Re: 5.25 drive issue w/ IIgs & sys 6.01

["Mark Cummings" <NOTfigjams@primus.com.au>]

Answering my own questions, is always more fulfilling...

After re-visiting my Mac-PC speed limit of 9600, and knowing I had a
hardware handshaking cable, I discovered almost by accident that my problem
was in the software setup. I just discovered that on the PC side of things,
that Hyperterminal will not just change speeds at the waving of a magic
wand. It must be disconnected, then change the setting of the baud rate
etc., then reconnect.This was my BIG mistake. Blush 8}
On the Mac, I am using ClarisWorks Terminal program, and it is quite happy
to change speeds while connected.

So after some short experiments I now have error free transfers at 57600bps,
which is the maximum speed of the Mac :>

Now I'll be looking at my rather long PC-GS cable, which is also hardware
handshake, to make sure it's the same. And the software on the GS of course
will need an upgrade. Out of curiosity I'll see if I can get 19200 in
AppleWorks GS Terminal.

Mark


Mark Cummings <NOTfigjams@primus.com.au> wrote in message
3b220427@news.iprimus.com.au">news:3b220427@news.iprimus.com.au...
> Jeff & William,
>
> > >Appleworks GS doesn't support transfers faster than 19200.
> > >I currently use Z-Link which supports up to 56K transfers but
> > >it won't work with 56K with the PC.  Do you have the machine
> > >in Fast mode?  If it is in Normal mode, it will be too slow to
> > >allow transfers faster than 9600 bps.  Check your control
> > >panel.  [ctrl][open apple][esc].
>
> I always use fast mode, except for a few games that need 1MHz.
>
> > Sound to me like both of you guys are using non-hardware handshaking
> > cables to connect your IIgs' to other machines.  If you don't use
> > hardware handshaking cables, then you will definitely get errors at
> > higher transfer rates.  Even more errors if you are transferring files
> > to a slow drive such as a floppy.
>
> I am using hardware handshaking, the cable has more than 3 wires. I would
> only use XON/XOFF if it only had 3 wires. Can you elaborate n which
> handshake settings I should use, normally I use DCD & DTR handshake. I
can't
> check this at the moment, because my Focus 500M HDD finally croaked it,
and
> I am reloading all my stuff onto a SCSI drive.
>
> > Without hardware handshaking, the only way to get the other computer
> > to stop sending is to use software handshaking.  This is the XON/XOFF
> > that William mentioned.  This type of handshaking isn't as reliable as
> > hardware handshaking as the other computer won't stop sending until it
> > has received an XOFF character from the IIgs so you might have a
> > buffer overflow before the XOFF character gets there.  This is more
> > apparent at higher transfer rates.
>
> I was aware of that.
>
> > A properly wired hardware handshaking cable is also dependent on the
> > communications program that you are using.  Fortunately, the most
> > popular communications programs all started using the same cable
> > pinout so if you are using ProTERM, Spectrum, ANSITerm or one of a
> > couple other programs, they will all be able to use the same hardware
> > handshaking cable.
>
> Where do I find the correct cabling info., everyone taks about hardware
> hanshaking, so I buy the right cable, but it still doesn't work >9600. If
I
> had the pinouts, I can check it or make my own. I can see that AppleWorks
GS
> is a huge bottleneck, so I will have to try something else there. Maybe I
> already have the right PC-GS cable.
>
> > at 38400 bps you'll be doing fine as chances are, you'll never be able
> > to exceed that speed.
>
> If I get 38400, I'd be more than satisfied.
>
> > One final thing to note, you will also get faster transfers if you use
> > a transfer protocol that uses 1024 byte packets (or larger if you can
> > manage it) instead of XModem's 128 bytes packets as there is less
> > overhead.
>
> Thanks for the tip, but I've got to get over the first hurdle.
>
> > However, as Mark mentioned, things are quite a bit faster if you use
> > AppleTalk.  If you are wanting to transfer stuff from a PC and don't
> > have the hardware and/or software to do AppleTalk, then you could use
> > a LANceGS card in a IIgs to connect to the PC and do FTP transfers
> > over a TCP/IP network.  :)
>
> For the price of a LanceGS card it would be cheaper to put an old Mac on
the
> net, including the cost of the Mac. So this is the path I am taking. One
> 28.8K modem on its way in about a week. :)
> I realise this won't solve the problem between the PC and GS, but I can
work
> on your suggestions.
>
> Mark
>
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>
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