blocks are indeed marked as I can perform other BLOCK functions on them with no problem. I did, just this moment, discover that the problem blocks will append to any file located w/in the same directory. I couldn't get any of them to append to my GENEALOGY/MESSAGES/*.* directory. Strangely enough, the other day when I posted the first message about this problem, some blocks would append to this directory and some would not. Should there be any problem appending to other paths? ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 193 Mon Jun 07, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 21:34 EDT John, Glad to hear that the flags aren't causing a problem. In my current TT setup, the FL bit is the single largest source of conflict -- but then I do a lot of beta testing, with half-finished software. (Not F2, JT!) Al ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 194 Mon Jun 07, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:01 EDT Barry... I'm not aware of any problems appending blocks to any particular path. As I mentioned previously, I've had no problem with this function and no other reports of problems. FWIW, the sample directory you posted is illegal: GENEALOGY/MESSAGES/*.*. "GENEALOGY" contains 9 characters - a path name (or file name) can only contain 8 characters plus 3 extension characters. Subdirectories must be separated by a backslash '\', not a forward slash '/'. My guess is you just typoed this sample directory stuff into your message, however, if you are using the terminal command line to enter the path and filename for an append, then entering this information is extremely important. If you are doing the append from the menu in the editor, using the file selector to set the path, then there shouldn't be any problem. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 195 Sat Jun 12, 1993 JLHOFFMAN [John Hoffman] at 05:24 EDT Hello, I just bought FLASH II and have one area where I'm having problems. This is in uploading ascii. If I select several lines in the capture buffer this is a block. If I then select ascii and upload a dialog comes up asking if I want to upload a file, ?? or block. I select block and nothing seems to happen. I tried different things but nothing would work. Finally I had to save the block to a file and upload the file. So what am I doing wrong. John ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 196 Sat Jun 12, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 17:51 EDT John... There are two ways to upload a block. You tried one of them, but you left out one important detail - actually starting the upload! :-) Whenever you use the "Transfer" menu to start any kind of transfer (upload or download) you either need to have "Immediate" checked or do an Alt-G from the Terminal Screen to start the upload. In your case, you marked a block, went to the Transfer menu, and selected "Upload", "ASCII" and "Block". F2 should have switched to the terminal screen right after selecting "Block". At that point F2 waits for Alt-G (think of it as a "go" command) from you to start the transfer, *unless* "Immediate* is checked at which time it starts the transfer "immediately". The second way to start a transfer is the one I use most often. I upload quite a few blocks in my day-to-day use of F2. I just mark the block in the capture buffer, switch back to terminal mode manually (right mouse button), press the [Insert] key to put me in command mode, and enter "ul bl as". That uploads the block right then and there, with no need to click on "Immediate" or press Alt-G. If you have any other questions, please let me know. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 197 Tue Jun 15, 1993 M.MACLEOD [Mike@Calgary] at 22:44 EDT Is the upgrade special from V1.6 for $30 US still available ? I've been looking all over for about 6 weeks now for my original V1.6 disk and just could not find it anywhere. I'd just about resigned myself to paying full price when I'm cleaning out a closet and I just happened to find a diskette mailer with a label made out to Missionware Software. Suddenly, I remember what I did. Not having any cash at the time but nonetheless hyped over F2 I made mailer up and stuck the disk inside and promptly forgot. :) All I can say is DUH ! MIke ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 198 Tue Jun 15, 1993 R.BINGHAM2 [Da Sloth] at 23:57 EDT Any time frame known for version 2.11 to get uploaded? I'm getting real tired of having to turn rubout off for the type ahead buffer. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 199 Wed Jun 16, 1993 J.TRAUTSCHOL [jtrautschold] at 22:40 EDT Mike... Yup, the $30 upgrade is still available. You also need to add $4 for shipping and handling to North America. Just send me your old disk along with your order and method of payment, and Flash II version 2.1 will be on its merry way to you! :-) Sloth... (You aren't of the "three-toed" variety, are you??? ) 2.11 is in final beta test right now and seems to be passing. Hopefully we'll be uploading it shortly. John T. ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 200 Thu Jun 17, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 07:41 EDT John, Yep, that version is well behaved so far. I'll hammer on it some more today. Al ------------ Category 8, Topic 2 Message 201 Thu Jun 17, 1993 L.BUDNICK [Lorne] at 21:23 EDT OK John, Your response to Mike was the information I was looking for as well. Just give me an address, and my disk and $$ will be on the way to you as well. Lorne.... Thursday June 17, 1993 08:02:28 p.m. ------------