NETWORKS

When communicating across certain network pathways, the longest burst of
information tolerated from the PC can be rather short. For example, the LAT
path with SET PORT DECNET (PATHWORKS) has a limit of 256 bytes and the SET
PORT TES path has a limit of 512 bytes in a burst (or less, depending on the
TES release).  Longer bursts can cause the network software on one end or the
other to drop the connection.  This is most likely in the following situations:

 1. During file transfer, when sending files from the PC using long packets
    and/or sliding windows.  The total size of the packets in the window
    (packet length times the number of window slots) must be less than the
    burst limit for the network.

 2. During VT320 terminal emulation, if the host application (such as VMS
    or UNIX WordPerfect) sends a Terminal State or Color Palette Request
    escape sequence, DECRQTSR, "ESC [ 2 ; 2 $ u".  The response to this
    request is more than 200 characters long and has been known to break
    LAT and TES connections.

This is not a Kermit problem, but rather a limitation (or bug) in the
underlying networking method.  Workarounds include:

 1. If you have a DECnet LAT connection, make a DECnet CTERM connection
    instead (i.e. unload your LAT TSR and load the CTERM TSR instead).

 2. Enable RTS/CTS flow control between MS-DOS Kermit and the device it is
    most immediately connected to, if possible.	 Otherwise, enable Xon/Xoff
    flow control in MS-DOS Kermit and at the host on the far end (e.g. tell
    VMS to SET TERM/HOSTSYNC/TTSYNC).

 3. Use a different networking method, e.g. TCP/IP instead of DECnet.

Sending BREAK over network connections via SET PORT BIOS1 + Int 14h
interceptor may or may not work, depending upon the actual network and drivers
in use.	 Kermit uses the BREAK facility if the driver and network support it.

Symptom: PC no longer works after installing a network board.  Diagnosis: a
16-bit VGA display adapter is running in 16-bit mode.  Cure: Jumper it back to
8 bits and all should start working again.

PC-NFS prevents applications programs such as Kermit from creating a file in
the root directory of a PC-NFS disk drive.  When the applications program asks
if a particular file exists in the root, PC-NFS always responds with "volume
label present", whether or not the actual file is present.

SET PORT TELAPI performance is good with version 4 of Novell's LAN WorkPlace
for DOS but it is poor with version 3.5 because that older version sends each
Kermit byte in an individual packet.  Because the TELAPI interface lacks the
ability to resolve Internet, names you can use the small Kermit macro below to
invoke Novell's program TSU to resolve names and set up a session:

  define telapi run tsu -o \%1 k1,run tsu -a k1 1,set port bios1

Use as Kermit command "telapi my.favorite.host" followed by CONNECT.  This
tells TSU to "o"pen a connection to the host named in Kermit variable \%1 and
give the session a TSU tag of "k1".  Then run TSU again and "a"ttach this
session to COM"1" meaning Kermit's BIOS1 port.	Four sessions can be started
by choosing different tags and port numbers, though this macro does not make
the changes.  An alternative to SET PORT BIOS1 is SET PORT 3COM for much
faster throughput; an end-of-session signal is not available with this method
so the user must exit manually.

You can't run LAN Workplace for DOS (LWP) and make SET PORT TCP/IP connections
with Kermit at the same time, because only one protocol stack of a given kind
can run over a single network board.  If you want to make a TCP/IP connection
with Kermit when LWP is loaded you can either (a) use SET PORT TELAPI rather
than SET PORT TCP/IP (slower and less flexible), or (b) unload LWP from the
DOS prompt by typing TCPIP UNLOAD, and then start Kermit.

The Interconnections TES product, which Kermit fully supports, has a fancy
menu that pops up if you type the TES "hot key", Alt-LeftShift-T.  Reportedly,
this pop-up menu interferes with the LK250 driver that is distributed with
Kermit (it works fine with regular IBM keyboards).  The LK250 driver uses a
special interrupt, and the TES menu program might not properly chain this
interrupt.  The workaround is to use TES's text-mode menu, which Kermit brings
up if you type Alt-Home during terminal emulation.  Version 3.13 of MS-DOS
Kermit transparently supports both older and the latest TES products.

For DECnet/DOS (PATHWORKS) LAT connections, it is often necessary to tell the
LAT control program on the PC to reserve enough memory for all of the local LAT
host names.  By default, space for 16 names is allocated.  Increase your LAT
control program's memory allocation if you have more than 16 hosts on your
DECnet network.	 Also, remove ALL permanent LAT names from your database and
let the network provide them (this can mean waiting a minute or two for all
broadcasts to be heard).

Reportedly, when making NETBIOS or 3COM(BAPI) connections under Windows,
characters from a DOS window can show up in the Kermit window.  Reportedly,
this can be fixed by setting Kermit's foreground and background priority to
150 and setting the priority of the other DOS applications to 5000.

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