Date: Fri, 19 Sep 86 00:34:12 edt From: Don Barry To: info-kermit@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU In response to your request for evaluations of the existing cyber 170 series kermits, we have installed both kermits at this site (running cdc 855 and 990 m machines). The fortran kermit (from UT) is specific to their system in many ways because they run a homebrew operating system (taurus) instead of NOS. this even has a unique character set, posing formidable conversion tasks. it was done here, but the results were not impressive - inefficient in speed, occasional bugs. A systems programmer wrote a kermit for local use in CDC CYBIL (a high level systems programming language) but it is bug-ridden and of comparable efficiency to UT kermit. If you'd like a copy, he can probably be persuaded to part with one - his address on bitnet is CC100td TD at GITVM1. Overall, the clear winner is Manchester KERMIT in CDC COMPASS. THis is very well written, modular, commented well, and 5 times faster than either of the previous CDC kermits. Its only deficiency is requirement of parity specification at compile time and inability to do 8-bit transfers without quoting. These should be easy enough to add - even without, it is far and above the best-designed kermit for CDC equipment. The CYBIL version, after appropriate debugging and efficiency enhancement, will prove eventually worth supporting, as it will run under NOS/VE without major change, whereas the assembly version will be useless. Don Barry (Chemistry Dept) CSnet: cmpbsdb%gitpyr.GTNET@gatech.CSNET Georgia Institute of Technology BITNET: CMPBSDB @ GITVM1 Atlanta, GA 30332 ARPA: cmpbsdb%gitpyr.GTNET%gatech.CSNET@csnet-relay.ARPA UUCP: ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!cmpbsdb 1-Oct-86 06:19:50-EDT,2416;000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from CUVMA.COLUMBIA.EDU by CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU with TCP; Wed 1 Oct 86 06:19:48-EDT Received: from DACTH51(AB) by CUVMA (Mailer X1.23b) id 1177; Wed, 01 Oct 86 06:17:50 EDT Date: Wed, 1 Oct 86 10:38 AST From: (Jost Krieger RUB) Subject: To: SY.FDC@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU X-Original-To: SY.FDC@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU, AB Subject: Multiple CDC Kermits Concerning your question about multiple Kermit sources for CDC Cyber machines, I see the following situation: On Cybers, there are now three supported operating systems: NOS, NOS/BE (both stone age) and NOS/VE (new,virtual memory). The old Fortran Source you have is supposed to support both old operating systems. (I also developed a derivative that runs under NOS/VE, which I will send shortly, but everyone expects a new OS Revision, which I expect to be incompatible in critical areas, so I'll wait a few weeks. (. And then are those bugs .) ) The new (COMPASS) source only supports NOS, and this is not easy to change in an assembler program. In the area of functionality the Compass program is better, as it supports compression and 8-bit quoting. It also has a better throughput rate, as it is a very small program that can be swapped fast. To add to these complications I hear that there is a Kermit under development at Imperial College London (?) that is supposed to be written in Pascal. Furthermore, under the new NOS/VE is a UNIX subsystem available called VX/VE, that runs C-Kermit with 3 small mods (sys3 version). On all these themes, there has been a discussion on the Cyber-L distribution list (I could forward the relevant entries). A further point was the host of local mods against the distributed Fortran version that need to be consolidated. Finally, what is really needed for Cyber systems is a long packet or window version of Kermit, as Cybers are notoriously slow in forwarding information through front-ends and operating system layers. This is not yet available in any of the listed versions ... (Shoul I have sent this to the list or to your address ?) Jost Krieger Rechenzentrum der Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum Postfach 102148 D-4630 Bochum 1 EARN/BITNET: (currently) AB@DACTH51.BITNET (or) JKRIEGER@DACTH51.BITNET (shortly) P920012@DBORUB01.BITNET 1-Oct-86 10:33:18-EDT,2794;000000000001 Mail-From: SY.CHRISTINE created at 1-Oct-86 10:33:16 Date: Wed 1 Oct 86 10:33:16-EDT From: Christine M Gianone Subject: [SYSKERMIT%vax1.central.lancaster.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk: Multiplicity of CDC Kermits] To: sy.fdc@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU Message-ID: <12243332348.321.SY.CHRISTINE@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU> .... --------------- Return-Path: <@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA,@BRL-AOS.ARPA:SYSKERMIT%vax1.central.lancaster.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk> Received: from MIT-MULTICS.ARPA by CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU with TCP; Wed 1 Oct 86 01:03:56-EDT Received: from BRL-AOS.ARPA by MIT-MULTICS.ARPA TCP; 01-Oct-1986 01:01:22-edt Received: from ucl-cs.arpa by AOS.BRL.ARPA id a005045; 1 Oct 86 0:59 EDT Received: from [128.16.6.9] by mv1.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK via Ethernet with SMTP id aa01074; 30 Sep 86 15:51 WET Received: from 44d.cs.ucl.ac.uk by vax1.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK with SMTP id a002857; 30 Sep 86 15:48 BST Received: from vax1.central.lancaster.ac.uk by 44d.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK via Janet with NIFTP id aa00139; 30 Sep 86 15:28 BST Date: 30-SEP-1986 15:16:01 From: SYSKERMIT%vax1.central.lancaster.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk To: INFO-KERMIT <@cs.ucl.ac.uk,@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA:INFO-KERMIT@cu20b.ARPA> Subject: Multiplicity of CDC Kermits From: Mr. A. O. V. Blanc 30-SEP-1986 13:54 To: SYSKERMIT Subj: Multiple Kermits From: Mr. A. O. V. Blanc To: SYSKERMIT@LANCS.VAX1 Date: Tue, 30 Sep 86 13:55:04 BST Message-Id: <$RWFXCZXKBJKF at UMPA> Subject: Multiple Kermits Dear Dr Phillips, I am writing in response to the question about multiple versions of Kermit in your newsletter number 90. Please forward this information to Columbia. I am the author of the COMPASS version of Kermit. The reason I wrote it was that neither we nor any of the three other CDC sites with whom we are in closest contact were able to make the UT Kermit run on our machines. Because Kermit needs to interface so closely with the operating system, and in this case because it needs to bypass ordinary I/O to gain 'robustness', I chose to write it in COMPASS, the CDC assembler language for all of their 60-bit mainframes. This makes it less portable in a sense, but the UT Kermit, despite being written partially in FORTRAN and partly in COMPASS, is restricted not only to CDC machines but even, it appears, only to those which use certain modifications to the operating system developed in Texas and Arizona. Yours, A. V. Le Blanc UMRCC -------