PT - Packet Terminal Forward These programs are copyright Rovoreed Limited, New House Cottage, Cublington, Madley Hereford HR2 9NX This suite of software is NOT Public Domain, neither are they Freeware or Shareware. Rovoreed Limited retains full and exclusive rights to the distribution of this suite of programs. Too many of our "free" programs have ended up being sold or distributed on CD-ROM to make profit for third-parties, that we have been forced to build into this suite of programs mechanisms to cripple to software remotely. Rovoreed Limited reserves the right to cripple the software without warning. Should we ever be forced to cripple the software, then no data or programs will erased from your Series 3 computer. A message header received from your local BBS will condition the software into not starting up. You will be notified of this fact, and you are advised to log on to your local BBS and read any messages addressed to PT@WWW for an explanation. Hopefully we won't have to do it. Rovoreed Limited regrets that it will not provide any support for this product. These programs are released to fullfill a specific need. They should not be construed as being of the standard of software normally produced by Rovoreed Limited. Specifically, no formal program testing or program proving has been carried out on this software. Introduction Occassionally I have seen requests coming over the packet network on information or help regarding the availability of packet terminals and the Psion Series 3. This is my response to those requests. The programs originally evolved out of several test programs written for the Psion Series 3 range of computers to learn the available library routines, and to try to put some meaning behind the words in the Software Developement Kit. With this background, it can be seen that there was no regular design, the programs just evolved, and there are some shortcomings because of it. For example, it is not possible to search for text in a message. However I use them to handle all my packet traffic, so I can quite honestly say I find them useful. The prorams as supplied will run on both the Series 3 & 3a range of computers. The programs will all adapt to the machine they are running on. Extra facilities provided on the Series 3a are text zoom, and, because of the extra resolution, it is possible to display message sizes when in header mode of the message editor.. What is does In some respects the programs operate in a similar manner to TPK by G‚rard Regnard (F1EBN). They can be used by Radio Amateurs to listen out for interesting messages on the packet network, and to download them automatically into a Psion Series 3. The programs provide the following features. 1) solicit FBB beacons from your nominated host. 2) listen out for text strings you have specified and automatically mark these messages for downloading from your host. 3) at 45 minute intervals automatically download any marked messages, and upload any messages for onward transmission. You can force an immediate connection if you don't wish to wait the 45 minutes. 4) allow you to enter private messages or bulletins for uploading to your host. 5) allow you to reply to any messages received. 6) operates asychronously, in that it is possible to read a message and reply to it whilst the program continue to communicate with your host. 7) automatically delete private mail from your host that has been downloaded. 8) Allow send and receive of 7+ files. 9) Link/Paste architecture is supported. This means that you can 'Bring' from PT into other applications and also 'Bring' from other applications into PT. What it does not do that TPK does, is maintain a log, neither does it compress the messages before transmission, nor does it request compressed mail from the host. There is definately no YAPP implemented. There are probably other things that PT doesn't do either. Installation You should have the following files:- PT.APP PTINIDAT.IMG PTINITNC.IMG PTDBMGR.IMG PTMSG.IMG PTRENUM.IMG PT_7PLUS.IMG PT_TNC.TXT PT_RS232.TXT PT.TXT (this file) PT.APP is the main control program. It handles all communication with the TNC, and running of the other programs in the suite. PTINIDAT.IMG is a small program that only runs when PT is started up. It locates the database files that may have been created on previous runs, and if it can't find any then it creates some empty ones on the same device as the program was run from. This simple task was written as a separate program to reduce memory requirements. The database is looked for in the following order, the drive the programs are run from, M:, A: and then B:. The program ignores default drive settings. PTINITNC.IMG runs at startup and in response to the 'Reset TNC' command in PT. Unsuprisingly then, it's job is to reset the TNC. It starts by sampling the RS232 line at the following speeds, 9600, 4800, 2400, 1200, 300 and 110 baud. If it detects a 'cmd:' prompt at one of those speeds then that is the speed the RS232 link is set at. If no 'cmd:' prompt is detected, then it starts an autobauding procedure. It sends '*' characters - which the PK232 uses as an autobaud character, and then tries to solicit a command prompt with a ^C. This autobaud feature can be defeated, see below. After it gets a 'cmd:' prompt, the contents of the file PT_TNC.TXT is sent to the TNC followed by the date/time. This file should contain the commands necessary to initialise the TNC. The supplied file is for the AEA PK232 without battery backup. This is the TNC I use, I don't know how other TNCs' react or other TNC commands. If your TNC doesn't issue a 'cmd:' prompt, let me know and I'll try to sort something out ! PTDBMGR.IMG is the database manager. It handles all I/O to the database. Other programs talk to it to get or send information to the database. After you terminate PT, you may notice that PTDBMGR lingers under the IMG Ghost icon for a few moments, it is tidying up the database, and doing a compress which can take some time with a large database. It is for this reason that if you exit PT and immediately re-enter it, that some file errors (File in Use) occur. PTMSG.IMG is the message reader and editor. It is used to trawl all the heard message headers and select messages for reading. Replies and new messages for outbound transmission are also created using this program. It can also be used to pack/unpack 7+ messages. PTRENUM.IMG is a utility program for renumbering your copy of the host database. One day I woke up to find my FBB host synching at 8390 when I thought it should be 120510. The Sysop had renumbered his msg base, and I had to do the same, so this program was born. PT_7PLUS.IMG is a version of 7+ by Axel DG1BBQ modified by me to run on the Series 3. It can be installed as an .APP in its' own right, or used to process inter-process requests. PT_TNC.TXT is a plain text file that is sent to the TNC to initialise it. See below. PT_RS232.TXT is a small optional parameter file that can be used to defeat PTINITNC autobaud. Basically, it tells PTINITNC what speed to use. See the file contents for more help. PT.TXT is this file. In versions of PT prior to 1.00, we also supplied a .WRD file that you could format and print using the Word application. Unfortunately, this document is now so large that it cannot be processed by Word. This file is now the only printable documentation. Installation procedure The programs have to be installed in the normal Psion way. That is the file PT.APP should be placed in the \APP\ directory, and all the other files should be placed a subdirectory called PT under the \APP\ directory, i.e. in \APP\PT\. All files should reside on the same drive. Finally use the Psion-I command on the system screen to install the program. The database will be created on the same device as the programs when the program is initially run. If you want to keep the programs on Flash, and the database on RAM, then install the programs on RAM, run PT, exit, delete the programs from the RAM device and copy the programs to Flash. I would strongly recommend installing the suite on a RAM SSD initially. Although the programs are "Flash friendly" the amount of traffic coming over the amateur network - currently about 300 messages per day are passing through my local node; means that you will use up Flash SSDs' quickly, particularly if you download many. Upgrade procedure V0.10 to V0.11 Replace the old .IMG and .APP files with the new ones. PTDBMGR.IMG has not changed. No other files need changing or deleting. V0.11 to V0.12 Replace the old .IMG and .APP files with the new ones. PTDBMGR.IMG has not changed. The program no longer uses transparent text mode to handle the link to the host BBS. Some changes are required to the file PT_TNC.TXT. For the PK232 you can simply replace your old PT_TNC.TXT file with the newly supplied one. If you don't use a PK232, then the new TNC commands which I found necessary for this new method to work are located at the end of the file. V0.12 to V0.13 Replace PT.APP with the new version. No other programs have changed. V0.13 to V0.14 Replace all programs. V0.14 to V0.15 Replace all programs. V0.15 to V1.00 Replace all programs. Memory requirements In normal use you should have only two programs running for 95% of the time. These are PT which is the main screen & control program, and PTDBMGR. PT requires about 6k of memory. PTDBMGR starts off about at 6k and grows depending on the number of messages you have on your system. As a guide, 3 days of bulletins will grow the program to 10k. PTMSG is the message editor and reader. This again requires about 6k to run as a minimum, but will grow dynamically for example when text is loaded for reading. There is a limit of 4k on message entry, but the reader is capable of loading a message as big as any downloaded from your host provided you have enough free memory to hold it. Extra memory is required in addition to what is apparent from the message size. The system needs extra memory for formatting the message. Further memory appears to be used by system services. This may not be apparent on a Series 3 where the standard applications such as Word and Agenda are already running, but on a "quiet" machine system usage can grow by 10 to 15k. I presume this is .DBF buffering. I would advise therefore that you have at least 40k free memory when you start. Therefore the basic suite should run an a 128k Series 3 which "out of the box" has 45k free. PTRENUM requires as much space again as you have used for your host .DBF file. If it runs out of room during the renumber operation, no harm is done, or data lost. It just doesn't do the job. PT_7PLUS requires about 64k to run. This is because it is a "dirty port" from the IBM PC environment, and has not been modified to any great extent to use the inbuilt features of the Series 3. It may not ever be possible to run this program from within PT on some machines. For this reason, PT_7PLUS can be installed as an application and run stand-alone should you wish. The TNC setup file There are two files, one of which is optional. PT_RS232.TXT if it exists inhibits PT from autobauding. The file specifies the baud rate your TNC runs at. If you want autobauding, then delete this file, otherwise it MUST exist in the same directory as all the .IMG files. Some TNCs don't like the way PT autobauds. If your TNC has battery backup, and you know what speed it needs, then specify it in this file. The TNC configuration file supplied (PT_TNC.TXT) is for an AEA PK232 without battery backup. If you have a different TNC or use the PK232 with battery backup, then you will probably have to edit this file. Each line is sent to the TNC. Lines starting with a ';' character are comments and are ignored, i.e. not sent to the TNC. The general order of commands within the file is important. Flow control statements should come first. Other than that, basic requirements by the software require, Eight bit, no parity, one stop bit RTS/CTS handshaking Echoing of commands disabled Header lines disabled Line feeds disabled If you experience problems with getting the TNC to initialise, then try setting the TNC to work at 2400 baud. After sampling the RS232 at 9600, 4800, 2400, 1200, 300 & 110 baud the link is set back to 2400 to force autobauding, so 2400 is taken as a last-ditch attempt. If it still doesn't work after this, then try using the PT_RS232.TXT file. The database At runtime a sub-directory is created from the root called \PT\. This contains details of all messages in the database. Two .DBF files are created containing the message header information. The actual message text is held in separate .TXT files, one for each message in a subdirectory within \PT\. A further subdirectory called \PT\ARRIVALS\ contains files extracted from 7+ messages. Although it is possible to switch between different hosts, this is not advised. The .DBF files cannot be accessed using the Data application. The .TXT files are held like they are to be sent, or received from the host. That is lines delimited with carriage returns. For outbound messages, PT will automatically word-wrap text at or below colomn 72. This is only mentioned because after a message is entered, the only way to alter the text is either to delete the message and re-enter it, or to edit the .TXT file with the Word application. I've not tried this. On the one occassion I wanted to do it, I did a bring of the message into Word, editted it there, deleted the original message, and then did a bring of the message from Word into PT. Configuration data, and your prefered setups are saved in a file called PT.DBF. This file must reside in the same directory as the various PT .IMG files. It will created initially when the program exits. Although is it possible to look at the contents of this file with the Data application it is not advised to try altering anything. The data is held in binary strings. That is, the Data application will think the data is a string and try to display it as such, but the string contains binary data, not always printable ASCII. The programs will behave unpredictably if you alter anything in this file. 7+ Yes, you too can now send/receive 7+ messages direct from/to your Psion. If you don't know what 7+ is, then I suggest you read the separate 7+ manual. The supplied version of 7+ can be run stand-alone, or by inter-process request. When run with PT, it is driven by inter-process requests, but, you may not have enough room in your Series 3 for this to work - particularly if you have a 128k model. For this reason, PT_7PLUS can be installed like any other application and run outside of PT. On the system screen, select Psion-I. At the file prompt, navigate to \APP\PT\PT_7PLUS.IMG by using the Tab and arrow keys. It does not matter that this application does not end in .APP. The program can then be run just like any other Psion application. The program will prompt for a file name. If this is left blank, then the help subsystem is called. This contains a brief summary of the commands available, just like if you were to run the IBM PC version without any parameters. If you wish to send a file in 7+ format, but the file is resident on your PC then you will need to start PT without the Series 3 being connected to your TNC. Instead, connect your Psion to your PC. Get into the outbound mailbox, select Psion +, and choose the drive as the REM:: drive containing the file to transmit, and choose the file by navigating to it using the TAB and arrow keys. This assumes you have a file server like MCLINK or SLINK running on your PC. This file will be split up by 7+ and put in you outbound mail directory. The message titles are automatically generated to contain the file name and part number. It has always been possible to receive 7+ files with PT, but now it can unpack them too. In the header mode in the message editor, place the cursor on a message header which you think is a 7+ file. You can normally tell this from the title of the message. Hit Psion -, and the message will checked for being a valid 7+ format file, and in doing so, check to ensure all the parts are already resident in the Series 3. If any parts are missing you will be notified. If all the parts are present, then the original file is recreated from the individual messages. Unfortunately, in this version of 7+ the original file date/timestamp is lost. The file will get the current date/time. After the file has been recovered from the one or more messages, then the option concerning whether to keep the individual parts is obeyed. I would advise leaving this option at the default of delete. This option can be found in the Set Preferences option on the main PT screen. Runtime One of the required items of data that you must supply is your call sign and that of your host. You must enter these before the program will start up. Other items default to sensible values. The programs will start up without a TNC being connected. A notifier will be displayed and you get the option of continuing or aborting. It might be useful to continue if you simply want to access a previously read message. i.e. you are out and about without your radio and 3-Link and have a few spare moments to reply to your mail, or alternatively if you wish to 7+ up a file resident on your PC. Active programs Screen displays The screen images change depending on which program is in the foreground. Normally this will be PT itself, but you can switch to the inbound or outbound message reader. PT - Packet Terminal The main PT screen show the local time and UTC in the top right hand side. If the UTC time appears wrong then check that you have set your 'Home Town' correctly within the World or Time applications. You can also check that the daylight savings options are correct in the Time application. The top left of the screen show your callsign and the amount of free space on the device used for the database. This free space total gets updated at minute intervals. There might optionally be an envelope type symbol shown next to the UTC. If it is there, then there is mail waiting on your host that has not been read. This envelope is triggered by the MAIL> beacon your host generates. The next line shows the number of unread messages, and unsent messages. As the program is meant to run unattended this gives a quick indication if any new messages have arrived. The FBB beacon shows the highest FBB beacon heard from your host. This may not be the same as the highest beacon saved to file. The reason is, some beacons simply represent messages passing through your host, others may be private messages, or, simply a beacon has been hit by QRM. If the program is really out of sync with your host, then another number will appear alongside the FBB beacon. This number represents the highest message the system is "happy with". The term "happy with" is used because again, it doesn't actually represent any quantifyable term. It is the highest beacon number heard without breaks. If you watch this number, it may occassionaly stick, and a re-sync. beacon will be transmitted. When the missing beacon is received, the number will leap, because hopefully, the program will have heard some of the subsequent beacons, and held them internally. When the missing beacon is heard, it can save all subsequent ones to file. The bottom 4 lines of the screen (7 lines on a Series 3a) acts as a traffic window. If you can hear packet traffic on your transceiver but nothing appears in this area, then there is probably something wrong with the TNC configuration. In this circumstance you will probably also get messages such as 'Serial Overflow' and 'Packet too large' appearing. When it is deemed time to connect to the host - either because the 45 minute timer has elapsed, or on command; then a popup window appears giving a guide to the state of the connection. Because the programs all behave asynchronously, there is no need to wait for the dis-connect before doing something else. You can read messages as they arrive, delete stuff you no longer need, in fact you can do anything, which is just as well because last night it was busy in IO91VK and it took 26 minutes to send a 20 word message !! It's almost as boring watching packet mail as it is watching batteries recharge. PTMSG - Message Editor The editor operates on both the inbound messages - those received from your host; and outbound messages - those that you wish to send. The editor operates in three modes. These are header mode, reader mode and edit mode. When the program is first called, it is header mode. Header mode displays all the headers within either the inbound or outbound mailbox and the initial display is different depending on whether you are looking at inbound messages or outbound messages. For inbound messages it should start by positioning you at the header of the first new message that has entered the system since you last looked. If there are no new messages, it positions you at the last message. For outbound messages it simply positions on the last header in the system. Other than that the displays are identical. Embelishments are used to highlight the status of different headers. These are :- Italics indicate messages that are marked for downloading from the host, but have not yet been downloaded. Inverted indicates messages that are filed. i.e. there actually is some text for the message, and it can be read. Underlined indicates that the header has been marked for keeping. It will not be purged off, but it can still be deleted, without any warning if you explicitly tell the program to do so. A 7+ unpack will not delete messages so marked. You can navigate around with the up/down keys, the page up/down, the home and end keys. There are other commands for moving around, and they will be covered later. Having found a filed message, then the next logical step is to read it. To do this we enter reader mode. Simply move the cursor to the message and hit the 'Enter' key. If the message has not yet been downloaded, you get told, otherwise to message is loaded ready for reading. The text of the message pops up, and it is possible to move around using the cursor movement keys. It is not possible to change the text. To exit reader mode either hit Psion-U, or Psion-X (or equivalent in other languages). After having read a message you may wish to reply. For this we need edit mode. This mode can only be entered with the Psion-R (Reply), or Psion-E (Enter) commands. Full editting facilities are available. Exit edit mode either with the Psion-S (Save) or Psion-U (Revert) command. 7+ messages can be sent with Psion +, and unpacked using Psion -. Utility programs PTRENUM - Host message base renumber PTRENUM is used to renumber your copy of the host database. In two years I have only needed to do this once. If you discover your host is outputting beacons with much lower numbers than you expect, then log on to your host manually, and check what the last message you have is now numbered. The difference (usually negative) is entered at the prompt. This program can be run from under the IMG icon although the program should be kept with all the other PT .IMG files. Place the cursor on the .IMG icon and press tab. Navigate to the \APP\PT\ sub-directory select PTRENUM and hit enter. The reason it is done like this is that is so the the program can find all the files it requires and update them accordingly. The program cannot be run while PT is running. The commands The following gives a desciption of the commands available in PT and PTMSG. Help is available for most commands, but for those where it is not available, then the command is identical to the standard Psion function of the same name. Inbound mail - Loads PTMSG which then interrogates the inbound messages, i.e. those from your host. Outbound mail - Loads PTMSG which then interrogates the outbound messages, i.e. those you wish to transmit. Message numbers - allows you to reset your next bid, or to change the highest FBB beacon heard. It is very unlikely that you will ever need to use this command. It is provided so that you can reset the message numbers to sensible values if you have been using another offline reader, for example TPK or you have been offline for a while. If you think you can get a lot of messages by setting the last message received from to host to a low value like 1, then forget it. FBB restricts the number of old message headers it will broadcast, but it varies from system to system, so some will give more than others. Purge messages - allows you to recover some SSD space. The 'Keep how many days' operates from today. If today is the 3rd, and you only have messages for the 1st and 2nd, and you specify keep 2 days, the purge will delete all messages for the 1st, i.e. it will keep messages for the 2nd & 3rd, even though there maybe no messages for any of those days. It is generally a good idea to keep UNREAD messages, since 7+ can wait several days for all parts to arrive. Reset TNC - resets the TNC by invoking PTINITNC. The TNC is reset when the program starts up. Probably the only other time you will need this command is if power fails to the TNC. If the TNC fails to initialise, then all operations to the TNC are trapped, and not executed, i.e. the Connect or Synchronise commands do nothing. If the TNC does not reset for any reason, then a small information message appears each time you explicitly access the TNC. Connect to host - forces a connection to the host, thereby avoiding the 45 minute wait to send and receive messages. A pop-up window displays the current state of the connection. When sending messages, the screen tends to stick at a message with 100% complete, don't worry about this, the TNC is usually busy talking to your host. Log - toggles on and off capture of all data sent and received to the TNC. The log file is called PT.LOG and is created in the same directory as the database files. Toggling on the log file will cause any old log file to be deleted, i.e. it does not append. Synchronise - sends a re-synchronise request to your host. Normally you will not need to use this, since a re-sync request is sent when the program starts and any time that PT detects it is out of step with the host. Possibly the only time you may wish to use it is to check that your host is still up and running. If your host hears the resync request it should respond within a minute depending on how busy it is. Set preferences - You will have seen this option before, when you first ran the program. It is used to specify your call sign and that of your host. Any subsequent change will probably be just to the 'listen for' text, and to toggle reception of bulletins. Although you can receive private messages, the default on FBB is to not allow it. This has to be enabled on your host with the OR command. One new feature in FBB 5.15b is that private messages for users that do not use your host are no longer broadcast as FBB beacons. This is to cut down on the number of beacons that FBB transmits on a resynch request, so although you might request download of private messages, you might not get as many as you think there are. The 'listen for' can appear anywhere, so you can trap messages from certain users, or just topics. Where you wish to trap more than 1 item, e.g. all messages to PSION and messages from GB2RS, then separate the items with commas, e.g. PSION,GB2RS 7+ Parts tells PT what to do with all the individual messages that go up to make the complete 7+ file. Usually we would want to delete the parts after the file has been recreated. Kill 7+ Metafile is used when an error is found in the 7+ file. See the 7+ manual. Normally this is set to 'Yes' to delete the metafile when an error occurs. These metafiles can get big, and just use up valuable space. Version - displays the software version. Exit - exits the program. You may notice PTDBMGR running under the IMG ghost icon for several moments after exiting the program, this is simply the database manager tidying things up now it knows that it will get no more requests to service the database. Not all of the following commands are available at the same time within PTMSG Jump to new msgs - jumps to the latest untouched message. Not available in the outbound mailbox. An untouched message is one that the cursor hasn't visited. When entering the inbound mailbox you are immediately put at the first new message. You can scroll back up the list with the cursor keys, and then use this command to get back to where you were. Alternatively, if you have touched the last message header, then this command will put the last message at the top of the screen, leaving the remainder of the screen blank, so that you can watch new messages arrive. Jump to msg no - If you know an explicit message number, then this is the command to use to get to it quickly. Find unread msg - If you come back to PT after a few hours, and it says unread messages are available, then enter the inbound mailbox, and use Psion-*. It will find the first (or next) unread message in the system. A message is recorded as being read after the message text has been loaded into the message reader with the Enter key. It doesn't matter if you have not looked at all the text of a message. If a message has been loaded into the reader, it is deemed to have been read. If you don't read the message, then hitting Psion-* again will find the next unread message. To find the first unread message again, move the cursor to any message that is not an unread message and hit Psion-*. Basically, if you are on an unread message Psion-* will find you the next unread message, else it will find you the first one. Find - This command is used to search the message headers for specific text. It is possible to search the Subject, From, To and At fields for specific text, in any direction, with case sensitivity on or off. The text is treated as a substring, so entering 'A' in subject will find all messages where 'A' appears anywhere in the subject. If no text is entered for a field, then that field will not be used in the selection process. E.g. To search for a message from an EA8 station to EU, then set the 'To' field to EU and the 'From' field to EA8. The search will only find message headers from EA8 stations to those at EU. Find again - Basically works the same as standard Psion Find again functions. It continues to search from the current position, and uses the same search criteria as Find. Mark for download - Messages marked for download are displayed in italics. If a message header looks like it could be interesting, and you want to download it, or, if the 'listen for' text has detected something you know you don't want, then you can use this command to toggle the marked for download status. Delete - deletes the message header, and any file containing the message text. Even if a header is marked keep protected, then it will be deleted. No confirm message is issued, it just does it. Keep - toggles a message as protected from automatic delete by the purge. Keep protected messages are underlined. Enter new msg - Creates a message in the outbound mailbox. If you are in the inbound mailbox, the message is still created in the outbound mailbox. You enter a dialogue requesting the addressee and home BBS. These fields must be completed, after which you enter edit mode. See the command available below. Reply to message - is similar to the 'Enter new message' above, just that the addressee and subject fields are prefilled with data taken from the message the cursor is pointing to. Resend message - is only available in the Outbound Mailbox. Send 7+ File - will prompt you for an addressee and a file. It will then request PT_7PLUS to encode the file and put all the parts in your Outbound Mailbox ready for transmission. Unpack 7+ File is used to manually rebuild a file from the constituent messages. If not all the parts have been downloaded into your Psion, then it will tell you which parts are missing. The generated file is output to \PT\ARRIVALS\. The various constituent parts will be deleted if you requested this in the Preferences menu option on the main screen. It is also possible that some of the parts you received are corrupt. If this is the case, then an error report will be generated ready for sending back to the original sender. You also have the option to save the metafile for error correction. This option is also in the Preferences menu option on the main screen. Header - When entering or replying to a message, you may wish to go back to the dialogue that started message entry, so that you could change the subject or the private/bulletin status for example. This command allows that. On exit, you are back in the editor where you left it. Insert text - Standard Psion insert. Copy text - Standard Psion copy. Bring - Standard Psion bring. Save - Saves the message in the outbox ready for uploading to your host. Revert - forgets the message you are entering. Set preferences - There are two options available concerned with loading the message text into the reader. These are, load message routing, and use proportional text. These are by default, no and yes respectively. You may wish to view the route to see why the message took so long getting to you, or where is has been on the way. Frankly, after you've seen this stuff more than twice, it gets boring, which is why it is normally set to not load. The proportional text is normally enabled because it looks better, but normal PCs don't use proportional text and people will send you tables of data that will look "wonky" in proportional text mode. Therefore an option is provided to disable proportional text. Zoom - is only available on the Series 3a, and replicates the standard Psion zoom commands. Version - software version Exit - exits the inbound or outbound mailbox. Going /P This is not advisable. The program is designed to run continually. When going portable, this implies that there will be long gaps between using the program. When the program starts up, it will try to resync with your host. If you have been QRT for a few days, then you will be several hundred or possible thousands of messages out of step with your host. The program will try its' best to bring you up to date. However, the beacons FBB output are on all bands, so if you are on a relatively quiet 4m band, the beacons you cause to be output are also splattering across 2m & 70cm. You will become unpopular. The best way I can think of overcoming this problem is to use the TNC command XMITOK OFF, start the program up, and wait for an FBB beacon to appear. Use the Psion-M command to reset the highest FBB beacon saved to this value, exit PT, use the Comms application to set XMITOK ON again, and re-enter PT. It is a bit long winded, but at least you won't get a stream of abuse. Direct connect You can't. If you want to take direct control of the TNC then you must exit PT and enter the Comms Application. You will probably find that the TNC will need a few commands sent to it before it is easily usable, e.g. ALFDISP ON ACRPACK OFF ECHO ON These are the commands for a PK232, if you've got something different, then it's up to you to work it out. It is useful to have these in a script file if you intend to direct connect a lot. Problems UTC time is wrong. Check that you have correctly set your 'Home City' in the World or Time applications. If this is right then check the Daylight Savings option. TNC not powered up. Some TNCs can be powered from the control voltages present in the RS232 lead. This is not possible with the Series 3 even if it is powered with a mains adaptor. You will have to get an alternative power supply or TNC. TNC not responding at all. Try using the Comms application. If there is nothing at all, then are you aware that both the TNC and the Series 3 are wired up as DCE? You'll need a null modem adaptor to overcome this problem. You need to digipeat to your host but can't see how to. The reason is, you can't. It has to be a single hop. No traffic appears, and you get Serial Overrun messages. The link to the TNC has reset to the wrong speed. Use Psion-R to reset the TNC again. You can't get it to work and want help. You could try asking me but I don't promise anything. If I think you've found a bug, I may have already fixed it. These programs are supplied FREE OF CHARGE & it's not worth my time to be continually messing with the code. The future The following is simply some rough thoughts on what (if any) improvements that will be made to these programs over the coming months. They do not indicate any intention to do them though. The program is not language specific. In common with other Psion Series 3 products, the program can potentially support, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, American, Swiss (French), Swiss (German), Portuguese, Turkish, Icelandic, Russian, Hungarian, Dutch, Belgian Flemish, Australian, New Zealand, Austrian and Belgian French. If someone desparately needs a foriegn language version I can probably work something out. No promises though, and you'll have to do the translation yourself. Initial experiments with compressing mail indicates that the (de)compress program is likely to be about 80k on its own. Adding to that the recommended 40k gives far more free memory than most Series 3 computers have available at runtime. It may be possible to reduce this memory requirement. It is unlikely that a log will ever be maintained like TPK does. I can see little or no point as the TPK log does not satisfy UK licensing. Text search within the editor, in the body text of messages. Better manual. Use the TNC host mode. Handle multiple sessions. PMS. Known Bugs File in use error on program startup - caused by PTDBMGR still running after exiting from the program moments earlier. Switching hosts causes saved FBB beacon to become confused. There's only one saved beacon number. Answer - don't switch hosts. Modification History V0.10 released 19th Dec 1993 Disable reset of TNC while connected. When replying to mail, don't RE: RE: RE:... One is enough ! Fixed problem when multiple databases exist. Problem in PT_CONN.C saving messages to path in DatCommandPtr, and not the path found by PTINIDAT. Also PTINIDAT searched in order M:, A:, B:, Installed drive. This is not the order the documentation said. We now do what the documentation says. Changes for FBB 5.15b. Mail is now sent with S%C %S @ %S. Note the extra spaces around the @. This is downward compatible with FBB 5.15. Not tested on other versions. PTINITNC now checks at 9600,4800,2400,1200,300,110 baud before forcing autobaud. This seems far more reliable than previous methods. V0.11 released 9th Jan 1994 incorporates all the above fixes. Changed the way the program detects end of message. Not sure changes to PTMSG.IMG in V0.11 were actually included in the released .ZIP. There was a mixup with the latest source. Don't use transparent mode, because we seem to miss disconnect messages from the host if the host times out and we aren't expecting it. Messages for sub-nodes are now sent to the host. If a download aborted, then the message file was left open. The next attempt to download put up a notifier 'File in Use'. This problem has only become apparent now that we recover gracefully from a TIME OUT at the host end, and never manifested itself when in transparent text mode. V0.12 released 17th Jan 1994 incorporates all the above fixes. Removed extraneous CTRL-Z at end of message input. Stops the menus being output more then once on a message send. Saves wasteing time. Now that FBB5.15b doesn't output "P" msgs, when we start up, our FBB beacon will drop back to the last held on file, not the last heard. This can be as much as 40 or 50 headers, and is a waste of bandwidth. Save last heard as type "F" in PT.DBF V0.13 released 9th Feb 1994 incorporates all the above fixes. Rebuild with SDK version 2. Added new parameter file PT_RS232.TXT which holds baud rate. If this file exists then PTINITNC doesn't autobaud. V0.14 released 21st Mar 1994 incorporates all the above fixes. Improved link/paste server. Apparently it was possible to hang system apps, I never experienced this problem, but incorporated mods as suggested by Psion. Added search function. Renumber utility added. Envelope type graphic to show mail waiting on the host. Shows bug in FBB that sometimes keeps private mail for us, and doesn't beacon it. Only write unique messages to the database. Fixes bug where we had msgs repeated down the screen in the msg reader. Search added. Added 3a Icon and the main program, PT, now runs in dual mode If a msg was entered, and the file is then replaced by another file, the msg lengths became confused and the transmit %age would not end at 100% V0.15 released 31st May 1994 incorporates all the above fixes. If TNC not connected then allow machine to time out/power down. PTMSG now runs in dual mode and Zoom option added. Fixed bug where if reading a message and toggled status window, then the display refreshed to the header list. Bug fix. When entering a msg, and the title was the max number of chars, it said must fill to and at. Make menus more dynamic. Stops saying 'Prohibited in ... mode'. User doesn't get the option in PTMSG & PT says Log On/Log Off. Added 'Resend' option. Send a DAYTIME command to the TNC after setup. If PT_TNC.TXT contained a RESTART it was cleared. 7+ encode/decode added. Timer on input buffer. Don't have to wait for new packet before display the currently held one. Stop extraneous UNPROTO transmissions. Use background formatting in message editor. Bug Fix. If downloaded a message already marked as unread, it bumped the unread count again. V1.00 released 16th September 1994 incorporates all the above fixes. If the default drive is not where the message base is, then 7+ fell over complaining about the lack of a directory, or file. Increase size of @ field in message input to allow for explicit addressing. Bug fix in send 7+ file. The file should be sent roughly equal parts of file size/4000. For a file just over 65k i.e. 79k the calculation gave a truncated figure for the 79k i.e. 14k divided that by 4000 to arrive at 3 parts, so the file was split into 4 parts of about 20k. SSIDs allowed. Speed up the database manager. Now far more responsive while purging - use p_getosd to check if client waiting, and if there is, serve the client. V1.01 released 8th December 1994 incorporates all the above fixes. If a new msg header arrives in PT when the user is reading a msg with PTMSG then when the user finishes reading, they could not get to the new message header until yet another new message header arrived. i.e. First, Last and count of headers was only updated when the header list was displayed. V1.02 released 11th January 1995 incorporates the above fix. If low on system memory, PTDBMGR could fail during initialisation, and PT would hang waiting for initialisation to finish. PT now reports the failure. If set "Last Host Msg" higher than really heard, then set it lower, the last message read stays at the higher value. Allow change in Next Message menu. The message header list on the Series 3 Classic only showed titles. Show the whole thing. Fix Connection Status box on Series 3 Classic. Text scribbled over the box margin. Fix PT Set preferences dialog so that there are not too many items on the Series 3 Classic. Move 7+ options to new menu item. V1.03 released 15th August 1995 incorporates the above fixes.