Digital Equipment Corporation Networking Methods

• SuperLAT
• DECnet / PATHWORKS
• TES32

Note: as of this writing none of the third party products described on this page are available for Windows 2000 or later.

SuperLAT

This section applies to Windows 95 and NT only; the OS/2 version does not support SuperLAT, but it does support PATHWORKS via SET NETWORK TYPE DECNET (see 6.4.2 and OS2K95.TXT).

SuperLAT(TM) is a commercial product from Meridian Technology Corporation, 11 McBride Corporate Center Drive, Suite 250, Chesterfield MO 63005-1407 USA:

  Email: info@meridiantc.com
  Web:   http://www.meridiantc.com/
  Voice: +1 (800) INFOMTC, +1 (314) 532-7707
  Fax:   +1 (314) 532-3242
  BBS:   +1 (314) 532-3473

SuperLAT provides LAT (Local Area Transport) service to Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) VMS or other hosts that support it, as well as to LAT-based DECservers, e.g. for shared dialout modem access. You can make SuperLAT connections from Kermit 95 if you have SuperLAT installed on your Windows 95 or NT system. The method is as follows:

  SET NETWORK TYPE SUPERLAT
  SET HOST service-name [ password ]

where service-name is normally the DECnet host (node) name of the system you are connecting to. It can also be a node/port combination (no spaces), with a (forward) slash (no spaces) separating the node and port designations, for example to access a specific modem port on a DECserver. If the service is password-protected, you must also include a password after the service-name or node/port. Examples:

  SET HOST OOFAVAX         ; Service name
  SET HOST OOFAVAX SECRET  ; Service name with password
  SET HOST LATBOX/3        ; Serial Port 3 on LATBOX
  SET HOST LATBOX/3 SECRET ; Serial Port 3 on LATBOX with password

WARNING: Uploading files on a LAT connection is problematic due to intrinsic limitations of LAT buffering. Using 90-byte packets and 1 window slot seems to work in most cases (tell VMS C-Kermit to "set receive packet-length 90"); greater lengths tend to hang the VMS session. Downloads can use any packet length or window size. WARNING: Do NOT tell VMS or VMS C-Kermit to disable flow control. VMS C-Kermit MUST have "set flow xon/xoff".

DECnet / PATHWORKS

This section applies to Windows 95, Windows NT, and OS/2.

PATHWORKS is a networking package for PCs available from Digital Equipment Corporation, http://www.digital.com/. It was also once known as DECNET/DOS. Kermit has supported this networking method in OS/2 for several years; as of version 1.1.13, K95 supports it in Windows 95 and NT too. In Windows 95 and NT, Digital PATHWORKS-32 V7.0 or later is required. In OS/2, PATHWORKS 2.0 or higher can be used.

If you have PATHWORKS installed on your PC, you can use "set network type pathworks" and then "set host xxx", where xxx is a DECnet node name or address.

WARNING: When you give a SET HOST command, it can not be interrupted. If the host is not available, it might take a long time for PATHWORKS to time out and return control to K95.

In your SET NETWORK TYPE PATHWORKS command, you can specify whether to make a LAT (local area) or CTERM (wide area) connection:

SET NETWORK TYPE { PATHWORKS, DECNET } [ { CTERM, LAT } ]

Choose PATHWORKS as the network type. DECNET is a synonym for PATHWORKS. If you don't specify a protocol, LAT is used. CTERM is not available in Kermit/2.

So a complete sequence might be:

  SET NETWORK TYPE PATHWORKS LAT   ; Choose PATHWORKS networking
  SET HOST CHEMVAX                 ; Make a connection to node CHEMVAX
  CONNECT                          ; Enter the terminal window

If you know you have some form of LAT installed on your PC, but you don't know which one:

  SET NETWORK TYPE SUPERLAT
  IF FAIL SET NETWORK TYPE PATHWORKS LAT
  IF FAIL END 1 Sorry - No LAT installed here.
  SET HOST ...

TES32

This section applies to Windows 95/98/ME and NT only. The OS/2 version of C-Kermit does not support TES32, and TES32 is not available (as of this writing) for Windows 2000.

The TES networking method (virtual terminal service to VMS hosts over Novell networks) is supported as of version 1.1.8 via SET NETWORK TYPE TES32, if you have the TES32 product, and the corresponding server on your VMS host. These are products of InterConnections Inc / Emulex. As of this writing, TES32 is available for Windows 95, but not for Windows NT. More info at:

  http://www.icxn.com/

In fact, TES connections were also supported prior to this version, since TES is accessed through the same interface as SuperLAT. TES32 is not mentioned in the various Dialer dialog boxes; just choose SuperLAT wherever you need to use TES32. If TES32 becomes available for Windows NT and you install it on your NT system, Kermit 95 should be able to use it.

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