Eye Research Institute Submissions coordinated by: Bob Goldstein, Daniel P.B. Smith Bob Goldstein, Daniel P.B. Smith Eye Research Institute of Retina Foundation 20 Staniford Street Boston, MA 02114 (617) 742-3140 MACSnVAX is a complete utility for uploading, downloading, and transferring Macintosh files via a VAX. o MACSnVAX is a VAX/VMS-hosted utility that serves Macintosh users running MacTerminal. It provides for transfers of any Macintosh file by emulating the modified version of XMODEM that MacTerminal use for "MacTerminal to MacTerminal" transfers. o All Macintosh files, including applications, formatted MacWrite files, MacPaint files, fonts, etc. can be successfully transferred. o MACSnVAX is intended for end-users and is reasonably easy to use. It presents a standard VMS interface, with features like wildcarding supported where appropriate. o MACSnVAX can catalog the Macintosh files stored in a VMS subdirectory, presenting the full Macintosh name, type, creation date, etc. o In the case of Macintosh text files, MACSnVAX can present the information directly to the screen without downloading, and can convert between VMS and Macintosh text formats. Portions of MACSnVAX version 3.4a are copyright (c) 1985 by Eye Research Institute of Retina Foundation; all rights reserved. Eye Research Institute licenses MACSnVAX version 3.4a for use by DECUS members at no charge provided they register with us. 3.4a is a fully functional, useful utility. _____ __ ___ ____ __ __________ Notes on the Fall 85 submission Version 3.4a has the same functionality as V3.4 distributed in the Spring 85 symposium tape, with a minor revision to make it run properly under version 4.0 and up. We also have an improved version of MACSnVAX, not included on ___ this tape, which is not free. Contact us for details. Some changes in the world of Macintosh communications have simplified things for users. First, MacTerminal is no longer the only terminal program that uses "MacTerminal protocol." VersaTerm 2.0, PGTerm 2.0, and, in general, programs that claim "MacTerminal Page 2 protocol" should work equally well. Second, and more important, primarily due to the efforts of Dennis Brothers, a more rational approach to Macintosh file transfers called "MacBinary" is rapidly gaining ground. MacBinary is, strictly speaking, protocol-independent; it is a specification for a relationship between a complete Macintosh file (header and two forks) and a single stream of bytes, to be transferred by any protocol. FreeTerm 1.7, Red Ryder 6+, VersaTerm 2.0, PGTerm 2.0 (and, it is strongly rumored, the not-yet-released MacTerminal 2.0) offer MacBinary transfers under the XMODEM protocol. ____ _____ ____ _____ ________ ___ _ ________ ______ ________ This means that these programs use a STANDARD XMODEM protocol and can be used to upload and download complete Mac files with ANY host supporting standard XMODEM--most obviously, a VAX running J. James Belonis' XMODEM, on which portions of MACSnVAX are based. You'll be glad to know that the representation of a Mac file on the VAX is identical for either combination; that is, uploading with MacTerminal and MACSnVAX produces the identical results as uploading with MacBinary/XMODEM, and files uploaded with either method can be downloaded with either method. There's a bug in MacTerminal 1.1. The result is that the bundle bit does not get set in a downloaded application. This results in a problem which is cosmetic only: applications downloaded with MacTerminal display on the desktop with a generic icon instead their own characteristic icon. This can be corrected by using the SET FILE application to set the bundle bit, ejecting the disk, shutting down the Mac, and holding down COMMAND and OPTION when the disk is reinserted (forcing the Finder to rebuild the Desktop). Other terminal program do not have this problem. Subdirectories The DOCUMENTS subdirectory is a grab-bag of documents from various sources relating to technical issues of interest to those doing Mac-to-VAX transfers. The MACINTOSH subdirectory is a collection of Macintosh software of interest to VAX users. Some are copyrighted (e.g. Apple's SET FILE and RESEDIT) but in all such cases they have given permission for general distribution and do not request any payment. These files can be downloaded with MACSnVAX. Download the files which have .MAC extensions. Files with .INF extensions, if present, are text files describing the corresponding .MAC file. Highlights include a fairly recent Columbia Mac Kermit, Freeterm 1.7 (which uses MacBinary and can upload and download to standard XMODEM), and our own Page Setup Customizer.