2. Getting Started
System Requirements
I have made every attempt to make it usable by the largest number of
users. This version is a universal binary that I have
tested primarily on OS X 10.5 and 10.6.
Installation
In most cases, the only file you will need for installation is the
ZTerm application itself.
Now you are ready to run ZTerm and set it up.
Setting Preferences
The top half of the Settings menu are settings for each service.
All the options in these dialogs are stored separately for each
service. The lower half of this menu is for preferences, which
are global. This means when you set the Receive Folder, it will
be the same for all services.
Select the General Preferences item. The TEXT file creator
determines how TEXT files created by ZTerm (by capture, Save Selection,
etc) are marked. This really isn't used anymore in OSX. Use the
pop up menu to select the text editor or word processor that you want
to use to read text files. Click on OK, then select Terminal
Preferences. Change the font size if desired. The custom
terminal fonts in ZTerm are in 9 or 12 point. Any other size will
not look very good. The builtin fonts are fixed size. If you want
to use a larger size, something like Courier New is a good choice.
Now select Modem Preferences. First, select the port that your
modem or connection is attached to. The Initialization string is
sent to your modem when you start ZTerm. In many cases, you can
leave this empty and ZTerm will work fine. But if you use other
communications software, it might leave your modem in a different
configuration. For example, some software might set your modem to
send “numeric result codes” instead of “verbal result codes.”
When most Hayes compatible modems connect, the verbal result code is
CONNECT 2400 (or some other speed). The numeric result would be
10 (or 1 or 5). ZTerm wants to see the verbal responses, so
setting the modem to verbal result codes is a good thing to put in the
initialization string. The default initialization string for
ZTerm is “ATE1V1^M”. The AT is used to get the modems attention
for a command. E1 means to turn on the echoing of commands.
V1 tells it to use verbal result codes. The ^M means Control-M,
which is the same as a RETURN. This tells the modem that you are
finished typing, and to process the command. The init string that
I use is ATE1V1S11=70^M. The S11=70 means to set register 11 to a
value of 70. Register 11 sets the duration and spacing of touch
tones in milliseconds. On my modem, the default is 95, so setting
it to 70 makes it dial a little faster. See the section on modem
commands for more information.
The DeInitialize string is like the Initialization string, but it is
sent when you quit ZTerm. You can usually leave this blank, but
you may want to use it to disable something that you turned on in the
init string. For example, if your init string turns on the auto
answer feature of the modem, you may want to turn it off when you exit
ZTerm.
The Dial Substitution strings can be used for things that could be
common to several services. I have set •1 to “*70,” which will
disable call waiting. Then I can put •1 in front of the phone
number for a service, and it will dial the *70 first. The comma
after the zero causes a pause in the dialing, usually one second.
You could use one of the dial substitutions for your long distance
numbers. You might normally set it to “1”, so it will use your
normal long distance carrier, but if you wanted to try another, you
could change the string to something like 1010288, which will dial long
distance using AT&T.
In the Color Preferences, you may want to check the Use Color option if
you call PC based bulletin boards and you have a color monitor.
Finally, use the Receive Folder selection to set the folder that you
want downloaded file to go to.
What is a BBS
A lot of these ZTerm documents talk about Bulletin Board Systems.
The majority of these are probably now extinct, being replaced by
various things now available on the internet. Back before the
internet was big, BBS's were a popular place to read and leave messages
on various topics from other users of the system, and to download files
that have been placed there by the operator of the system or another
user. I am leaving some of the mentions of using ZTerm with a BBS
because that was one of the biggest uses of ZTerm years ago.
Adding a New Service
Now let’s add a dial entry for a service that you use a lot, like a
local bulletin board. First, select Directory from the Dial
menu. Now click on the New button. This will bring up the
connection dialog, with the service name and phone number blank.
Enter the name for the service. This will appear in the dialing
directory and the Dial menu, so you don’t want a super long name.
Enter the phone number for the service. Select the highest data
rate that you know your modem and the service can handle. Choose
8 data bits and no parity, unless you know that another format is
required. The most common alternative is 7 data bits with either
even or odd parity. This is more common on mainframes; almost all
bulletin boards that run on personal computers will accept 8 data bits,
no parity. Select 1 stop bit.
If you know the service does not echo what you type, check the Local
Echo option. Most BBSs do echo what you type, so in most cases
you leave this unchecked. You can usually leave XOn/XOff checked
because most services support it. If you have a high speed modem
and a hardware handshake cable, check that option. See the
section on High Speed modems for more things you may need to set
up. Click on OK and your new entry will now appear in the Dial
directory and the Dial menu.
Now highlight your new service in the directory and click on the
Terminal button, which brings up the Terminal settings dialog.
The ‘No Extended Chars’ option should be checked unless you know the
service uses extended characters. Extended characters are usually
generated with the Option key and include the foreign characters and
special symbols. If the service uses “ANSI graphics” you will
want this option unchecked, and click on the PC ANSI-BBS emulation
button. If the service is a Unix or DEC system, you will probably
want to click on VT-100 emulation. If you use the VT100 keypad
with this service, you should check that option. On many DEC
systems, you will want to check the “Send RUBOUT for Backspace/Delete”
option. Click on OK. Now with the highlight still on the
service you just added, click on the Set button. The settings you
just made for this service will be loaded and the window title will
change to the name of the service to show you what settings are loaded.
The Text Pacing options are used when you are pasting to the modem, or
sending a text file. See “Uploading a composed message” in the
Terminal Functions section for more information on these
settings. For now you can leave them as is.
Now select the Transfer Options command. The first two items set
the default send and receive protocols for this service. A file
transfer protocol is the set of rules two computers use to transfer a
file from one to the other. You can start a file receive with the
default protocol using Command-R and file send (default send protocol)
with Command-S. The Command key is the one with the Clover-leaf
(or Apple symbol) on it. It is usually used to select menu items
with keyboard equivalents, like Command-Q to quit.
If you know what protocols the service supports, you can select these
now. If you don’t, you can always set them later. Note that
the B-Plus or Quick-B protocols used by CompuServe are not
listed. This is because a B-Plus transfer on CompuServe is
started by the CompuServe host by sending a special sequence.
There is no menu in ZTerm to start a B-Plus transfer. If the
service you are setting up is CompuServe, make sure you check the “CIS
B+ / Quick-B Protocol” option. For X/YModem Error Checking, the
“Try CRC, fallback to Checksum” option is usually the best. For
the Sent Filenames option, the safest choice is “Remove funny
characters.” If the service is a BBS running on an MS-DOS
computer, you will want to select “MS-DOS (8.3) limits.” Click on
OK.
If the service supports ZModem transfers, you may want to set the
ZModem Options now. If the service is a Unix or Opus host, you
can click one of those buttons, otherwise don’t worry about that
part. Set the SubPacket Length to Auto and leave the remaining
items blank or unchecked. Click on OK and you now have made all the
settings for the service you just added.
Calling the New Service
So why not try calling this new service. There are two ways to
dial a service. You can select it from the Dial menu, or you can
highlight it in the Dialing Directory window and click on the Dial
button. ZTerm will bring up the Dialing status window, which will
show the name of the service and the number it is dialing. If the
number is busy, it will usually show either BUSY or NO CARRIER in the
Response field. The Attempts field shows how many times it dialed
but failed to connect. It will keep trying until it connects
successfully or you Cancel it with the Cancel button or hitting the ESC
key. When it does connect, the dial status window will go away
and it will print the connect message in the terminal window. Now
that you are connected, you can log in and read messages or whatever
you use the service for.
For direct connections, to network equipment for example, you would
leave the phone number field blank. When you select that service
entry, it configures the speed and other settings for that service, but
there is no dial dialog because there's nothing to dial.
Downloading a File
When you want to download a file, you first must know what protocol is
supported by the service and ZTerm. On most BBS’s, you can get a
list of the supported protocols when you select the download
command. XModem is supported by nearly all BBS software, so we
will describe XModem downloads first. You need to know the name
that the BBS uses for the file; there will be one or more commands you
can give the BBS to list the files available for download. Also,
the files are usually separated into different areas to make searching
easier. You also need to know the command to start a
download. Many BBS’s use ‘D’ for download. Next it will
usually ask you what protocol to use. For this example, select
XModem (or XModem-1k if available). It will also ask you what
file you want to download.
Some systems may ask you additional questions (for example, if you want
to be automatically logged off when the transfer is complete).
When all is ready, the BBS will usually print a message telling you
that it is ready to start the download. Now you must tell ZTerm
to start receiving the file. Pull down the File menu and select
XModem from the Receive files sub-menu. (If the default receive
protocol is set to XModem, you can just select the Receive XModem
command.) ZTerm will display the file transfer status window and
the transfer should start in 5 to 10 seconds. If nothing has
started after 30 seconds, something has probably gone wrong. In
this case, you should hit the Cancel button and try to start the
download again.
If the BBS supports the ZModem protocol, you should use it instead of
XModem because the procedure is much simpler and faster. Tell the
BBS you want to download, tell it to use ZModem and give it the name of
the file. The BBS will send a sequence that will cause ZTerm to
automatically start receiving the file using the ZModem protocol.
ZTerm will display the transfer status window and the transfer will
begin.
Note that XModem and YModem require you to start the file transfer on
the other computer first, by issuing the download command, then
starting a file receive in ZTerm. ZModem and the CompuServe
B-Plus and QuickB protocols only require you to tell the other computer
to start sending the file, and ZTerm will detect this and start
receiving the file automatically.
Reviewing the Session
If you connect to a service that you have to pay for per minute, then
you want to keep your time on the phone to a minimum. This would
include the pay services (CompuServe and GEnie, etc) as well as any BBS
that you call long distance. If you are reading messages on this
type of service, the best thing to do is to have messages you are
interested in displayed, but don’t take your time to read them while
you are online. Then, after you log out, you can scroll back in
the buffer and read the messages at your own speed.
If you have the Extended keyboard, you can use Home, End, Page Up and
Page Down to move around in the scroll buffer. However, if the
VT100 Keypad option is turned on in Terminal Settings, you will need to
hold down the Shift (or Option) key when you use these keys. If
you don’t press Shift (and the VT100 keypad option is checked), it will
send a sequence of characters to the modem.
Printing a Message
While you are reviewing the messages in the buffer, you see something
that you would like to print out. Select the text, either by
click and drag, or by a click at the start and a Shift-click at the
end, then choose Print Selection from the File menu. This will
give you the normal print dialog; click on OK or Print and off it
goes. If the selection includes PC graphics, you will have to
make sure that you have the right font set in Print Options. I
normally keep the print font set to Times or Palatino. But to
print PC graphics you will need to set the print font to Terminal Font.
You can also save the selection to a text file, or copy the text and
paste it into another application.