psion_software/pocpac/pocpac.txt

Pocket Packet for the Psion Revo
Version 5.04, February 2001.

This is simply a port of the Series 5 version to the Revo. There may be
some problems - I don't have a Revo to test it on, I used the Revo
Emulator and a Series 5mx.


Installation

This version of PocPac is supplied as a SIS file.

Installation of a SIS file is very simple. If you are using PsiWin 2.1 or
later, simply couple up your Revo to your PC, and double click PP.SIS
in Windows Explorer. If you do not have SystInfo.opx installed to your 
Revo, you must add this in the same way. If you are not sure about this,
it is quite safe to install both PP.SIS and SystInfo.SIS.

At this point it is probably a good idea to decide where you wish to keep your 
captured data, and any files you wish to keep. For example, you could make a 
directory called C:\Packet to keep all your captured files.

You can then start PocPac by tapping the Extras icon and selecting PocPac.

The Revo screen can display 80 characters across it, although these are
rather small and may be difficult to read. The program may start with a dialog
which allows you to select one of three options, these being:
Courier 8	80 chars
Courier 8 Bold	80 chars Bold
Courier 11	68 chars

The first time PocPac is run, it will write a file called PP.INI in the folder 
it is run from. It is possible that you will see a dialog asking for a path 
for sending files from (the send path), and a further dialog requesting the 
path to capture data to (the capture path). You can use these file selectors 
in the usual manner, e.g. pressing the left and right arrow keys will cycle 
through all the possible folders. As I said above, it is a good idea to keep 
a special folder(s) for captured data and files you wish to send. If you have 
not created these yet, select any folder, e.g. \Documents - you can change 
this setting later.
When PocPac has configured itself, you will see a message like:

PocPac Ready!

What is PocPac?

PocPac is a simple split screen terminal for driving a Packet Radio TNC. It 
requires a TNC with Command and Converse modes, e.g. a Tiny 2 or KPC3 or 
similar. It does not work in HOST or KISS mode.

It is able to capture incoming text and send text files. It doesn't do YAPP, 
although it should handle near-binary files like 7plus with no problems. For 
the latter, the communication between PocPac and your TNC should be set to 8 
bit no parity, preferably RTS/CTS handshaking, which are preferable settings 
anyway.

The facilities provided here are identical to those available in PocPac 
5.04 for the Series 5.

Connection to the TNC

The first point to mention is that is is a good idea to run your Revo 
from the mains adaptor while using packet. Of course this is not essential, 
but it enables you to use the most beneficial auto switch-off setting, which 
is "If No External Power" (this is selected from the Revo Control Panel). 
Otherwise it is probably a good compromise to set the auto switch-off to 
about 10 minutes or more, the idea being to avoid the Revo turning off 
during a packet session.

If it does turn off, just turn it on as usual. In some instances there may be 
garbled text, in such cases select Restore from PocPacs File menu, which 
should reset the comms port.

The Psion serial lead is terminated with a 9 pin D type female connector, and 
TNC's are usually fitted with a 25 pin D type female connection. This means 
an adaptor is required, which should be a "null-modem" type. If you make up 
your own, the wiring should be something like this:

	Name	      Psion            TNC
	RxD		2		2
	TxD		3		3
	RTS		7		5
	CTS		8		4
	GND		5		7

Your TNC may be slightly different, so remember that the Psion connection is 
designed to plug into a PC serial port, so you will to reverse the data and 
handshake connections compared to that required to wire a TNC to a PC.

The Keys

PocPac Revo functions are operated from both the keyboard and the menu, mostly 
the latter. Since there is no Psion key (as on the Series 3a/c), the Control 
key is used as a modifier. This clashes with some packet commands, but is 
consistent with Revo practice.

The following "Hot Key" commands are available from the keyboard:

Ctrl-B	Sends "C station" where station is the first callsign in the connect 
	directory.

Ctrl-C	Sends Control-C straight to the TNC to select command mode. Any text 
	in the type-ahead buffer is not affected.

Ctrl-D	Brings up the Connect directory, and sends "C station" to the callsign 
	selected.

Ctrl-E	Exits PocPac.

Ctrl-L	Opens or closes the capture file. This is a toggle. If there is no capture
	file, one is created in the form MMMDD.CAP where MMM is the month, and DD 
	the day. If such a file for the current date exists, any  subsequent use of
	Ctrl-L will append text to this file. There is a maximum size of data which
	can be captured in one PocPac session, this is set to about 500 kbytes. This
	can be exceeded by stopping and starting PocPac on the same day. The 
	intention of a limit is to prevent the accidental filling of the Series 5
	memory due to leaving capture active.

	The status bar shows whether text is being captured or not.

Ctrl-T	Brings up the Send File dialog. Here you may select whether to send a 
	footer file or not. If you choose to send a footer, a Ctrl-Z will be 
	appended (to terminate a BBS transfer).

Ctrl-U	Sends a DA command to the TNC to synchronise Revo and TNC clocks.

Ctrl-Y	Clears the type-ahead buffer.

Ctrl-Z	Puts a Control-Z in the type-ahead buffer, like any other text character. 
	Unfortunately the Psion fonts do not show this character, so it may remain 
	invisible.

The following editing keys work on the keyboard buffer:

Home		Moves cursor to the "home" position.
End		Moves cursor to the "end" position.
Left Arrow	Moves cursor one character left. 
Right Arrow	Moves cursor one character right.
Up Arrow	Scrolls through the history buffer.
Down Arrow	Scrolls through the history buffer.
Ctrl-Y		Clears the current line.

The Menu

The following menu commands are available if the Menu key is pressed. (Note 
that the shortcuts shown do not necessarily work unless the menu is displayed, 
only those shown in the section above work from the terminal.)

File menu:

Save	Saves the current configuration settings.

Use	Uses the current settings, without saving them.

Restore	Restores the settings in the PP.INI file, and resets the serial port.

Quit	Exits PocPac.

Edit menu:

Footer	Edits the footer file, which is called PPFOOTER and kept in the 
	Send Path folder.

Create Text File	This prompts for a file name, creates the file, and 
			opens the editor.

Open Text File		This opens an existing text file for editing.

Connect Directory	This allows the connect directory to be changed. 
			Pressing Enter saves the directory.

Capture Path		Here a file selector allows you to choose an existing directory 
			in which your captured text is kept.

Send Path		As above, except this is where your files for sending are kept.

Set Word Wrap	This sets the length at which automatic wrap occurs. At 
		the first space after this, the current text is sent, and the 
		cursors starts a new line.

Port menu:

Baud Rate
Word Length
Parity
Handshake

A bullet marker selection of the most common parameters are provided. While 
these settings are chosen, the menu will not disappear until Save or Use is
selected.

Connect menu:

Connect "BBS"	Here a connect to the station shown as "BBS" is initiated. 
		Identical to Ctrl-B.

Connect Directory	This enables you to choose a station to connect to. 
			Identical to Ctrl-D.

Transfers menu:

Capture Data	Here you can select text capture, identical to Ctrl-L.

Send File	This brings up the send file menu, identical to Ctrl-T

View Text File	A viewer which enables files up to 30k in the Capture folder 
		to be read. Pressing Esc exits the viewer.

Special menu:

Echo On		When selected (marked with a tick), PocPac echos the text sent 
		to your TNC.

The Text editor and viewer.

These are simple affairs which allow text files to be created, edited or viewed. 
For the footer, there is a limit of 1,000 bytes. For the creation and editing 
of text files for sending, there is a limit of 5,000 bytes (the normal maximum 
for packet). The viewer allows files of up to 30,000 bytes to be viewed (not 
edited).

Most normal editing controls work in the editors/viewer - also you can cut 
and paste between the editor/viewer and other applications. The editor/viewer 
wraps between about 60 and 70 characters without inserting CR/LF characters, 
so you can press enter at the end of each line if you wish to create lines 
of fixed length (not essential for packet).

You save the text in the editors by pressing the Save button. Pressing the 
Cancel button, or the Esc key will exit without saving. The latter applies 
to the viewer.

The editors are very simple, and take varying times to load. This is not 
related to file size, and seems to be a characteristic of the dialog used 
for this purpose. For example, a 1,300 byte file takes longer to load than 
a 2,000 or 28,000 byte file!

The Display

Firstly note that PC line graphics are not displayed by the built-in fonts. 
To view these graphics, you will have to transfer the file to a PC and use 
a DOS font, or MS LineDraw font to view them. Later versions of PocPac may be 
able to load a custom font to display these graphics. Also note that Ctrl-Z 
does not always show up on the display, although the character works normally!

The author feels that any packet terminal should show only data from  the 
TNC, i.e. the TNC should be set to ECHO ON. However PocPac can be set to echo 
text sent to your TNC. This can be achieved by setting Echo On from the 
Special menu.

TNC Settings

The communications settings may be set from the Port menu. 
PocPac does not send any line feeds to the TNC, which does not require them. 
Also it does not add them to incoming text.  Set LFADD OFF and AUTOLF ON. 
Check that the TNC filters out incoming line feeds, you may need to set 
LFSUP ON to remove these.

Type-ahead

PocPac uses a type-ahead buffer - text you type will appear in the lower
window and will not be sent to the TNC unless you either press Enter, or 
PocPac wordwraps.  Word wrap will occur when you press the space bar after 
68 letters have been typed.  This threshold can be altered if desired, using 
the Edit menu.

If wordwrap occurs, a CR will be appended to the text sent to the TNC.  Some 
BBSs cannot handle long lines of text. If you press Control-C (for TNC Command 
Mode) this command bypasses the type-ahead and goes straight to the TNC.

The last 5 lines sent (using Enter) are saved, and can be recalled by
pressing Up or DownArrow.  They can be edited and sent again if required.

Control-Y deletes all you have typed on the current line.

You can edit the current line using the arrow and delete keys - you can 
alter text anywhere in the current line.  HOME and END have their usual 
WP meaning.
Scrollback.

Press PgUp to activate the scrollback windows.  You can then move between 
the pages using UpArrow and DownArrow (or PgUp and PgDn).  Press Esc to exit 
scrollback.

While you are viewing scrollback, you can still type into the type-ahead. All 
letter keys and editing keys still work, as does Enter.  Thus you can view a 
list from a BBS and type the message numbers you wish to read.  When you press 
Enter, the line is sent, but scrollback is still active.  Press Esc to return 
to the main window.

If you leave scrollback active for 2 minutes without doing anything, it will 
cancel automatically.


Problems

When you have finished using PocPac it is wise to quit the application.
Do not leave PocPac running in the background with your TNC disconnected
or switched off.

Registration

There is no charge for using PocPac, but I would be grateful if users send me 
a message by internet, or post, telling me that they are using the 
program. 

Pocket Packet can normally be found at http://www.g0hzk.co.uk
Registrations, bug reports, wishlists, etc. to:-

Roger Muggleton
Internet: 	hzk@cix.co.uk
Post:		I am Qthr.
Phone:		+44 (0)1753 811918  (1900-2100 UTC only!)