ASTKER.BWR -- Beware File for Atari ST Kermit

The Atari ST Kermit binaries are distributed in UUENCODE format,
which, unfortunately, may include trailing blanks that can be
removed by various kinds of software (like BITNET mail, etc).
Fortunately, UUENCODE format includes a length field at the head
of each line, so the missing blanks can be restored.  Here's a
short SNOBOL program to do it:

* Restore trimmed trailing blanks to a UUENCODEd file.
* Must be run on an ASCII system because length fields are
* ASCII values of leading character of each line.
* F. da Cruz, CUCCA, July 1986

	&TRIM = 1

	OUTPUT = INPUT  				:F(ERR)
LOOP	LINE = INPUT					:F(DONE)
	OUTPUT = IDENT(LINE,NULL)			:S(LAST)
	LINE POS(0) LEN(1) . X				:F(ERR)
	&ALPHABET @P X					:F(ERR)
	OUTPUT = RPAD(LINE,(((P - 32) / 3) * 4) + 1)	:S(LOOP)

LAST	LINE = INPUT					:F(LAST2)
	OUTPUT = IDENT(LINE,'end') LINE			:S(DONE)
LAST2	TTY = 'No end line'
ERR	TTY = 'Fatal error'				:(END)
DONE	TTY = 'Done'
END

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Date: 19 Sep 86 09:26:06 EDT (Fri)
From: Michael Fischer <fischer@YALE.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Problems Installing Atari ST Kermit
Keywords: Atari ST Kermit
 
I had problems installing GEM Kermit, but I finally got it to work.
Here in a nutshell are what the problems were:

1.  The UUDECODE program distributed with Kermit (astuud.c) is written
for the Lattice C compiler.  To use it with the Alcyon C compiler distributed
with the Atari Developer's Kit, it is necessary to open the binary output
file with "fopenb" instead of "fopen"; otherwise, the file is opened in
text mode (ignoring the "b" mode flag") and every ^J in the output has a
gratis ^M inserted after it.

2.  Recompiling the sources as Chris Rose did is not sufficient, for
the resource files are *only* distributed in binary form.  A correct
program given a bad resource will crash, just as an incorrect program
will.  Thus, one has no choice but to get UUDECODE to work.

3.  Once I fixed UUDECODE, I successfully decoded both the Kermit
program and resource files and they worked without problem.  I also
rebuilt the program from the sources and it also worked with the
decoded resource file.

4.  There has been a great deal of activity lately on the INFO-ATARI16
bboard discussing the various problems people have been having with
UU-encoded files.  There seem to have been two or three independent sets
of problems:
(a)  Bugs in the UUDECODE program to run on the ST as described above.
(b)  Problems with the encoded file being modified during transmission
such as tab expansion, truncation of trailing blanks, or padding of
all lines to a given length.
(c)  For people who tried decoding on a mainframe and then transmitting
the binary files to the ST (often using the old Developer's kit Kermit),
forgetting to set binary mode on both the transmitting and receiving
Kermit.  After numerous reports of failures and then people bringing
these problems out in the open, success stories such as mine above
began pouring in.  So UU-encoded files *are* usable, but it can be
rather tricky to do it right.

I will contact the "New Haven ST's" user group to see if they would
be willing to copy GEM Kermit onto disks for people.

  Mike Fischer
  <fischer@yale.arpa>

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