This file should be called "BITBANG.DOC" on your computer. B I T B A N G H E L P This file will attempt to show you how to get an OS-9 telecommunications setup going. First get the "BITBANG.BAS" program. This is an RS-DOS program that will make an OS-9 disk with bitbang and supercomm. To use it, format an OS-9 disk (35 tracks or 40 tracks single sided.) Get out of OS-9 and load BITBANG.BAS (you need to PCLEAR 1 first.) Insert the blank OS-9 disk and run the program. When its done, you will have an OS-9 disk with all you need to telecommunicate. The next step is the minor hardware modification to your serial cable. If the thought of soldering gives you the shakes, get a hold of someone else who can do it for you, because you've GOT to do this mod to make bitbang work. First unplug the serial cable from the back of your computer. Get a screwdriver, pry up the little plastic latch and slide back the plastic cover of the DIN connector. Take apart the metal shell and look where the wires are soldered to the connector. If you look at the back of the connector, near the pins, you should see the pin numbers molded into the plastic. If you don't, here's what it looks like, when you're looking at the back of the connector where the wires are soldered: u 4 1 3 2 Now get a wire cutter and clip off the wire leading to pin 1. This is the CD line coming from the modem. No known software ever uses it. It goes into the computer and causes a FIRQ which we need. Get your soldering iron heated up and solder a short jumper wire between pins 1 and 2. Don't let the wire that's already on pin 2 come off, pin 2 is the RD line - the serial data coming in from the modem. By connecting pin 2 to pin 1 we can get an interrupt at the start of a serial byte so OS-9 can jump to the device driver to read the data in. Put the cable connector back together; we're done with the hardware part. Now to get the software running: 1) Boot OS-9 2) make an 80 column window. If you don't know how, here's one way: a) montype r (if you have an RGB monitor) b) iniz /w7 c) ex shell i=/w7 d) hit to go to W7. It should be blue with white letters. 3) insert the disk with bitbang and supercomm into drive 0 4) load /d0/bitbangt2 5) iniz /t2 6) load /d0/supercomm 7) put your OS-9 disk back into drive 0 8) run supercomm (just type "supercomm") 9) supercomm should start up. Type -H to see supercomm's help menu. This all should be enough to get you started. A few phone calls to your local BBS and you can download AR, then you can download bitbang.ar and supercomm.ar and use AR to unarchive them and get the docs for all this stuff and so on and so on. To make bitbang part of your bootfile, you need to get the bitbang.ar and follow the instructions in the docs there. To set up OS-9 to boot in 80 columns, make a boot disk with the grfint version of term; this can be done using the config disk. Then put the following into a text file: L term C 002c 28 50 C 0030 01 02 C 0033 02 00 C 0034 03 02 C 0035 03 02 V Boot up on your new disk. Apply the patch like this: modpatch patchfile Now use cobbler to make the patch permanent like this: cobbler /d0 From now on when you boot from this disk it should come up in 80 columns. If you have problems, you can send me mail on the 1-800-USHAYES BBS. My username is Richard Kottke. Good luck! The following is shareware info from the author of supercomm, Dave Philipsen ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUPERCOMM SHAREWARE INFORMATION SuperComm is a shareware program. Many hours of work have gone into this program and I intend to support it and upgrade it provided I am reimbursed for my work. If you intend to keep and use SuperComm, I request that you send a minimum donation of $8. For a donation of $15, I will send you an operating manual and a disk containing SuperComm and sample autodialer files. The registered version of SuperComm contains more features than the public shareware version and registered users will be eligible for updates to the original program. version. Please send donations to: Dave Philipsen c/o R.D. Philipsen 2218 Mackinac Ct. Peoria, IL 61614