MIKEYTERM Users Manual Version 4.7 Page 12 Using the Buffer All routines that output from the buffer (tape, disk, printer, transmit buffer, and XMODEM transmit) will use the start and end marks. Reading a file into the buffer will automatically set the start and end marks for that file. However, if the buffer is marked later, these marks will be honored instead. For example: A disk file is loaded into the buffer for upload. It is desired to leave the buffer open because a record of the session is to be saved or printed. This is permitted with MIKEYTERM. The incoming data will simply be appended to the end of the existing file in your buffer. The best part is that the end mark won't be altered. It is still positioned to mark the end of the file that was loaded. When the time comes to transmit or upload, only the file that was loaded will be sent, and nothing more. Whenever you exit Communications mode, MIKEYTERM remembers all of the parameters that you set, things like whether word wrap was on/off, whether the buffer was opened or closed, your ENTIRE screen and cursor position, etc. When re-entering Communications, all of these parameters will be restored, just as if you'd never left. When in combat with the "Auto Halt" feature turned ON, (assuming that the host supports XON/XOFF protocol) the act of leaving Communications will issue a control-S to the host so that while the user is away scanning the buffer (or any other function) the host won't send anything. Upon returning to Communications mode, MIKEYTERM will send a control-Q to restart the host's transmission. That way if any traffic was pending, it will be sent at that time. It is even possible to exit right in the middle of a line, if necessary. When returning to Communications, conditions will be restored to normal, just as if the exit had never occurred. (It's a good idea to leave this feature OFF if in doubt about your host.) What Is Saved In The Buffer Received data that is to be saved in the buffer will be appended to any existing buffer data. Please refer to the section on "Marking the Buffer" for further details. When in 7-bit mode, all data received from the RS-232 interface will go into the buffer except: Linefeeds (Hex 0A) Control-R (Hex 12) (Open buffer) Control-T (Hex 14) (Close buffer) Null (Hex 00) Rubout (Hex 7F) MIKEYTERM Users Manual Version 4.7 Page 13 When in 8-BIT mode, everything received from the RS-232 port is saved in the buffer if it is open. Data sent from the keyboard is not saved in the buffer in Communications mode. MIKEYTERM Users Manual Version 4.7 Page 14 D I S P L A Y Main Menu Option 2 The Display mode is provided in order that users may view the contents of the buffer. The following commands are supported by MIKEYTERM: op Move to the top of the buffer ottom Move to the bottom of the buffer Move down one line Move up one line + Move down a full screen + Move up 12 lines

rint Print the contents of the buffer. If a portion of the buffer has been marked, then only that portion will be printed. Return to MIKEYTERM's Main Menu. If you are printing, the will abort the print operation and redisplay the screen from which printing was initiated. Return to Communications mode. MIKEYTERM Users Manual Version 4.7 Page 15 ind Find a character string in the buffer. You will be prompted for a "search string". Type in the string for the search and hit . Use upper and/or lower case as required. The buffer will then be scanned for the first occurrence of the search string. When found, a full screen will be displayed beginning with the search string. If the search string is not found, the screen from which the search was initiated will then be redisplayed. ext Find the next occurrence of the search string defined previously with the "F" function. If another occurrence of the string cannot be found, then the current screen will be re-displayed. Marking the Buffer for Saving or Printing To mark a portion of the buffer, the Display mode must first be selected from the Main Menu. You may mark any portion of the buffer for output to disk, tape, or printer. While there are no restrictions on the nature of the data that can be marked, saving marked portions of binary data (such as M/L programs or compressed BASIC programs) may produce undesirable and/or unpredictable results. The user is urged to use caution. Here's how to mark the buffer. Put the first line of the start of the portion you wish to save on the screen somewhere using the up and down arrow keys. (Use the also, if necessary.) Push for "MARK". A blue cursor will appear at the upper left-hand corner of the screen. Position the cursor at the START of the line of the portion of the buffer that you want to save, then push for "START". The blue cursor will then disappear and you'll hear a tone to inform you that the mark was made. Now the end mark. Use the up and down arrow keys (and the , if you choose) to put the last line of the chosen area on the screen. Push for mark. The blue cursor will be visible again. Place it UNDER the last line of the portion that you wish to save, then push for "END". The cursor will disappear and again you'll hear a tone to inform you that the end point is now marked also. NOTES: You may mark EITHER the starting point or the ending point first for the portion to be saved. MIKEYTERM Users Manual Version 4.7 Page 16 Generally, it's best to mark the buffer ONLY if it contains pure ASCII data. Attempting to mark the start and/or end points of binary files (such as M/L or compressed BASIC) is an approximation at best, and will usually cause unpredictable and/or disastrous results! Anytime you push for mark, the "word wrap" feature will be disabled and the screen will be "unwrapped". This means that the lines within the buffer will "break" at the right side of the screen, rather than being formatted for 32 characters per line. (This is necessary in order to let you mark the buffer accurately.) Don't let this concern you, because all of your default parameters (including "word wrap") will be restored when you return to Communications. In the meantime, you may turn the "word wrap" function on and off (while you're in display mode) by pressing the . Now that the buffer has been marked, you may save the marked portion of the buffer to disk or tape, print it, or transmit it. All functions that output from the buffer (tape, disk, printer, or transmit buffer) use the start and end marks. If you never mark the buffer, the marks will remain the same as the LOGICAL start and end of your buffer. This means that if you load a file into the buffer, the start and end marks will be adjusted to reflect the true start and end points of the file that you just loaded. The file may then be saved, printed, (if approp- riate) or transmitted. However, if you sign-on to your favorite BBS, even with the buffer open, YOU MUST MARK THE BUFFER before saving, printing, or transmitting any portion of the buffer. If in doubt, it's ALWAYS best to mark the buffer manually. MIKEYTERM Users Manual Version 4.7 Page 17 M O D E M Main Menu Option 3 This option is primarily designed to support the Radio Shack Modem II. MIKEYTERM will program the Modem II to dial a phone number using "slow rotary" dialing. A 3 to 11 digit phone number may be set at any time using Main Menu Option 8. (Change parms) Those wishing to use the Hayes SmartModem may enter the appropriate command string into the buffer using the "Buffer Entry" option from the Main Menu. Example: To dial a number using the Hayes' "TouchTone" method, use Main Menu Option 7 (Buffer Entry) to enter the string "AT DT 237-8113 " into the buffer in order to dial the local phone number of 237-8113. (Without quotes, of course.) After entering Communications, a control-9 will send the command string to the SmartModem. A more reasonable alternative is the use of the "CNFG47" program to define one of the function keys with the required command string, which can then be used to send the string to the Hayes SmartModems. R E S E T B U F F E R Main Menu Option 4 Choosing <4> at the Main Menu will allow the entire buffer to be cleared. This action will make available the full buffer capacity. You will be asked to verify that you REALLY want to erase the buffer. Anything besides a "Y" will abort the operation. The buffer is automatically cleared before loading files from disk or tape. The amount of used and free buffer space is displayed (in decimal) whenever the Main Menu is selected. MIKEYTERM Users Manual Version 4.7 Page 18 T A P E U T I L I T Y Main Menu Option 5 This portion of MIKEYTERM is provided for those who wish to use tape I/O. It is menu-driven for simplicity of operation. MIKEYTERM will read most common tape files into the buffer, and will write files to tape in either ASCII or binary format. The buffer will be automatically cleared before the file is loaded. It's usually convenient to position the tape to be read at the beginning of the file However, loading of a cassette file may begin practically anywhere on the tape because a general purpose routine is used to locate the start of the file. To use the tape utility portion of MIKEYTERM, hit <5> at the Main Menu. You'll be asked if you want to: [1] Read a tape into MIKEYTERM's buffer, or [2] Write the buffer (or a marked portion) to tape. Choose whichever option is appropriate. will return you to the Main Menu. If writing the buffer to tape, you'll be prompted for the file type: [1] ASCII, or [2] Binary Again choose whichever type is appropriate to your situation. If you choose [2], you'll be given the opportunity to supply the starting and execute addresses (in hexadecimal) that will be written to tape. This is necessary because MIKEYTERM has no way of knowing this information following a file transfer. If you merely press , binary files written to cassette will be given start and execute addresses of zero. (The user should use whatever offset is appropriate when loading the tape from BASIC.) You'll then be prompted to prepare your cassette machine. Hit whenever you're ready. MIKEYTERM writes "gapped" files to tape. The starting and stopping motion that you may notice from your cassette recorder is normal while MIKEYTERM is writing the buffer to tape. MIKEYTERM Users Manual Version 4.7 Page 19 D I S K U T I L I T Y Main Menu Option 6 The disk utility portion of MIKEYTERM is also menu-driven in order to make it friendly and easy to use, as well as to provide the user with good error recovery and descriptive messages. It was provided to allow MIKEYTERM's users to read files from disk into the buffer, save to disk from the buffer, and obtain disk directory displays. All drives are supported. A directory display (in two-column format) can be obtained by entering the drive number in response to the "FILENAME?" prompt. Free disk space is also indicated. After the directory is displayed, you will be re-prompted for the filename. There are no restrictions on the filename as long as you use at least two characters. (One character entries are interpreted as drive numbers for purposes of obtaining directory displays.) Use upper and/or lowercase characters as appropriate. The default extension is TXT. If a blank extension is desired for reading or writing a file, use a "/" after the filename followed by an at the "FILENAME?" prompt. Example: TESTFILE/ or TESTFILE/:1 A drive number may be appended to the filename if a drive other than the current default drive is to be used. It must be separated from the extension with a colon. Example: TESTFILE/TXT:1 The data in the buffer (or a marked portion) may be written to disk as any file type you choose. When a disk file is read into the buffer, the file type is displayed. Note that the buffer is automatically cleared before loading a file. Rewriting an existing disk file is permitted by MIKEYTERM. However, you'll be notified that the file already exists, and asked if you want to overwrite it. If you respond with a "Y", the file will be over- written. Any other response will abort the operation. The key will abort any operation except actual disk I/O. When in doubt, use it and start over. MIKEYTERM Users Manual Version 4.7 Page 20 Disk and Tape File Compatability Only ASCII files can be freely transferred from tape to disk and vice versa. However, transfer of any file type from disk to disk is no problem with MIKEYTERM. The following file types are supported when saving the buffer to disk. They are menu-selectable from within MIKEYTERM's "Disk Utility" function. (1) BASIC program / ASCII format (2) BASIC program / Compressed (binary) format (3) Machine language program (4) Data / ASCII (5) Data / Binary You may save the data in your buffer (or any portion of it) in ANY of the above formats. No checks are ever performed on the contents of the buffer regarding data type. This makes it possible to transmit any type of disk file to another user of MIKEYTERM as long as the sender loads it from disk and the receiver saves it on disk as the same file type that the sender transmitted. Machine language programs loaded from disk will have their start and execute addresses preserved, as well as the file length. Compressed BASIC programs will also function normally. This also makes it possible to save your buffer data as something that it is not. For example, you may save ASCII data files as machine language programs if you wish. MIKEYTERM will be able to read it, but BASIC may not. NOTE: These features of MIKEYTERM are extremely flexible, and the user is cautioned to exercise due care in their use. MIKEYTERM Users Manual Version 4.7 Page 21 A Caution For Tape Users Because of differing file types, disk files in M/L format will require conversion to CoCo tape format before they may be saved to tape. A utility program, TAPCNV, is supplied on the distribution disk for this purpose. Specifically, M/L programs known to have been submitted IN DISK FORMAT to CompuServe or BBS's will require conversion before being saved to tape in a usable form. This is due to a basic incompatibility between the two file types, (disk versus tape) and is NOT a consequence of using MIKEYTERM and/or XMODEM. Simply type CLOADM "TAPCNV":EXEC and follow the program prompts to convert any M/L tape files that you've downloaded into the proper format for tape systems. t