1. (Windows) OPTIONS=NOXABORT now prevents users from abruptly aborting an application by clicking on the "X" (or Alt-F4) and then clicking the OK button on the warning message. With this option, the OK button is disabled.
2. (Windows) A-Shell now supports telnet connections to NT and W2K servers via the A-Shell Telnet Server Daemon (ATSD). This offers an alternate means of connecting client workstations to Windows servers which offers some advantages over the traditional peer-to-peer arrangement:
| A. | Much better throughput over a WAN link, since only the screen character I/O transfers over the WAN. |
| B. | Ability to connect dumb terminals and other non-Windows client devices (although since telnet is required, that might mean using a terminal server for serial clients.) |
| C. | Shares many advantages of Windows Terminal Server and Citrix, but less expensive and less complicated. No client software needed (other than a telnet client / terminal emulator.) Is, however, limited to just A-Shell. |
| D. | May provide better reliability by eliminating pesky network peer-to-peer sharing issues. |
Launch ATSD.EXE on the server using the following:
<atsd exec> -i <miame.ini> -a <ashell exec> -p <port> <args>
Where:
<atsd executable> is the atsd spec (e.g. c:\vm\miame\bin\atsd.exe)
<miame.ini> is the full miame.ini spec, just as for A-Shell.
<ashell executable> is the full ashell executable spec (ashw32.exe)
<port> is the port number to accept connections on (default 23).
<args> are any other args which you could pass to A-Shell on its command line.
For example:
c:\vm\miame\bin\atsd.exe -i c:\vm\miame\miame.ini -a c:\vm\miame\bin\ashw32.exe mymenu
Note that ashw32.exe is executed on the server, not on the workstation.
On the workstation, you make the connection using a telnet client (such as ZTERM) just as you would for a UNIX or AMOS telnet connection.
Terminal driver negotiation is automatic, although you must set your terminal emulator to support (and ID itself as) one of the following:
vt220a (vt220 with am62a-style function keys)
am62a
am62c
am75
wyse50
Warning: The current version of ATSD.EXE is for eval purposes only and will cease working at the end of October 2001. By then, we will replace it with a permanent release (which may involve a licensing fee.)
3. (UNIX) MIAMEX,92 now enables/disables the PolyShell "swap" key as well as the "hot" key. In addition, you can redefine new "swap" and "hot" keys with it:
XCALL MIAMEX,92,0 ! disable "hot" and "swap" keys
XCALL MIAMEX,92,1 ! re-enable "hot" and "swap" keys
XCALL MIAMEX,92,HOT,SWAP! set hot key to HOT and swap key to SWAP
Note that changing the hot and swap keys is a tricky proposition, since the change would only affect the CURRENT session of A-Shell, not any sibling sessions that were running under the same PolyShell parent. (You would have to arrange to do this consistently at the start of each A-Shell session for it to be practical.)
4. CHAIN operations are now logged to ashell.log when TRACE=FOPENS (or SET TRACE FOPENS ON).
5. Fix a longstanding bug in ISMUTL in which the dev#:name was limited to 11 characters, so that if the device number was 2 digits, then the name was chopped after 5.
6. Increase the maximum length of an individual field needed to be enclosed in quotes by the WRITETD or WRITECD statements, from 253 to 1021 bytes. Also, eliminate possibility of GPF if exceeding that limit.
7. Fix one byte overflow of an 8 byte ADATES output parameter in DATES.SBR.
8. (WINDOWS) The -o <settings> command line parameter now supports a full filespec (no embedded spaces though.) Previously only a filename.ext was supported.
