Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP

[Tom Jennings]

>> "Binary reads from a device are not
>> allowed" is the message at 8753 in DR-DOS 3.41.

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:

> The question I haven't seen answered yet is, "Well, why the hell not???"

The real answer is: there is no out-of-band signalling, so one of
the 128 in-band symbols (SUB, 26 decimal) is chosen to mean "END
OF FILE". It's borrowed from CP/M-80; I don't know where DR got
it; it seems un-DEC-ish.

("Out of band" signalling is, for RS-232 et al, the hardware
handshake lines.  No one likes them, everyone complains like
babies, so they have essentially been deprecated.)



The practical answer is: COMMAND.COM does something to the effect:


 	while ( byte available from the COM port)
 		read byte
 		is it Control-Z?
 			TERMINATE COPY COMMAND
 		is it Null?
 			--> bit bucket
 		is it Character MSDOS Doesn't Like?
 			--> bit bucket
 		...

 		copy byte to file
 		is DISK FULL?
 			TERMINATE COPY COMMAND
 	continue