You need a good terminal program that can emulate the terminal drivers
supplied by Alpha Micro. One of the best is ASCII Express Professional from
United Software which can be purchased thru discount mail order houses such as
Northeastern Software for around $80.00.
The terminal emulator that works the best is the IBM 3101 on the ASCII
Express Pro ("IBM" on the Alpha Micro which can be downloaded from the Alpha
Micro Users Society if you don't have it).
Set up your apple terminal program (ASCII Express Professional)
according to the instructions in the manual, dial in and you're ready to go.
II. On the Alpha Micro end
The AM 1000 series uses an operating system called AMOS/L.
You need to log in to the operating system on the AM 1000 with the
command LOG SYS: (RETURN)
To get a directory type DIR/W (RETURN). See if there is a file named
AMOSL.INI. If so give the command TYPE AMOSL.INI/P (RETURN). It will scroll
one page at a time. Hit RETURN for the next page, etc.
The will be a series of TRMDEF statements. One of the terminals will
be on the modem port (it might be TERM1, TERM4, etc. You will see the name of
the terminal driver (i.e. IBM, ADM5, TVI925, etc.) on the line.
Then type LOG DVR: to see the drivers. Type DIR/W to get a directory
and look for the IBM.TDV terminal driver file. If this is not listed you need
to get it from your Alpha Micro dealer or from AMUS. The IBM driver is
available from the Alpha Micro Users' Society as an assembly language program
called IBM.M68 which can be assembled to IBM.TDV on your system.
If the one you want is on the system and not already on your modem
port, then you will need to make a change in your bootup program on the Alpha
Micro. It is dangerous to directly modify AMOSL.INI, as if you screw up, the
AM 1000 won't ever boot again! So...
Type LOG SYS:
Then type COPY TEST.INI=AMOSL.INI
Then type VUE TEST.INI
Then use your AlphaVUE word processor commands to change the terminal
driver on the terminal in the appropriate TRMDEF statement to the driver you
want.
Example:
TRMDEF TERM2,AM1000=1:1200,ADM5,100,100,100
can be changed to:
TRMDEF TERM2,AM1000=1:1200,IBM,100,100,100
where the 1200 refers to 1200 baud (it could be 300 baud if you change it.)
When you've made the change, then hit ESCAPE key, then at the VUE
prompt '>' hit F and RETURN, and the change is made.
Then to test it out, type LOG OPR: to log into the system operators
section. Then Type MONTST AMOSL,TEST.INI and RETURN.
Wait a few minutes while your system reboots. Then it should work.
*Note - all the above on the AM end should be done at an Alpha Micro
terminal. Now test it out at your Alpha Micro to be sure everything works OK,
and that it BOOTED UP OK!
If so, you're ready to dial in from your Apple, using ASCII Express
terminal program. Then if it works you can permanently change your AMOSL.INI
bootup program. To do this type
RENAME AMOSL.INI=TEST.INI/D (RETURN)
and you're done.
Before you do any of this it would be a good idea to check with your
Alpha Micro programmer. There may be other modifications you'll need to make
in AMOSL.INI, and I'll be glad to discuss this with you.
III. Sending and Receiving files
Its easy to RECEIVE a text file from the AM 1000 to the Apple. Just
LOG into the appropriate area, set your Apple terminal program to receive a
file, go back to the online state and then give the AM command TYPE
FILENAME.TXT and hit RETURN. Then save the buffer to disk and you're done.
To SEND a file from the Apple to the AM 1000, you'll need to log into
a word processing area, then type VUE FILENAME (whatever 6-digit name you want
to give it on the AM 1000) and hit RETURN. Once you get the screen of
asterisks, then use your character file sending mode and send the file. You
need to have the ECHO mode ON and if you're using ASCII EX-Pro, as soon as the
file transfer begins, hit the UNSHIFTED < key about 5 times to slow down the
transfer and it should work fine.
If you have RECEIV.LIT on your operating system, you can log into the
account you want to send a file to and type RECEIV FILENAME, hit return, then
hit CTRL-Q on ASCII Express, then K to enable "chat" (to send line feed in
addition to carriage returns). then S to send the file. You will be asked for
the filename which you should type in. Use "standard", "line" mode and when it
asks for a "prompt" just hit return. The file will be sent. When you get the
"AE Term ->" sign, then hit CONTROL-C to stop RECEIV on the AM. You can then
TYPE FILENAME on the AM to be sure the transfer went OK. RECEIV, if available,
works MUCH faster than sending a file to VUE - you can use a full 1200 (maybe
2400) Baud.
If you have KERMIT on your Alpha Micro (available free from AMUS) and
KERMIT for your Apple (also free from the Source or Compuserve), you can do
verified file transfers, but KERMIT is not much good as a terminal emulation
program.
I sincerely hope this works as well for you as it does for me. If you
have any questions, please send me a message by EMAIL. My source ID is BCJ386
and Compuserve ID is 75206,2021
