★ APPLICATIONS ★ COMMUNICATION/TELEMATIQUE ★ DIALUP COMMS SOFTWARE|Popular Computing Weekly) ★ |
| Dialup Comms Software | Applications Communication/telematique |
Dial A for Amstrad STRUGGLING TO FIND AN RS-232 CABLE LONG ENOUGH TO SUIT HIM, DAVID WALLIN LOOKS AT PMS' DIALUP COMMS PACKAGE Though the Amstrad PCW is sold as a word processor with business applications available, little is said about the communications side of it. It is in fact an excellent machine for comms., though Amstrad should have included an RS232 port of some sort; instead it is necessary to fork out money for an interface as well as for a modem. This brings the price up by at least £40. MAIL232.COM, on side one of the systems disc, is useless; it offers no real facilities, thus the user must fork out for a piece of communications software as well. One of the latest pieces available is Dialup Personal, from PMS. PMS is not as well known as the current two market leaders in PCW communications software; SageSoft with the user friendly CHITCHAT software, and Margolis and Co. with the very powerful C0MM+. It's not easy to compete with either program. Both will give a little change out of £80 but are very good programs. With Dialup, you may be able to buy a pint with the change from £95. But is the software worth that much? Firstly, I should point out that the version of ChitChat with both Prestel and ASCII emulation in fact costs £99, and it's this version that should be compared with Dialup. The first thing I noticed when I got the package (software, manual and cable) was a big plastic box in the middle of the RS232 cable, 60 x 30 x 15mm. I decided to undo the four screws and look inside. Black plastic had been melted over a circuit inside the box and all I could do was notice the shapes of a couple of resistors and capacitors. Odd, I thought and put it back together. 1 wondered if when I turned the computer on, it would identify itself along with the other peripherals connected when I booted up CP/M. Nothing at all. Incidentally, the cable suffers from the usual manufacturer's “I'm-going-to-be-a-pain-and-force-the-modem-to-be-within-2-feet-of-the-computer” syndrome. Yes, the cable was as usual far too short (about one foot left after it had gone round the computer). Typing in DIALUP loaded the program and displayed a title and copyright screen. Four modem services (Prestel, Prestel Business Review (Prestel again), MicroNet (Prestel again!!) and Microlink were in the centre of the screen with the options; ‘Connect', ‘Amend', ‘Create', ‘Utility', ‘Exit' below. The left and right cursor keys selected one of these options and ENTER activated it. Firstly, I went to amend. I was then asked to select the service I wished to amend - I needed to change Prestel to my local call number, and add my customer ID logon sequence. Another menu with the options; ‘Edit', ‘Save', ‘Delete', ‘Exit' appeared. Obviously I wanted to edit the service details, so I selected edit. This was easy and menu driven and I soon had it done. The EXIT key returned to the main menu. I selected Exit and connected to the service from the menu. It started to dial, 618 not the 92 455400 I had put in. Returning, I realised that I should have gone to Save and not exit. This I consider to be wrong; Exit should save automatically and there should be an abort option. Logon data The modem dialled and I was connected. Prestel - a viewdata service - sends one page at a time. My ID was sent OK and so was my password, but when the first frame appeared, most of the previous screen asking for my password was still there. Where there should have been a space, there was the previous character. ' It was possible to use the program, but I had to clear the screen at my end (EXIT -7) every time. A quick look at the additional information concerning the Amstrad PCW version unveiled the following; 2. Viewdata logon sequence my cause frame corruption. (NB: This will be corrected in the next release). Corruption was right, but silly me, I was wrong not the software. PMS explain that the solution is to enter the logon data with the keyboard (using a macro if you wish) rather than trying to use an auto logon routine. Back to the main menu, I used MicroLink - success. Not one problem at all. I turned the printer echo on and off, saved files to disc, cleared the screen and sent a break character which broke the line. I attempted to redial, but I was presented with a message telling me that I had not got the cable connected. I ensured that the cable was fully inserted and tried again. No problems - the cable is obviously a very clever idea to prevent piracy. The software will not operate without the special “dongled” cable. However, since many users are now operating internal modems, this function of the cable is due to be deleted from future releases. The Utility menu has the options; ‘File', ‘Frame', ‘Printer', ‘Modem', ‘Exit'. File lets you Directory, rename, delete and copy and that's it. There's no text editor at all that I could find, which is very disappointing. It means using another program to create your E-Mail offline. The Frame option lets you view or print Prestel frames. Some are supplied for demo and all in all, the facility is good; it's a shame I could not really get to use Prestel myself properly. Printer lets you select whether line feeds are needed, and whether form feeds should be filtered or not. Finally, modem allows you to select what type of modem you have. PMS» seems to have some preference for Miracle Technology as the list includes their WS range and all PMS' adverts show the WS range. Unfortunately, I use PACE modems, and they were only catered for Under the general heading of Hayes modems. But it worked fine. . The manual deserves a mention;, it's , large, but covers-all versions of the -software. A sheet includes details of the peculiarities of the PCW version. An annoying one is the lack of an on-screen clock, which other versions have. A function key list is supplied on a card which can be placed along the top of the keyboard. Strangely, it has F1→F0 (total of 10) on it, yet there are only eight function keys on the PCW. I soon discovered that you had to press EXIT, followed by the numeric key that you wanted to use, not the function key as stated in the manual. Also available is a schools version; preconfigured for various educational services. The program is good value, priced lower than the Prestel and E-Mail version of ChitChat, and it offers more features; not as many as COMM+, but then it keeps the user friendliness of ChitChat. Dialup offers emulations of Viewdata, TTY, VT52, TTNS and Dialup - ChitChat only has two. Also, download in Xmodem, Kermit, Dialup and CET for viewdata systems is provided. ChitChat has none of these -though it does have a simple text editor. Top of the pile Generally, so long as Viewdata emulation is perfected, I would say that Dialup earns a place at the top of the pile of PCW comms. software. It offers the user friendliness of ChitChat, with much of the power of COMM+, Finally, a request to all modem manufacturers - can you please make the RS232 leads longer; it would not cost much. With a PCW, the printer lead is short and the printer must go on the right of the computer (as you look at it), therefore the modem needs to go on the left, but all the RS232 cables hardly reach far enough - please note!
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