How to download from BBS using Xmodem

[Dave Burton]

In article <1560 at cartan.Berkeley.EDU> ahernan at brahms.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (alejandro hernandez) writes:
|I've got a version of Xmodem for UNIX, but I'm not sure how to go about
|using it. ...
|
|Now let's suppose I'm on a UNIX machine.  I usually dial out using tip or
|kermit.  If I use tip to call the BBS and make the connection, I would also 
|log on and find a file and ask the remote machine to start downloading.  Then
|I'd do a shell escape in tip by typing:
|		~!
|I go back to my local machine, and perhaps try something like
|		xmodem -rb filename
|to ask xmodem to receive the file....Only it doesn't work!  I can't seem to
|get Xmodem to work right.  What am I doing wrong here?  ...


It depends on the Xmodem on your Unix system.
I just wrote my own Xmodem for Unix and to use it from tip I
login to the remote host, then:

$ xmodem -sc file	# -sc: send, crc
~C[Local command?]xmodem -rc /tmp/file

And there she goes!

The problem you may have is that not every version of tip(1)
is *compiled* to allow ~C (note the case!) to Connect a program
to the remote host (the 4.2BSD tip source #ifdefs this).

Basically, your problem in using ~! is that most XMODEMs use the
stdout|stderr to communicate on, and tip connects this to the
*local* host. ~C connects to the comm line.

Further, tip wants to open its comm line for exclusive use, so your
XMODEM cannot do a subsequent open; it has to use the already open
file descriptors.

-- 
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