Date: Sun, 12 Jul 87 15:35 N
From: <BAGNARA@IBOINFN.BITNET> (Roberto Bagnara)
Subject: Kermit68K release 1.0, file K6AAAA.HLP

                    *** A small important request ***

Here we have Kermit68K prerelease 1.0.00, not well checked and completed
as I wanted. The main problem I've met was to find implementors for the
system dependent part of the program. Furthermore, most of the persons
who got in touch with me, although apparently interested, caused me to
lose time and nothing else.

All but one, indeed; Steve Williams, Texas University at Austin, has done
an excellent job on the system dependent part for the OS9 operating system.
I hope, by prereleasing Kermit68K at this time, to involve experts of other
operating systems/machines, failing this I'll write by myself the system
dependent part for CP/M-68K and VERSADOS (I have access to two such systems).

If you read the draft manual of Kermit68K (K6GMAN.DOC) you understand
that Kermit68K has been designed and written to be (among other things)
portable. This means that it can be implemented on any operating system
(really also on machines without an operating system).

People willing to try other implementations of Kermit68K (for example under
UniFLEX, PDOS, VERSADOS, CPM/68K etc.) shouldn't hesitate to contact me at
any time (my addresses are at the bottom of this file).
The type and amount of work necessary is deducible by reading the file
K6GSYS.ASM.

                    *** File naming scheme ***

The naming scheme of the Kermit68K distribution set files is

                     K6sccc.ttt

where:

K6      is the two-character prefix that identifies the Kermit68K files

s       denotes which system the file applies to:
          A for files that contain descriptive material and explain various
            things  of general  interest,  these files  appear first  in an
            alphabetical directory listing
          C for CP/M-68K specific files
          G for files that applies to  all the  Kermit68K  implementations,
            among these there are the general sources,  the ones from which
            all the system specific sources are extracted  by use of a text
            pre-processor
          O for OS9 specific files
          V for VERSADOS specific files

ccc     is a mnemonic that denotes the contents of the file:
          AAA a "read-me" file, like this one
          KER a file whose function is denoted by the type field
          CMD 1st command parsing module
          CM2 2nd command parsing module
          CM3 3rd command parsing module
          CM4 4th command parsing module
          CTB command tables module
          DEF common definitions module
          IOF I/O functions module
          MAI main program module
          PRO protocol module
          PSF parsing functions module
          PTF 1st protocol functions module
          PT2 2nd protocol functions module
          STR strings module
          UTF utility functions module
          SYS 1st sytem dependent module
          SYn nth sytem dependent module

ttt     is the file type, give more information about what's in the file:
          ANN text of an announcement of a particular version
          ASM assembly sources
          BWR beware file, list of known bugs and restrictions
          DOC documentation file
          HLP help file
          MAK makefile or other building procedure
          SRE executable image S-Record encoded
          TEX TeX sources
          UPD program change log

Stated that the distribution set of this first Kermit68K release will
contains the following files:

K6AAAA.HLP this file
K6AAAA.BWR general beware file, reports known bugs and restrictions

K6GMAN.DOC draft from the user's and implementor's guide
K6GSYS.ASM the system dependent part skeleton, for potential implementors

K6OAAA.HLP Kermit68K/OS9 specific help file
K6OAAA.BWR reports known bugs and restrictions for the OS9 implementation
K6OMAK.BLD the make file to build Kermit68K/OS9 from the assembly sources
K6OIMG.SRE executable IMaGe S-Record Encoded
K6OREN.COM command file to rename the OS9 source files

K6OCM2.ASM the OS9 sources
K6OCM3.ASM
K6OCM4.ASM
K6OCMD.ASM
K6OCTB.ASM
K6ODEF.ASM
K6OIOF.ASM
K6OMAI.ASM
K6OPRO.ASM
K6OPSF.ASM
K6OPT2.ASM
K6OPTF.ASM
K6OSTR.ASM
K6OSYS.ASM
K6OUTF.ASM

                       *** A small strange request ***

If  you  are  using or redistributing  Kermit68K,  please  send  me  a note
detailing who you are,  where are you employed  and on which machine you or
other people use it.

This strange and  rather unusual request has its aims,  stay in the saddle,
here they are !!

    1) to convince my superiors about the fact that  I haven't lost my time
       during this last year of developments;

    2) to make the aforecited people understand that the hours I'm going to
       spend in correcting, refining and improving  Kermit68K  are of great
       help to the world researching community;

    3) I  need,  from  time  to  time,  some  gratification.  In a  Physics
       Department life is  hard for a boy  whose  greatest aspiration is to
       work  and study  in a  Computer Science  department,  in Italy  such
       things are inexistent so I work and study where I can.

(End of K6AAAA.HLP)

.
