***************************************************************** The following text file was captured by me as a result of my call to Jim Davis' Retreat (713 497-2306) in Houston, Texas. I went to his board to download GTCTL and GTLOG - two utilities used with GT PowerComm. Jim came on the line to assist as I experienced transmission problems. I took the opportunity to ask questions about GT PowerComm and PC communications. Jim's response is being presented here as an aid to other `Neophytes" to PC communications. << Raymond Wood >> ... In the vernacular of the communications industry, there are a few concepts that need to be understood before understanding 'HOW' is accomplished. For example, the word BAUD. This essentially means 'bits per second'. In fact, it means something a little different than that, but for openers, let's say that's what it means. Now, whenever two machines are going to try to communicate with each other a couple of things have to be done by both. They must both be set to send and receive at the same frequencies, for example. The most often used frequency, today, is 1200 baud. That means 1200 bits per second, as I said before. Well, most users have no idea what bits are involved in a file transfer or a message transfer. Let's look at another standard word: BYTE. There are 8 bits of information contained in a byte. That is, a byte is merely a set of 8 bits. Within a set of 8 bits there are 256 permutations available. From all zeroes to all ones. Each letter in the alphabet and each digit and each other special character is represented by a predetermined set pattern of those 8 bits. A capital 'J' has a different pattern than a lower case 'j', for example. Given that that is true, it is easy to see that no more than 128 of the total possible patterns would be necessary to represent any text. Thus, we have another 128 that may be used for 'special purposes'. What, for example? I'll get to that. The sending of bits (on or off, high or low, in other words binary information) is, by definition, a binary process. That is, the computers need only recognize one of two states. The telephone, on the other hand, carries information that is other than binary. It can faithfully represent different tones, pitch, and volume. This is called analog rather than binary. The almost sole purpose of a modem is to translate binary signals into analog and vice versa. When you are going to send a set of bits across a telephone you will have to convert those binary 'states' into some form of sound (which is, after all, what the telphone is designed to best carry). Modulating a signal from binary to analog is the 'Mo' in Modem. Demodulating an analog signal back into binary is the reverse and is the 'Dem" in Modem. If we want the transmission to be highly reliable then we must do more than simply send the binary information (modulated). We have all heard 'noise' on a telephone line and without doing more than demodulating into bits, the receiver will no doubt have a virtually impossible time of being able to tell what sounds are bits or just plain noise. In some applications, we don't really care all that much. Examples include the transmission of plain text files. Recall that all that was necessary to send any letter, many special symbols and any digit was a capability that required no more than 128 different combinations of bits. 7 bits are sufficient to represent 128 permutations of those bits. That is, if a byte were only 7 bits long then it could contain as many as 128 different sets of bits being on or off). However, a byte is 8 bits long by definition. So, in what is called ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) transmissions we can use the first 7 of those bits to represent data and the 8th bit to represent some form of insurance or integrity check that the first 7 were received as they were sent. This is called using 'PARITY'. You can establish a convention between the sender and the receiver that every byte WILL have an even number of bits (or odd) and use the 8th bit to do so at the sending end. If the receiving end ever gets a byte that has odd parity then it knows that it received the byte in error (some bit or bits were either added or lost). That is all there is to parity checking in an ASCII transmission. Not at all very good, but sufficient for most text. Program files or data files or even text files that have been compressed (ARChived) in some way use all 8 bits in every byte to represent information. So, we have lost the ability to use parity as an integrity check vehicle. Instead, in every protocol other than ASCII we add either one or two full bytes to the end of a 'block' of bytes. The block is a fixed length (usually 128 bytes). The purpose of those one or two bytes is to contain what is called a Cyclic Redundance Check (CRC) character or word. Like parity, the CRC is constructed at the sending end to create a pattern of bits that demonstrates that the preceeding entire block of bytes has been received with integrity. The Receiving end dynamically creates its own CRC from the information received and compares it to the byte or bytes received at the end of a block. If it doesn't match then the block must be rebroadcast (requested by sending to the sender a signal that says: "Negative Acknowledge" - NAK. If it was ok then it sends an ACK - meaning "Acknowledge", and the next block is sent. Now, let's go back to the idea of baud. At 1200 baud, the modems are able to send and receive 1,200 bits per second. How many bits per byte? Yes, 8, but not on a telephone line if you are using modems! Instead, we bracket a byte by sending what is called a start bit before the 8 bits of data and ending with what we call a stop bit (sometimes 2 - at 300 baud). So, every byte requires 10 bits, not 8. Thus, at 1200 baud your maximum possible data transfer rate is 120 characters (bytes) per second! OK. Now we know what we have to send and how many bits are required and that there is something called a response from the receiver called either an ACK or NAK. So why don't we get 120 bytes per second transfers using 1200 baud modems? Well, we already saw that for every 128 bytes of data, in most protocols, we send an additional one or two bytes of CRC. We DO NOT count the CRC byte(s) as data! Yet it takes time to transmit. Also, it takes time for most protocols to turnaround and react to the ACK or NAK. For example, assuming all is well, the sender has a few hundred blocks to upload to the receiver. After the first block is sent he, by convention, must wait for the receiver to analyse the CRC and decide if it is going to respond with the ACK or a NAK. Then it takes a moment to send that to the sender who, in turn, has to receive it, verify that it got here properly (was not just noise) and decide whether to send the next block or to resend to last one that was improperly received by the receiver. That takes time. All time used as described above is called 'overhead'. Overhead does not include the transmission of DATA, only control bits and time. Thus, it is impossible to get to an effective DATA transmission rate of even 118 characters per second let alone 120 (CRC, etc). But, we know that the telephone is capable of carrying sound in both directions simultaneously. So, why should the sender have to wait for the receivers ACK or NAK? This mode of operation is often called 1/2 duplex, by the way. The answer, of course, is that it does so only by convention. Newer protocols do not wait. They assume that a transmission will be successful and will result in getting an ACK. So they go immediately to the task of sending the next block. Always listening, of course, for that ACK or NAK. When it is received as an ACK all is well and we have gained performance. If not, the software has to decide which block or blocks have to be rebroadcast. In order to do that it should be obvious that the ACK or NAK is not simply a single byte. Rather, it includes a byte that is called the packet number (0 to 255), and possibly more information. If an ACK is received the recipient knows which of a series of blocks(packets) it is referring to. Similarly it would know with an NAK. Yep, more bits and more overhead! Well, then let's see if I can get to a few more contemporary terms and information more practical to know at this time. For example, almost nobody uses ASCII transfers any more. Why should they when they are so poorly controlled and when you realize that ONLY un-compressed raw text can be sent with it? Still, a great many first time communications users try to do so. And, while the transmissions will appear to work, the resulting files will be garbage, of course. Only 7 oF the 8 bits are being transmitted in each byte! Many comm programs will allow you to use ASCII even when they should know that the result will be unsatisfactory. For example, if a filename ends with COM or EXE then, again by convention, that file is an executable program. ALL such programs use 8 bits in every byte and could not, therefore, be transmitted via ASCII. Some comm programs will not let you try to do something that stupid (only, of course, to a knowledgeable user). What are the protocols that currently exist in wide spread usage across the country? The most frequently seen is called XMODEM. This protocol is quite reliable (about 96%) and uses blocks of 128 bytes plus one CRC character at the end of every block. It is because it uses only one CRC character that the reliability is only 96%. Another is called XMODEM/CRC. This is exactly the same as XMODEM but it uses two CRC characters. The result is that the effective performance is reduced insignificantly (1/130th), but the reliability is increased to about 99.6%. In any case where you have a choice between the two you would, of course, opt for XMODEM/CRC. Then, and this is particulary true in environments where one of the computers being involved is either a mini or a mainframe, there is a protocol which is called Kermit. I believe it uses 128 byte blocks and other overhead such as a 'header block - block zero' that provides control information. It is also very reliable (99.6% I believe) but it is SLOW!!! It is used only if that is the only protocol available. Then there is what is called YMODEM. This protocol differs from the earlier ones in that it sends 8 - 128 byte blocks together as a 'super block' before it sends the two byte CRC word. As a result it is the fastest protocol that I have ever seen for micro computers that use 'dumb' modems (ie, non self correcting ones). There are two times when one should not use this protocol if there is a choice: 1) when the line noise is great on the telephone (for a retransmission of a 'block' that failed involves 1024+2 bytes even if only one bit was gained or lost). That is a lot of overhead! And 2), in an environment like PC-PURSUIT that involves long duration hand shaking turnaround delays. Another protocol is called Telink. Telink uses 128 byte blocks but has an advantage over the other ones. It results in a file that is exactly the same size and has the same date and time stamp on it as the one being sent. Ymodem, for example, adds to (pads) a block until it is exactly 1024 bytes (the last record) even if that record only contains a few bytes of data. GT PowerComm has a unique protocol called 1kTelink. It is the same as Telink except it uses 1024 byte blocks and is therefore more efficient. Like YMODEM, 1kTelink should only be used on clean phone lines for performance, but unlike YMODEM it can be used on even a short file with efficiency. In the case of GT, and then only if communicating GT to GT, if either YMODEM or 1kTelink experience a set of 6 errors during the transmission of a single file then it will automatically fallback to 128 byte blocks to greatly increase the odds that the transmission can be completed and to greatly increase the efficiency on what is presumed to be a noisy line!!! Neat!!! The BEST protocol at this time for use in a PC-PURSUIT environment is called Wxmodem which stands for 'Windowing Xmodem'. This uses 128 byte blocks but it does not wait between blocks for a response. It is always listening for those ACKs and NAKs, of course. Extremely high performance is the result, relative to Xmodem or the other 1/2 duplex protocols. Wxmodem tries to stay 4 blocks ahead of the receiver at all times while the receiver tries to get 'caught up'. The difference between the block being sent and the most currently received ACK or NAK is called the window (a number between 1 and 4). Then there are two more odd protocols that have become relatively visible of late. These are called ZMODEM and Batch-YAM. ZMODEM was designed for use in a PC-PURSUIT like environment. Like WXMODEM, the best protocol for use in that environment, ZMODEM does not wait for ACKs and NAKs. Unlike WXMODEM, ZMODEM is relatively slow. For one reason, it uses no buffering. Thus every 512 bytes of data it must make another disk access. Batch-YAM is much like YMODEM except that it allows you to specify a set of file names (a 'batch' of them). It is slower than YMODEM except, possibly on PC-PURSUIT. What must a user know to do a file transfer? What protocol is available on BOTH ends of the transmission, the file name of the file on his end and the file name on the other end. That is, if the receiveing end of a transmission already has a file with the name of the file you want to send to it, naturally you will call the new file something else. Thus, every comm program allows the specification of the file name on your end and then the name on the other end. (It is not just an irritant that you 'already' typed that in, it is necessary). Having said that I must make an exception - Telink and 1kTelink. These protocols allow batch names, like Batch-YAM, but the receiving end and transmitting end file names are the same. That's it for now. Wood: I have a few questions. ok? Davis: Sure. Wood: Four to be exact. 1- You mention date/time stamp on one of your protocol descriptions but did not define its use prior to that. What is this and what is it used for? PC-DOS or MS-DOS marks every file with the date and time that file was created or last modified. So, let's say I want to send you a copy of my transmission log that was dated 12/31/86 (by DOS). If I use any protocol other that Telink the resulting file on your end will be dated with the date and time it was created (ON YOUR SYSTEM!) Today, now. Telink creates that file and leaves it on your system with my date and time stamp still intact. When I receive an ARCed file this time/date stamp is in the EXE module somewhere? Davis: It is several places in that example. In the directory record on your disk is the formal residence of the stamp. So, in the case of an ARC file, it has a date and time stamp. Additionally, within the ARC file each record, which is merely another way of saying 'each file within the ARC file', has the date and time that THAT file had in its directory record BEFORE it had been ARCed into the ARC file. When you unARC, the resulting file will not have todays date and time as a stamp but the one recorded within the ARC file for it. Wood: Good, I understand perfectly. I can relate it to what we sometimes do on the mainframe. 2-You mentioned padding with YMODEM. What is this? Does the receiving end recognize the padding and discard it automatically? Davis: Let's say the file you want to send is exactly 1025 bytes long. Each block transmitted by YMODEM contains 1024 bytes of date plus 2 bytes of CRC. It will, therefore, take two blocks to send that file. The second block will contain only 1 byte of data plus 1023 padded "blanks" - actually End Of File marks. YMODEM sends 1024 bytes every time!. The receiver does not automatically strip those padded bytes. Indeed, it passes them to the resulting file so that it will always be an even multiple of the 1024. Thus, you sent a 1025 byte file and it becomes a 2048 byte file!! Wood: Ok--3...You came to a conclusion without what I thought was the necessary support when you said "...thus 512 bytes result in a disk access with ZMODEM..." I did not follow the conclusion. Help! Davis: Sure. As we discussed before the tutorial when we talked about buffers, a buffer is a fixed length (amount) of memory, sufficient to contain some number of blocks of data. In the case of ZMODEM, a block is 256 bytes, by the way. If the protocol used buffers there could be some large multiple of 'blocks' in memory awaiting transmission. Instead, ZMODEM does not use a buffer. Thus, it must have in memory only one sector of data at a time. In the PC world, a sector is 512 bytes, or two blocks of data as far as ZMODEM is concerned. Again, since that is the case, after two blocks (512 bytes), ZMODEM must go back to the disk to get more data to transmit. Wood: One of the first things we learned in programming school 20+ years ago was that you could do things a lot faster with more than one buffer. WE typically (or the system) use at least two. Why would ZMODEM not use any? Is there a memory problem? Davis: I can't speak for the authors of ZMODEM but I will say that it is typically not a protocol that is written into a program like GT PowerComm (As is Xmodem or Wxmodem, etc.). Instead, it comes rather conveniently in the form of an EXE program that can be run independantly of the comm package or by a simple shell out of the comm package to it. In the latter case, there is no way to know how much memory might be available in the majority of systems. The program itself, could, of course, simply find out. But you will recall that BOTH ends of a transmission are highly dependant upon compatible software. It might be that the author of ZMODEM simply took the easy way out. I don't know. Wood: This leads nicely into my final question which deals with today's comm packages. When I first bought my PC I did the necessary research by reading reviews and magazines like Software Digest. I rejected XTALK and settled on HYPERACCESS. After I started using it I discovered Shareware. I have come to the conclusion that there are two classes of products in the Micro world today. Commercially developed and other. My company uses XTALK. In the corporate environment you order a comm package and you get what the corporate gurus decide is best for you. I like ProCommm. I do not like to feel that I was ripped off by buying HyperAccess. I just feel that I was uninformed at the time. In this area ProComm seems to reign as King with the majority of PC users. 4- What are the advantages of GT over ProComm? Davis: Excellent question. Let me try to deal with it professionally instead of from the bias I would naturally have for GT PowerComm. (When I wrote the documentation for GT I twice called it ProComm - how embarrassing it would have been if I had released it without an edit). Let's go back a little in time. Before the era of the PC virtually all micro computers were 8 bit in design rather than 16. At that time the undisputed King in the area of comm packages was Crosstalk. It enjoyed an excellent reputation and was well supported. Further, it was not terribly expensive and it was one of the only comm packages that supported what was to become a whole set of protocol transfer methods (it was an XMODEM protocol). Well, in those days if your comm package didn't work reliably and you were not sure if it was a hardware problem or a software problem you simply put up Crosstalk. If it worked the conclusion was that the problem was software. It was THAT reliable. Along came the PC's. Crosstalk was ported to the 16 bit world, but in a way that made very little progress in terms of adapting to the capabilities of the PC's. To this very day, I believe it is impossible to change directories in Crosstalk, though I could be wrong. In essence, Crosstalk continues to be available and though it runs reliably in a 16 bit environment it runs like it was in a CP/M environment, not a DOS one. Then there was a leading contender from the shareware world called QMODEM. It enjoyed an excellent following and was remarkably efficient by comparison to Crosstalk - MUCH faster, in fact. And, it had a couple of contemporary protocols not available in Crosstalk. It took off and has been a very successful product ever since. In my opinion it would still be a champion product save only for a few 'author' problems. It is a great program, nonetheless. About the same time the Hayes Modem manufacturers introduced SmartComm II as a commercial product and it was being shipped with many of their modems. By brand identification it was accepted. This, despite that it is the clumsiest of all the comm packages I have ever seen. It was, furthermore, not very efficient by comparison to QMODEM. It has essentially been unchanged since its introduction (Sound like Crosstalk all over again?) A new comm package hit the scene called ProComm. In this program the author spent a great deal of attention to 'image'. He used imaginative ideas like a whistle that announced opening and closing of windows, the windows themselves were innovative, etc. It was no where near as efficient as QMODEM, but it captured the imagination of the users. And, like QMODEM, the price was right - $0 to try it out, and then if you decided to, you sent them a small check - but that's shareware. Procomm has advanced far faster than QMODEM in terms of incorporating different protocols and the incorporation of what is called a Host mode, or unattended mode of operation (autoanswer of modem, etc.) It became King as you call it by being both innovative and current - but not by being efficient, though it is quite respectable. GT PowerComm was only formally announced to the shareware world on the 21st of last month!!!(2/21/87). It includes 8 protocols, not including the also present ASCII, of course. At 2400 baud, I routinely establish DATA transfer rates of 235.5 characters per second with it, while the best I ever got with Qmodem was about 220 and with Procomm about 218. Actually, I did get a 225 once with Qmodem, but only once. So, in terms of performance, nothing has come close to being as fast as GT PowerComm. But that, as we saw with Procomm, is not all that the user is looking for. We have incorporated an extremely rich function called the LOG. Into that log is recorded all connects, disconnects, messges to the host, passwords used to gain access, bad passwords tried, and even more interesting, the names and time to trasmit every file that goes from the GT to or from another computer, and along with that is the total byes involved and the name of the protocol used in the transmission and, finally, manually created notes and messages. So what, you might ask. I would answer that if you were the Sysop of a board, or of a Corporate system, you MUST be able to determine who sent you a file or a messgage and when. (Yes, date and time stamps are included in all entries in the log). For example, what would be your reaction if you found that a program on your disk was a trojan horse if you could not determine where it came from? Or, say you created a proforma for your department and it has been downloaded by 18 different executives before you discover a major error in it. Wouldn't you want to be able to determine who has received that file? All those kinds of questions are automaticlly answered via GT's log and GTLOG. The main reason for feeling that there is a substantial difference between GT and Procomm for the user is in the area of SUPPORT. I take it that it has occurred to you that I have been talking to you for more than three hours already? And I don't even know if you are a registered user of GT. Well, I am only one of two of us that do exactly the same thing. The author of GT PowerComm, Paul Meiners, provides 24 hour a day access to his system as I do (as the author of the companion software). We have provided many new versions of GT powerComm over the past year and are about to provide release 12.10 only two weeks after announcing 12.00 on the 21st! Why, because we are constantly enhancing the products and our users want us to do so. We have several major clients already including one of the major Oil companies, one of the major airlines and one of the countries largest school districts!!! Finally, nobody has a better Host mode than GT PowerComm!!! I run a BBS using nothing else. That is power and function! Try it, you'll love it!! Wood: I can't wait to put the system together! Rest assured that I will register the program. As an ex-programmer I know what is involved. I wish the product much luck. Did you say 3 hours? Davis: I believe so. I don't remember, but I reset the 1 hour time limit I gave you twice now, possibly three times. By the way, as a favor to me in exchange for the time, would you mind terribly ARCing your capture file and sending me a copy. I can make it available as a tutorial to others. And if you will make it available to others as well, it is possible that they will come to know GT PowerComm as well. Wood: No problem. I will not be able to do this for a couple of days however. My modem is on the blink and I am waiting for a replacement. I will upload GT and the Log and CTL files to all of the bulletin boards that I normally deal with. I have already uploaded it to the corporate BBS. I do expect to get some healthy ribbing from the ProComm lovers which is why I asked the question that I did. For now though I would like to get the Log file. Davis: Thanks for the opportunity to be of help. I too must get to work. So, I'll take you out of chat mode. Don't forget to 'close' your capture file. You have 48 minutes left. Jim Davis' Retreat Voice 713 558-5015 Data 713 497-2306 X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X Another file downloaded from: NIRVANAnet(tm) & the Temple of the Screaming Electron Jeff Hunter 510-935-5845 Rat Head Ratsnatcher 510-524-3649 Burn This Flag Zardoz 408-363-9766 realitycheck Poindexter Fortran 415-567-7043 Lies Unlimited Mick Freen 415-583-4102 Specializing in conversations, obscure information, high explosives, arcane knowledge, political extremism, diversive sexuality, insane speculation, and wild rumours. ALL-TEXT BBS SYSTEMS. Full access for first-time callers. We don't want to know who you are, where you live, or what your phone number is. We are not Big Brother. "Raw Data for Raw Nerves" X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X