Welcome to SimpTerm 2.3, the tnc/tu communications package for the masses.

You should have the following after unzipping. 

amsoft.exe      54948   1-07-96  21:12   enqhelp.exe     67250   5-12-95  18:31
keys.doc         1696  10-16-94  22:27   qrz.exe         24528   1-07-96  21:06
readme           9534   2-04-96  13:25   setup.txt           3   2-04-96  12:17
simp.cfg            8  11-24-94  13:37   simp.doc        84568   2-04-96  11:50
simp.exe       230128   2-04-96  12:16   simp.hlp         1231   1-25-94  18:21
simp.hlw         1899   8-12-93  20:34   simp.ini         2637   2-04-96  13:23
simpmono.cfg        8   8-17-93  13:27   

The keys.doc file contains a list of the valid key names.
The simp.doc is the main manual.  Copy it to your printer (36 pages)
or read it with your favorite editor/lister or more.
If you have a problem with the program's selection of colors on
your mono monitor, copy simpmono.cfg to simp.cfg.  It should
display a basic black and white screen.

Please at least read the quick start section of the manual before
you attempt to use SimpTerm.

The size of the readme file probably won't match, but the rest should.

New features in SimpTerm 2.3

This verison detects when DesQView is present and will give up the
cpu while waiting for keyboard and com port events.

I've added a feature that you can use to automate your conversations
a bit.  If you have a mouse, you can click on the first character of a 
call and it will copy that call to a buffer and display that call on the
status line.  You can use that call in messages with the %C notation.

For instance, if you have a line in your .ini file that looks like:
ALT_F12 %C de wz9xyz k^M
When you press the ALT-F12 key, you will send the call that is displayed
at the beginning of the status line followed by "de wz9xyz k".  To clear
the call field, click (left mouse button) on a blank section of the screen.

Set the variable, MYCALL, to your call letters and you can substitute
%L for your call, just like you can substitute the other station's call
for %C as demonstrated in the previous paragraph.

Also, the program attempts to recognize calls as they are printed on the 
screen and stores them in a buffer.  You can use the splat function to 
display a menu of the last 20 calls.  Use your mouse or the arrow keys
to select a call.  Press Enter or the left mouse button to select.

Again, to clear a call just select a blank area of the screen and click
the left button.

You can now design your own menu bar.  Use the "BUTTON" keyword to define
the menu buttons.  The format of the "BUTTON" line is:

BUTTON <tag> <macro>

Where tag is a name that will be displayed on the button (max of 8 characters)
and the macro is what will be sent to the tnc when you select that button.
You may have multiple BUTTONs in your .ini file.  See the sample simp.ini
file for an example.  In that file I have defined buttons to select the 
different modes for a PK-232.  

The DISPBUT function brings the menu up.  It automatically disappears after
selection of one of the buttons.  Type an ESC character to remove it without
selecting any button.

New features in SimpTerm 2.1

Added the following %c notation special formatting characters.

%Y	2 character year (00-99)
%M	2 character month (01-12)
%A	2 character day (1-31)
%H	2 character hour (00-23)
%m	2 character minute (00-59)
%S	2 character second (00-59)

These can be used to form a date/time string "your way".
You can now have something like:
KEY_ALT_F9 This is kd4rqn at %H:%m:%S
in your simp.ini file and when you press the alt-f9 key you will send
This is kd4rqn at 23:59:59
If you do it at one second before midnight.

The preload file is now searched for the special characters on a line-by-line
basis.  This enables you to have something like:
DAYTIME %Y%M%A%H%m
in your ini file to set the date and time correctly on your TNC.  
This works for any tnc that conforms to the TNC-2 standard.

Not mentioned before, but these date and time functions along with
the original ones (%d, %D, %t) pay attention to the GMT variable.

You can now display the current date and time on the status line with
the TIMELINE variable.  If you set the TIMELINE variable to a character
string including the date and time functions as described above, the
status line will display the date and time as you defined it.
For example:
TIMELINE %A-%M-%Y %H:%m:%S
in your simp.ini file will cause the status line to include:
25-12-93 12:00:00
At noon on Christmas, 1993, if you're lucky enough to be able to get on
the air on Christmas.

There is a new variable, POSTLOAD, that works exactly like the PRELOAD
variable, except it uploads the file just before exiting.  You can
use this to leave your tnc in a known state after running SimpTerm.

There is a new function, savebuf, that will ask you for a file name
and then dump the received data buffer to a file.  The received data
buffer is what you are looking at as you scroll back in the top 
window. 
You might have something like:
!KEY_ALT_S savebuf
in your ini file and when you hit the alt-s key it would ask you for
a file name to write the buffer to.  Be careful, it will overwrite an
existing file without telling you so.

There is a variable, SCROLLLINES, that can be set to a number in the
range 0-409.  This is used to specify the size of the received data
buffer in lines.  Of course, I don't suggest you use 0 or anything
less than 20 or so.  I don't know what happens if you make it too
small.  The default is 300.  Why 409?  That is because the maximum
buffer size is 32768 and 32768/80 is about 409.

I have added an automatic feature.  It was intended to be a way
to automatically send CQ or call someone, but it can be used for
other things.  If you assign the function "auto" to a key,
when you press that key you will be prompted for a another key
press.  Press the key that you want to automatically resend.
For instance,  if you want to call CQ until someone answers,
Press ALT-A (if you have "!KEY_ALT_A auto" in your simp.ini file)
and you will see a window pop up with these three lines:
	Press the key you want executed every NNN seconds
	Press the ENTER key to change the time from NNN seconds
	Press the SPACE bar to cancel");
The NNN will be replaced with the AUTOTIME variable.

Now press the ALT-C (again, assuming that the ALT-C key has been
assigned to a macro string that calls CQ for you) and the window
should go away, the CQ should be sent and resent at the specified
intervals.  If you hit the enter key you will be prompted for a
new interval.  The default interval is set with the AUTOTIME line in
the simp.ini.  Here is a snippet of a typical simp.ini file to 
demonstrate the automatic feature.

AUTOTIME 90
KEY_ALT_C ^Mx^M\
cq cq cq de k4gvo^M\
cq cq cq de k4gvo^M\
cq cq cq de k4gvo at %t k^M^M^D
!KEY_ALT_A auto

The "x" and the "^D" in the above macro are the commands to the 
AEA PK-232 and PK-900 to start transmitting and to stop transmitting
respectively.  If your tnc has different commands, you will obviously
have to change them.  The time is specified in seconds.  Since 
the program has no way of knowing when the transmitter has actually
shut off, there is no way of assuring that you don't resend the
CQ 3 seconds after finishing.  Be sure to make the time delay sufficiently
long in order to have time to listen for a reply.

The automatic operation is shutdown as soon as any key is depressed on
the keyboard (other than the CTRL, ALT, SHIFT etc. keys) or a mouse
button is depressed.  There is one exception, if you press the same key
that you are automatically re-executing, it won't stop.  When you are
in automatic operation, you will see a capital A in the first column of
the status bar.

Some of you may want the delete key to work like the backspace key.  I 
didn't spend enough time on Vaxes to get used to that, but obviously
there are a lot of people that did, so there is a new variable named,
DEL_EQ_BKSP that you can put in your init file to make the delete key
behave just like the backspace, I hope.

Support for non-standard COM address ports and IRQs is now available.
Two additional parameters have been added to the COM line in the init
file.  The first one is the base address and the second one is the
IRQ number.  These are optional fields.  If they aren't present, they
will default to the standard for whatever com port you are using.
If you want to specify the IRQ but not change the base address, use
a -1 for the base address.  For instance, the following line lets me
communicate via my non-standard COM4 port.

COM4,19200,8,N,1,-1,5

Normally COM4 would use irq 3 but since I have a COM2 defined as irq
3, I had to rewire the COM4 port as irq 5.  The base address didn't
change from the normal COM4 address, so I used the -1 to tell the 
program to use the default.  If you need to change this address you
may either use a base 10 decimal number like 740 or use the c language
hexidecimal notation and specify 0x2E4.  Most of the documentation
lists these addresses in hex, so be sure to use the 0x to preface
the address in those cases.  

There is now support for callsign lookup via either the QRZ or Amsoft 
CD-ROMs.

Bugs fixed in 2.3

I can't remember and I didn't keep track.

Write if you have problems.

73 de K4GVO
Jim <k4gvo@america.net, jwl@cray.com> or (look me up in wp)(packet)

