home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- HOW TO INSTALL VMS KERMIT-32
-
- VAX/VMS Kermit-32 was written by Nick Bush and Bob McQueen of Stevens
- Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. As of April 1987, development of the
- program is more or less frozen since Nick and Bob have both changed jobs, but
- there have been a couple updates since then from Jonathan Welch at the U of
- Massachusetts, and Burt Johnson of Diversified Computer Systems Inc.
-
- Bug reports will be accepted with no guarantee that they will be acted upon.
- See the file VMSMIT.BWR for a list of known bugs, limitations, or for bug
- reports that have not been responded to. Meanwhile, the C version of Kermit
- (C-Kermit) will probably evolve to become the preferred version of Kermit for
- VMS.
-
- VMS Kermit-32 comes in 3 forms: hex, Macro source, and Bliss source. Each can
- be used as the basis for installation.
-
- MAGNETIC TAPE DISTRIBUTION
-
- VMS Kermit comes on Columbia University's Kermit Tape B, which you should
- normally order in ANSI format for reading on VMS 9-track tape drives.
-
- Before beginning, make a special directory for VMS Kermit and read the files
- VMS*.* from the Kermit distribution tape into this directory. Columbia's
- Kermit tapes are written with blocksize 8192, which is 4 times larger than the
- default tape blocksize for VMS. You should mount these tapes on the VMS system
- with the following command:
-
- MOUNT/BLOCK=8192/DENSITY=1600 MTA0: KERMIT
-
- (or substitute some other tape drive name for MTA0:) Do NOT use the /FOREIGN
- switch. Once the tape is mounted, you can use normal VMS COPY commands to
- copy the files from the tape. For instance, if you have defined your Kermit
- directory to have logical name KER:, you can use the following command to
- copy the VMS Kermit files into this directory:
-
- $ copy mta0:vms*.* ker:
-
- You can also get Kermit on TK50 cartridges. These are written in VMS BACKUP
- format.
-
- FILES
-
- The VMS Kermit files are the ones whose names start with "VMS". Most sites
- will not want to bother with the source code, and simply want the executable
- program, the help files, and the documentation (see METHOD 1 below). The
- minimum collection of files is:
-
- VMSMIT.HEX - The hexadecimal encoding of KERMIT.EXE
- VMSDEH.MAR - A macro program to convert the VMSMIT.HEX file into KERMIT.EXE
- VMSMIT.DOC - The VMS Kermit user manual
- VMSMIT.PS - A version of the user manual for printing on Postscript printers
- VMSMIT.HLP -
- VMSSYS.HLP -
- VMSUSR.HLP -
- VMSMIT.BWR - "Beware File" listing known or suspected bugs & limitations.
-
-
- METHOD 1: DECODE THE HEX FILE
-
- WARNING -- If you are running a pre-4.0 release of VMS, see Method 1.5 below!
-
- The easiest way to install VMS Kermit is to "dehexify" the hexadecimal
- encoded task image. Follow these steps:
-
- 1. There should be a file VMSDEH.MAR on your disk. This is a Macro-32 program
- that decodes the hex file of the VMS Kermit task image. Compile and load
- this program:
-
- $ macro vmsdeh
- $ link vmsdeh
-
- 2. Run the VMSDEH program:
-
- $ run vmsdeh
- Please type the file name: vmsmit.hex
-
- The VMSDEH program automatically creates KERMIT.EXE. Or it might create
- VMSMIT.EXE, which you can rename to KERMIT.EXE.
-
- 3. Now you can type "run kermit". Make sure it works. If not, try method 2.
-
- NOTE: There are some new files available (as of version 3.3.122) to help with
- the installation: VMSINS.KIT, VMSMKH.COM, and VMSMKI.COM. If you can use
- these files (DCL procedures) to install Kermit-32 on your system, then you can
- skip steps 4 and 5.
-
- 4. Install KERMIT.EXE in the appropriate system area.
-
- 5. Install the help files, for instance:
-
- $ LIBRARY/HELP/DELETE=KERMIT SYS$HELP:HELPLIB.HLB
- $ LIBRARY/INSERT/HELP SYS$HELP:HELPLIB.HLB VMSSYS.HLP
- $ LIBRARY/CREATE/HELP SYS$HELP:KERMIT.HLB VMSUSR.HLP
-
- See the file VMSINS.HLP for further hints about the help files.
-
- Note, the companion program to VMSDEH.MAR is VMSHEX.MAR. It creates hex
- files from binary files. You can use this program to encode any VMS binary
- file into printable form, and VMSDEH to decode it back into its original
- form, with all of its directory information intact.
-
-
- METHOD 1.5: DEHEXIFY THE OLD KERMIT-32 HEX FILE
-
- If you are running a version of VMS before 4.0, then the current release of
- Kermit-32 will not work on your system. If you tried Method 1, and the
- resulting Kermit program gave an error message like "invalid image header" when
- you tried to run it, this is probably the cause. In that case, you must use
- version 3.1 of VMS Kermit until you upgrade your VMS version. To use version
- 3.1 of VMS Kermit, follow the directions for Method 1, but use VMSDEH to
- dehexify the file VMSV31.HEX rather than VMSMIT.HEX. The result will be called
- VMSMIT.EXE rather than KERMIT.EXE. You can rename this file to KERMIT.EXE and
- install it and the help files normally, but note that the help files apply to
- the newer releases.
-
-
- METHOD 2: ASSEMBLE THE MACRO FILES
-
- Only use this method if method 1 fails for some reason. This method assembles
- all the Macro-32 source programs into object files, and then links them
- together into KERMIT.EXE, and then installs KERMIT.EXE and the help files in
- the system. NOTE: Kermit-32 is NOT written in Macro-32; it is written in
- Bliss-32, and these Macro files are output by the Bliss compiler. It is not
- recommended that changes be made to the Macro source. To build from the Macro
- code, follow these steps:
-
- 1. Make sure you have all the VMS*.MAR files on your current disk.
-
- 2. There is a DCL procedure to assemble and link all of these files,
- but unfortunately it assumes the files are called KER*.* instead of
- VMS*.*. There is another DCL procedure, VMSREN.COM, to rename them:
-
- $ @vmsren
-
- 3. Now that the files are renamed to KER*.*, you can run the DCL procedure
- VMSINS.COM to assemble and link them into KERMIT.EXE.
-
- $ @vmsins
-
- Kermit-32 Installation Procedure
-
- Rebuild from sources? (YES or NO) yes
-
- Which version? (BLISS or MACRO) macro
-
- Install Kermit-32 on the system? yes
- (note, you have to have write access to the system directories to do this)
-
- This may take some time
- (time passes)
-
- Kermit-32 installation is complete.
-
-
- METHOD 3: COMPILE THE BLISS SOURCES
-
- You can use this method only if you have a Bliss-32 compiler. Even then,
- there's no reason to do this unless you want to change the sources in some
- way. Follow the steps in Method 2, except reply "bliss" instead of "macro"
- to the "Which version?" question.
-