Apple II with ProTERM 3.1 OS X/Unix Serial Terminal

[Hugh Hood <hughhood@earthlink.net>]

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.

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..