The EazyLink Command Menu

PC LINK II only supports raw file transfers. Any file conversion would be done separately after the transfer. This is time consuming and unwieldy. Eazylink’s various translation and conversion facilities are used whilst the transfer is taking place. The commands set which conversion is required on the EazyLink Server. This allows automatic conversion using the old PC LINK II DOS application. The commands are selected maually using the up/down arrow keys to move the cursor over each command and then pressing <ENTER> on this command. The right-hand window displays the values set.

The EazyLink Client handles the translation and conversion status by providing commands to toggle the conversion status down the cable. The EazyLink Client then sets the EazyLink Server with the current conversion status before any file transfer is started.

Quick-menu commands

"Toggle Translation Mode"

This toggles between "Auto Translation ON" or "OFF". Having toggled the command to "ON" will perform automatical translation of characters in the currently loaded (or default) translation table while file transfer is processed.

"Toggle Linefeed Mode"

This toggles between "Auto CRLF Conversion ON" or "OFF". Having toggled the command to "ON" will perform automatical linefeed conversion while file transfer is processed. Transferring the file from Z88 to remote computer performs CR -> CRLF linefeed conversion, and CRLF -> CR when transferring from remote computer to Z88.

"Use ISO/IBM Translations"

This will install the default ISO LATIN I / IBM Codepage 865 translation table. Use this when you need to transfer files to the PC when using MS DOS word processors or editors. This translation table has only relevance for Z88 text containing accented characters.

"Load Translations"

This will load an external translation table from a file and install it as the default translation table. The file searched must be named as "translate.dat" and may be placed anywhere in the Z88 filing system (a ":RAM.//*" search is performed by EazyLink).

When the translation file has been loaded, the message "Using translations from file." is displayed in the EazyLink log window. If the file was not found, the default ISO LATIN I / IBM Codepage 865 table is installed instead.

"Quit EazyLink"

This command will close the serial port and re-install the previous Panel settings. Finally, EazyLink will terminate itself and return to Index (or another activated resident application).

Pressing in EazyLink will also terminate the popdown.

Serial port logging features in COMMANDS menu

This enables you to log the byte stream received and transmitted through the serial port. The EazyLink popdown that is integrated in OZ ROM V4.5 and later, and the standalone v5.2 and later supports this feature.

If you press the  key, two more commands will be displayed which also are available as standard short cuts, as seen in the screenshot below.

When serial port logging is enabled or disabled, a message will be displayed in the EazyLink console window:

Two files are generated when enabling serial port logging; one file for each direction of the serial port data-transfer - the incoming byte stream and the outgoing byte-stream:

While logging is enabled, all data received and sent is continually stored / appended in those two files. Overall transfer-speed is going to be substantially slower while doing logging. Disabling logging just closes the files, so you can investigate them (download for example to desktop workstation and use a binary file viewer to examine the byte stream. If you re-enable logging, the current files will be deleted, so new contents can be stored.

Here's two examples of the serial port logging, showing two command being sent to the Z88; Hello & Quit:

The contents of the serdump.in file, containing request commands: sync protocol + ESC 'a' for Hello, and protocol + ESC 'q'

The contents of the serdump.out file, containing response commands: sync protocol + ESC 'Y' for both Hello and Quit.