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º Software Review                                                              º
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º   °°°°°°°°°Ü                                                                 º
º   °°°°°Ûß°°Û                                                                 º
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º    ßßßßß      ßßß       ßßßßßßß  ßßßßßß  ßßßßßßß  ßßß  ßß  ßß  ßßß  ßß  ßß   º
º                                     ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ
º       Outstanding Telecomm          º  ProComm...  what a  find  it  is!...  I
º          by Merv Adrian             º  have  reviewed  communications packages
º                                     º  before,  notably QMODEM.  I have used a
º  Merv Adrian has written reviews    º  number  of them starting with Crosstalk
º  for NYPC and has provided this     º  and  Smartcom,  and  going  on  through
º  review for the Gazette. We thank   º  RELAY  and  a  number  of public domain
º  him.                               º  products.  I can honestly say that this
º                                     º  one is in a league with any of them and
ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ  in  many  ways  better  than  most.  Of
                                         course,  the  first thing to remind you
is that Freeware is a concept deserving of your support;  the program is  freely 
available  for  copying  and  distribution...  You  are urged,  encouraged,  and 
vigorously enjoined to contribute as suggested by  the  author  -  you'll  sleep 
better, and no doubt he will too.  
 
That said,  let's look at features.  In richness  of  capabilities,  ProComm  is 
second  to  none.  The  most obvious first requirement is the ability to control 
your communications parameters,  and you may range through the usual baud rates, 
stop bits, and parity settings.  One very nice feature is the use of toggles for 
several  commonly  annoying  parameters (annoying when they're wrong,  that is), 
including the duplex setting and echo.  

You can get help with the keys at any time with the  Alt-F10  combination.  This 
brings  up  one of my very few quibbles with the program:  I'm not thrilled with 
the keys used for some functions.  For example,  the  duplex  toggle  is  Alt-E, 
which  is  not  exactly  intuitively  obvious.   However,  keyboard  macros  are 
available by pressing Alt-M (a good choice here).  You get a window,  some  help 
which  is very easy to follow,  and the ability to set ALT-n (where n is 0-9) to 
any 24 character string.  
 
Terminal emulation :  particularly attractive,  and especially for us occasional 
telecommuters,  useful feature.  ProComm supports a whole host (no pun intended) 
of terminals: IBM 3101, DEC VT100, Televideo 910/920, and many more, including a 
default setup optimized for BBS'ing called ANSI-BBS.  
 
Dialing Directory :  A 100-entry directory  with  communications  parameters  is 
accessed  with Alt-D,  displaying 10 entries at a time.  Revision or addition is 
easy and the commands are displayed without any need to go somewhere else in the 
program for help.  You can specify codes for various long-distance  services  if 
you're  not  using  AT&T  exclusively.  Other directory features include an easy 
directory print utility available from within the  program  and  an  auto-redial 
mode which removes reached numbers from the list.  
 
A utility called CONVERT.EXE is also provided as a standalone which will convert 
your QMODEM or PC-TALK directory to ProComm format for you.  

File Transfer Protocols :  XMODEM support is,  of course, a must these days, but 
here an additional step is taken:  a "relaxed"  XMODEM  suitable  for  use  with 
Compuserve's  non-  (some  would  say  sub-)  standard  implementation.  ProComm 
automatically senses the  use  of  CRC  checking  and  will  use  it  if  it  is 
encountered, and in fact will automatically change to no parity, eight data bits 
and  one  stop  bit  (N/8/1)  if  XMODEM is requested regardless of the existing 
settings at the time the request is made.  A variation of XMODEM called  MODEM7, 
which  permits  multiple files to be transferred in batches,  is also supported.  
There  is  also  support  for  YMODEM,  which  uses  larger  blocks  for  faster 
throughput, and YMODEM batch.  

TELINK,  often found on FIDO boards, is another variation which supports batches 
and includes some file statistics as well (File size,  creation date),  and  you 
may use this if any of the boards you frequent are enlightened enough to use it.  
 
KERMIT, the public domain protocol developed at Columbia, is supported on micros 
and  mainframes  in  may  places  where  hardware,  operating system,  and other 
incompatibilities make other modes of transfer impossible.  In fact, I have used 
it  to transfer executable code through a mainframe network to another user on a 
PC.  ProComm implements all the newest features and provides a separate menu for 
tailoring  your  use  of  KERMIT.  For  example,  using  "sliding windows" it is 
possible to transmit and receive at the same time!  
 
A special feature is pacing of ASCII upload.  This is very useful when you  find 
that  you're  outrunning  the  receiver  of  your  transmission.   The  pace  is 
adjustable in tenths of seconds after each  line  of  transmission  from  0  up.  
ASCII download is,  of course,  a special case since no handshaking is performed 
(although you may use XON/XOFF).  
 
Command Files :  These may be executed at startup with the /F option,  which  is 
extremely  useful  if  you have some fairly routine,  frequently used needs like 
checking your MCI mailbox and printing the contents.  Alt-F5  selects  a  window 
listing  the  available command files from within ProComm.  The command language 
is quite rich, but I will not cover it in detail here,  except to note that some 
examples  are  provided,  and  a lot of boards have command files contributed by 
users.  Here is another minor quibble:  QMODEM  supports  the  assignment  of  a 
command  file through the directory which is automatically invoked when an entry 
is selected.  This is very nice,  although I'd like to be  able  to  select  and 
request that the default command file not be used.  
 
There  is  another  wonderful  standalone program called TEF for timed execution 
facility which allows you to execute a given command file whenever you wish.  It 
is  less  programmatically  intensive  than  other  implementations  of  similar 
facilities that I've seen because you are prompted  for  the  time  rather  than 
having to code it into the command file you wish to use and change it every time 
you want to do something at a different time.  
     [ MORE. . . . TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE, PRESS ALT-RIGHT ARROW ]