Apple II with ProTERM 3.1 OS X/Unix Serial Terminal
Hugh Hood
Apple II to a Unix machine, including, of course, to Macs running OS X, I
decided to give it a go.
Considering that current Macs (those running OS X 10.4 and 10.5) don't
support AppleTalk file sharing (excluding Netatalk, which is another
matter), and that the OS X Finder doesn't natively recognize the ProDOS file
system (excluding the pending MacFUSE prodosfs, which is also another
matter), sharing files between Apple II's and OS X Macs has not been a
trivial task.
- ProTERM 3.1 to the rescue -
By diddling with the files /etc/ttys, /etc/gettytab and /etc/profile in OS
X, you can construct a reliable 57,600 hardware handshaking RTS/CTS serial
terminal link between a IIGS running ProTERM 3.1 and an OS X machine with a
serial port (either via PCI Card, Stealth Serial Port, or USB-Serial
Adapter).
After the link is established, not only can you control the OS X machine
(normal Unix tasks, running LYNX, etc...), but also you can transfer files
back and forth using the Zmodem protocol, without ANY interaction on the
part of the Mac OS X user, other than having the machine turned on. (NOTE:
The OS X machine must first do an install/build of the lrzsz program for
Z/Y/X modem support - MacPorts makes this fairly effortless, BTW).
I do almost all of my 'real' work in ProDOS 8 Classic AppleWorks, but need
to share files with OS X systems. ProTERM, being able to read native
AppleWorks files, does a great job (via a ProTERM macro, I admit) of reading
a saved AppleWorks file, transparently converting it to a plain Text file,
and sending the file to the OS X machine. Likewise, as long as the OS X
machine has saved a file in .txt format, Zmodeming it to the Apple II
(controlled entirely from the Apple II end) is pretty easy.
The changes to the OS X file /etc/ttys involve enabling the correct 'tty'
serial port, as most of the internet articles on this subject already
discuss.
The changes to /etc/gettytab involve adding an entry for 'local.57600'. This
is just a copy of the slower 'local.9600' entry, with the speed numbers
changed.
The changes to /etc/profile involve issuing stty -f /dev/tty.*******
commands to set various serial port parameters (crtscts, clocal, -iexten,
-parenb, cs8, -cstopb, -ixon, -ixoff) much more easily than can be set by
fooling with the myriad of binary flags in the /etc/gettytab file. I'm a
fairly detailed guy when I want to be, but a thorough and complete mastery
of all those binary flags as detailed in termios escaped me. Using the
higher level stty commands circumvented my deficiency. This may not be the
'proper' Unix way to do things, but it certainly is functional.
Note that for error free Zmodem transfers with ProTerm, the '-iexten' flag
must be set, FWIW.
Communicating at 57,600 baud is not ethernet, nor is it AppleTalk file
sharing, but it's not bad, and ProTERM is really able to shine doing its
thing. And Ewen Wannop's Spectrum would also excel with this, I'd imagine.
Likewise, a IIe (and maybe a IIc) could do the same thing with ProTERM and a
Super Serial Card, but would be limited to 19,200 baud.
I never knew I wanted a Unix terminal, but now that I have one, it's pretty
cool.
Hugh..
Bill Buckels
news:C564A965.1067%hugh...@earthlink.net...
>- ProTERM 3.1 to the rescue -
I'm a PC.
30 years ago when I still wore bluejeans to the office I wrote my commercial
Apple II programs in my MS-DOS Aztec C Cross-Compiler. See Here:
Then I used ProTERM and a NULL Modem Cable attached to the Super Serial Card
on my Apple //e to transfer my programs using YMODEM protocol from a COM
program on my PC to build my Apple distribution disks.
It's nice to see that the MAC has finally caught-up.
Bill
Greg Buchner
"Bill Buckels" <bbuc...@mts.net> wrote:
> Then I used ProTERM and a NULL Modem Cable attached to the Super Serial Card
> on my Apple //e to transfer my programs using YMODEM protocol from a COM
> program on my PC to build my Apple distribution disks.
>
> It's nice to see that the MAC has finally caught-up.
There's no reason why you couldn't take an original Mac from 1984 and do
the same. It's all just a matter of software.
While I don't know which version of the OS that ProTerm Mac requires,
(7, 8 or 9...), you could do that from ProTerm to ProTerm with an older
Mac.
Greg B.
PS. And it's Mac, not MAC. MAC is an acronym for Media Access Control,
the address of your Ethernet port(s), amongst other things.
--
Actual e-mail address is gregbuchner and I'm located at gmail.com
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
Simon D. Williams
> There's no reason why you couldn't take an original Mac from 1984 and do
> the same. It's all just a matter of software.
128K of RAM might be a limiting factor ;-)
> While I don't know which version of the OS that ProTerm Mac requires,
> (7, 8 or 9...), you could do that from ProTerm to ProTerm with an older
> Mac.
I had that set up quite some time ago and I'm pretty sure the Mac was
running System 7, which should run on everything from the Mac Plus up...
ISTR it being fairly limited though. A better solution (for older Macs) is
installing NetBSD... I'm no *nix expert, but I managed to get it running
on an LCIII, using a IIgs as the terminal. It was a bit frustrating, but
in a fun, challenging way (in hindsight).
] SIMON D WILLIAMS
Bill Buckels
"Greg Buchner" <nu...@none.invalid> wrote in message
news:null-CF2E8C.0...@free.teranews.com...
>from ProTerm to ProTerm
PPS. - It's ProTERM not ProTerm. ProTerm is an article on Wikipedia with a
spelling error.
>PS. And it's Mac, not MAC.
Not according to acronym finder. The Macintosh sorts to the top of the list
even above yer dandy ol' MACaroni, and the other 248 other MACronyms.
http://www.acronymfinder.com/MAC.html
However it is a slang expression so case is not a factor. Whether using 3
letter slang or four letter slang I don't know anyone who would be concerned
with case. Also being from Canada where we are bilingual it is proper and
even required to express the French language in capitals on an English
keyboard to avoid accentuation, and we Canadians quite frequently drift
between languages 'specially us old ones. I could start speaking in Aztec C
any moment now. THAT A-cronym which stands for A-Z Tec C (A-Z being
pronounced Eh 2 Zee which is what we Canadians say when it snows and we go
to Texas - when we return we say Eh 2 Zed), Tec being equivalent to Tech
and pronounced TEK and meaning Technical and of course K&R's C which was
preceded by B and is now being followed by D. Upper case une lettre acronyms
seldom leave room for arguments unless they are command line arguments which
is something that is new to the MAC. Time was not too long ago that the
MacoPhiles turned their collective noses up at anything that didn't look
like a Finder. Now they are discovering NULL Modems:)
I am sure that this will all result in less e-waste and a greener Apple.
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/agreenerapple/
But I doubt if Lisa Simpson will ever have enough money to pay for her
iTunes downloads at this rate.
Bill
Greg Buchner
"Bill Buckels" <bbuc...@mts.net> wrote:
> "Greg Buchner" <nu...@none.invalid> wrote in message
> news:null-CF2E8C.0...@free.teranews.com...
> >from ProTerm to ProTerm
>
> PPS. - It's ProTERM not ProTerm. ProTerm is an article on Wikipedia with a
> spelling error.
Yea, I should have known that.
> >PS. And it's Mac, not MAC.
>
> Not according to acronym finder. The Macintosh sorts to the top of the list
> even above yer dandy ol' MACaroni, and the other 248 other MACronyms.
But it's not an acronym. Mac is short for Macintosh.
Greg B.
Greg Buchner
"Simon D. Williams" <bb...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
> A better solution (for older Macs) is
> installing NetBSD... I'm no *nix expert, but I managed to get it running
> on an LCIII, using a IIgs as the terminal. It was a bit frustrating, but
> in a fun, challenging way (in hindsight).
I thought about installing NetBSD once upon a time, but that's as far as
I ever got. I suppose if I ever had a extra 680x0 Mac around again, and
the room to set it up, I might consider it.
Greg B.
blakespot
> Having read several recent posts and internet articles on connecting the
> Apple II to a Unix machine, including, of course, to Macs running OS X, I
> decided to give it a go.
It's fun stuff. Perhaps mine is one of the articles you read.
http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000113.php
I setup the Apple //c in my office to serve as a serial terminal for
use with IRC. I set this up after being inspired by PDW's story:
http://pdw.zoomshare.com/0.shtml/63b2407517a7e8a33040b01a398bc79f_467c5513.writeback
I've also set four other machines up, three of which I've documented.
TRS-80 Model 4:
http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000148.php
Epson PX-8 "Geneva":
http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000143.php
eMate 300:
http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000121.php
The fourth is my recently acquired (unenhanced) Apple IIe. On the
IIe, oddly, I am having some issues w/ CRs registering. I have an
enhancement kit headed my way from Reactive and am in the process of
purchasing the latest version of ProTERM as a disk image to see if
that helps.
For all of the projects so far I've used Modem MGR, a free VT220-
capable terminal app that works on the ][ plus on up. Doing IRC on
the Apple II's gives me a real use for them every day. I love it.
See my 3-headed MacBook!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/blakespot/2968210374/in/set-72157608229267141/
blakespot
Bill Buckels
>But it's not an acronym. Mac is short for Macintosh.
Merriam Webster does agree that acronyms can be abbreviations:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acronym
MAC is an acronym for the Macintosh computer and it's also slang according
to Macronym finder..
http://www.acronymfinder.com/MAC.html
Or the free dictionary...
http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/MAC.
Or all acronyms...
http://www.nisto.com/mac/glossary/all.html
And even the business world...
http://tt4smb.wordpress.com/2007/08/16/acronym-mac/
What does MAC OS stand for?
Macintosh Operating System
http://www.acronymfinder.com/Macintosh-Operating-System-(MAC-OS).html
low-rent MAC would like to think it weren't so, but guess what they are
promoting?
http://lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml
They go on to say as if it is rude to do otherwise...
"Please capitalize these Apple trademarks as follows: iMac, iBook,
PowerBook, MacBook, Mac mini, LaserWriter. There is a space in Power Mac,
MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro"
And the Mac WWW FAQ goes even further... it lists acronyms in its
glossary... but let's keep in mind that on THAT site, Mac WWW FAQ is an
acronym for "The Macintosh World Wide Web Documentation" but on the rest of
the Internet FAQ means "Frequently Asked Questions".
Maybe we need to journey the bottom of the ocean with Lisa Simpson to get
ourselves outfitted with Sandwich Boards and promote this NWO
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Order_(professional_wrestling)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_world_order
Michael J. Mahon
> "Greg Buchner" <nu...@none.invalid> wrote in message
> news:null-AE1EC5.2...@free.teranews.com...
>> But it's not an acronym. Mac is short for Macintosh.
>
> Merriam Webster does agree that acronyms can be abbreviations:
>
> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acronym
Actually, no. An acronym is formed from initial characters
of a multi-word term, as Merriam-Webster's example makes clear--
like "FBI".
"Abbreviation" is a more encompassing term describing any shortened
form of a term, including acronyms and nicknames (like "Chevy").
"Mac" is a nickname, and, like many nicknames, can be considered
to be slang. But I'm sure that Apple considers it to be an
alternate form of their trademarked computer name, since they
use it all the time in advertising.
"MAC" is just as improper as "CHEVY", or as proper, depending on
the availability of lower case or your need to rationalize. ;-)
Why not just stop defending a deprecated (and practically irrelevant)
usage?
Certainly we all make mistakes--I sure do. (Many might agree that
this post is one of them! ;-)
"De gustibus ain't what dey used to be!"
-michael
******** Note new website URL ********
NadaNet and AppleCrate II for Apple II parallel computing!
Home page: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."
mdj
> "MAC" is just as improper as "CHEVY", or as proper, depending on
> the availability of lower case or your need to rationalize. ;-)
>
> Why not just stop defending a deprecated (and practically irrelevant)
> usage?
If only it was deprecated :-) The use of "MAC Address" causes a lot of
confusion among typical users. We might've had more luck finding
another popular name had Apple not decided to use Trademarked names as
their obviously necessary substitues: The Wireless MAC Address of a
Mac is called it's "Airport ID".
Unfortunatley, the much more precise acronym EHA (Ethernet Hardware
Address) isn't pronouncable, so it seems not to have taken off...
Isn't nomenclature fun? :-)
Matt
winston19842005
69a18ce4-4258-4817...@z27g2000prd.googlegroups.com, "mdj"
<mdj...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Unfortunatley, the much more precise acronym EHA (Ethernet Hardware
> Address) isn't pronouncable, so it seems not to have taken off...
> Isn't nomenclature fun? :-)
Sure it's pronounceable. Down here in Georgia, it is pronounced like
"yeehaw" without the "y"...
Bill Buckels
news:haydnaRldd_jV9zU...@giganews.com...
>An acronym is formed from initial characters of a multi-word term, as
>Merriam-Webster's example makes clear-- like "FBI".
Well that clears that up for me. I will be able to sleep better now:)
>"Abbreviation" is a more encompassing term describing any shortened form of
>a term, including acronyms and nicknames (like "Chevy").
And "PowerBook, MacBook, Mac mini, LaserWriter, Power Mac with a space,
MacBook Pro with a space, and Mac Pro with a space" have little to do with
netiquette and more to do with marketing "The Macintosh World Wide Web
Deception":) as does shillish insistence on the use of Apple-Politick case
in product names when the meaning is baitingly clear and shouts loudly from
the missive:)
>"Mac" is a nickname, and, like many nicknames, can be considered to be
>slang. But I'm sure that Apple considers it to be an alternate form of
>their trademarked computer name, since they use it all the time in
>advertising.
Although lately Apple have used Polish Notation (not reverse Polish
Notation) for their product nomenclature, suggesting that the user can do
something using their stuff. Recent examples of their spamVertising in
myDeleted items folder include "iMac, iPhone, iPod". Well since iMaPc and
iDon't and iTook the iPod that iGot for Christmas at our company Christmas
party last year and iExchanged it for two 22 inch LG LCD Monitors, one for
mySelf and one for myWife. This year iWill exchange whatever iGot for a 26"
LCD TV for ourBedroom.
iMac-iPhone-iPod naming and fun with counterpoint mangling as an aside,
iThink iMade the right choice between iMexpensive and eyesCansee:) These
progressive lenses appreciate a little more Real Esate for their money and
sticking a cell phone against myNose is not an acceptable solution except
when necessary.
>"MAC" is just as improper as "CHEVY", or as proper, depending on the
>availability of lower case or your need to rationalize. ;-)
Well said.
>Why not just stop defending a deprecated (and practically irrelevant)
>usage?
The view from the top says Mr. Obama should heed this last comment when it
comes to things like CHEVY iThink:)
The Mac itself like other old computers may not be considered deprecated by
those of us who marvelled at the stupidity of Apple in not making wonderful
computers with 68000 processors compatible with the inexpensive VGA monitors
of the day as we watched our Berkely After-Dark Screensavers in Black and
White and tried to explain to our designers why a console application might
be useful. I quickly abandoned Think C and embraced the less Parc-like but
infinitely more colourful and inclusive path of Mother Micro$oft's Money
Machine for the Masses but always wondered about all this. APDA indeed!
>Certainly we all make mistakes--I sure do. (Many might agree that this post
>is one of them! ;-)
However, it does lend an element of authority to an otherwise pointless and
wildly OT discussion.
>"De gustibus ain't what dey used to be!"
I'm sure we can all agree on this.
Bill
Greg Buchner
"Bill Buckels" <bbuc...@mts.net> wrote:
>
> The Mac itself like other old computers may not be considered deprecated by
> those of us who marvelled at the stupidity of Apple in not making wonderful
> computers with 68000 processors compatible with the inexpensive VGA monitors
> of the day as we watched our Berkely After-Dark Screensavers in Black and
> White and tried to explain to our designers why a console application might
> be useful.
What are you talking about? VGA was first released in 1987, same year as
the Macintosh II which could use a monitor that was, except for the
connector, VGA compatible.
And color monitors back then weren't inexpensive as I recall.
Maybe you are thinking of CGA/EGA, neither of which really got to the
resolution that Apple wanted for the first Macs. Those B&W displays had
72 DPI, both horizontal and vertical. It was perfect for a WYSIWYG
display at the time.
Hugh Hood
This topic seemed to take a strange twist, so I'm glad you weighed in. I had
thought maybe my original post was less than coherent. And, perhaps it was.
Anyway, in fact, I did consult your great article, as well as Paul's.
Thanks for taking the time to post your details and screen shots. Seeing is
believing, or at least it was before Photoshop. <g>
Also very helpful was this from Mac OS X Hints:
<http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030724135653825>
Of course, I should have been satisfied with 9600 baud and software
handshaking, because, in my effort to achieve a 57600 baud (ProTERM 3.1 IIGS
driver) RTS/CTS handshaking setup, I ended up spending an embarrassing
number of obsessive hours fiddling with Unix /etc/gettytab, termios, stty,
etc/ttys, serial flags, /dev/tty*, terminfo and all. Being my first
experience with Unix, this was _slow_.
Most of the articles mention modifying the /etc/ttys file to use the
local.9600 or the serial.9600 entries from the gettytab file, with the VT100
terminal type. Unfortunately, changing to other parameters usually requires
opening /etc/gettytab and making a few additions to the entries, usually to
add support for other baud rates, but also to change some serial comm
parameters.
And speaking of supported terminal types, type in the command "toe | more"
at your Unix prompt and you'll be presented with dozens of terminal types in
addition to vt100, including appleII and appleIIgs, as well as many vt***,
commodore, amiga, and atari, lisa and linux.
In the end, as you know, it's very satisfying to have an Apple II (a IIGS in
my case) _control_ a modern OS X (Unix) Mac computer.
(BTW, I would contrast this merely to hooking two computers to each other
via a null modem cable and running comm programs on both ends in order to
transfer files. Heck, I think the Guru Don Lancaster did that with two
abacuses/abacata/abaci and a string back in the '60s. Most would agree that
there's nothing new there. And, to be honest, I suppose there's nothing all
that 'new' about setting up an Apple II as a Unix serial terminal).
While it is _neat_ to be able to run Lynx, Pine, etc... from an Apple II, I
must confess that the real reason I set this up was to overcome OS X's
current lack of ProDOS file system capability and lack of support for
AppleTalk file sharing (as of 10.4 Tiger). Even prior to Tiger, though,
there were issues about OS X's AppleTalk being read-only from the Apple II
side. Attempting to write files, forked or not, from the Apple II to the
Mac, would produce errors. Yuk.
In our office, we have a real need to transfer files (generally .txt and
'awp' files) between the Apple IIGS and Macs. This setup (using the Zmodem
protocol) handles this nicely, and the Mac user never has to do a thing
other than look on his/her Desktop for the file that was transferred, or
alternatively, placing the file on the Desktop to be transferred to the
Apple II. The Apple IIGS user runs the show with ProTERM controlling the
sending/receiving on the Apple II end, while the Unix programs rz and sz
work behind the scenes to handle things on the Mac end.
When ProTERM starts a Zmodem send, the Unix program rz (receive zmodem) is
automatically started on the Mac. When it's time to receive a file on the
Apple II, you merely type 'sz <filename>' on the serial terminal, and
ProTERM automatically starts its Zmodem receive. Not bad. Also, sz will auto
convert the line delimiters back to CR/LF if you add -a.
For others wanting to try this, remember that on the Mac, the Unix programs
rz and sz are not included with the Darwin install. You'll need to get and
build the program 'lrzsz' first. MacPorts or Fink make this simple. On other
**nixes, these programs may already be included, though.
Finally, as I've probably mentioned in prior posts, I _really_ enjoy working
entirely within 8-bit AppleWorks 5.1, and if I could have done all this with
TimeOut Telecom, I wouldn't have used ProTERM. But, TimeOut Telecom doesn't
do VT100 nor Zmodem, and drops characters on the screen display at speeds
over 4800 baud, so ProTERM is da man, at least for me.
Actually, ProTERM 3.1 is a great piece of software, and I'd readily
recommend it. Version 3.1 adds the IIGS 57600 baud SCC serial driver and
some other improvements to 3.0. I think it sells for about $20 these days.
Learning some of those ProTERM macro commands, though, after years of
working with AppleWorks UltraMacros, though, was a real trip.
Hugh...
in article
fba0cdd5-4b65-4663...@m22g2000vbp.googlegroups.com, blakespot
at blak...@gmail.com wrote on 12/11/08 6:07 AM:
winston...@yahoo.com
> On Dec 10, 12:01 am, Hugh Hood <hughh...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > Having read several recent posts and internet articles on connecting the
> > Apple II to a Unix machine, including, of course, to Macs running OS X, I
> > decided to give it a go.
>
> It's fun stuff. Perhaps mine is one of the articles you read.
>
> http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000113.php
>
> I setup the Apple //c in my office to serve as a serial terminal for
> use with IRC. I set this up after being inspired by PDW's story:
>
>
> I've also set four other machines up, three of which I've documented.
>
> TRS-80 Model 4:http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000148.php
>
> Epson PX-8 "Geneva":http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000143.php
>
> eMate 300:http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000121.php
>
> The fourth is my recently acquired (unenhanced) Apple IIe. On the
> IIe, oddly, I am having some issues w/ CRs registering. I have an
> enhancement kit headed my way from Reactive and am in the process of
> purchasing the latest version of ProTERM as a disk image to see if
> that helps.
>
> For all of the projects so far I've used Modem MGR, a free VT220-
> capable terminal app that works on the ][ plus on up. Doing IRC on
> the Apple II's gives me a real use for them every day. I love it.
>
> See my 3-headed MacBook!
>
>
> blakespot
Why not your TI-99?
I used to log into my linux box using the TI-99, and surf using Lynx
and use it as a terminal for the system... before it was moved into
another room away from all the rest of the network (whimper!).
rtk
>
> I never knew I wanted a Unix terminal, but now that I have one, it's pretty
> cool.
At work I have an Apple IIgs running ProTerm as a terminal off my
Linux box. I use it for most of my C programming, including coding
for GPUs. My co-workers give me looks but I don't care :) It works
as well now as it did 20 years ago.
Ron