MS Kermit

Date: [10th Sep 2024]
Categories: [download], [ms-dos]

History

MS-DOS Kermit was one of the original Kermit programs, first released in 1982, shortly after the IBM PC was announced, following just behind the Kermit programs for the DECSYSTEM-20, CP/M-80, and the IBM mainframe. It was written in response to overwhelming demand to make this PC, which was very soon to dominate the universe, communicate with other kinds of computers, including IBM's own (a service that not even IBM could offer at the time).

The prototype was done by Bill Catchings of the Kermit project in a single EMACS editing session using macros to convert his CP/M-80 Kermit from 8080 assembly language to Intel 8088 assembler (in this respect it was a first cousin of the now long-forgotten but once significant CP/M-86 Kermit). "PC Kermit", as it was called at first, was turned over to Daphne Tzoar who polished it sufficiently for general use and maintained for some time, and later to Jeff Damens who produced several major new releases through version 2.28. There were separate releases for the IBM PC, the DEC Rainbow, the HP-150, the Heath-Zenith 100, the Victor 9000, the NEC APC, and many other of the DOS machines of mid-1980s that were not code- or disk-compatible with each other.

In 1985 MS-DOS Kermit was taken over by Professor Joe R. Doupnik of Utah State University, who added more improvements than can be listed in a short web page, but most notable among them:

A script programming language compatible with that of C-Kermit.
VT100, 220, and 320 terminal emulation; "ANSI" emulation for BBSs; 
Wyse50, Data General DASHER (under contract with DG), and Tektronix 
graphics terminal emulation, making MS-DOS Kermit the only Kermit 
program ever to emulate any graphics terminal, and in fact it emulated 
two since the DASHER was also a graphics terminal.
Sliding Windows transport protocol for file transfers, which in itself required 
hardware-specific memory management support for acquiring the necessary 
buffer space on the earlier PC generations.
Conversion of international character sets in both terminal emulation and file 
transfer, including Russian and Hebrew.
Most notably of all, a full TCP/IP network stack built in to MS-DOS Kermit itself, 
supporting DNS, BOOTP, and DHCP connections via Ethernet, SLIP, or PPP, 
and over that the ARPANET TELNET protocol. Plus support for many other 
long-forgotten PC networking methods: 3COM, Novell, NetBIOS, LAT, etc. 
Among these were IBM's LANACS, a product that included MS-DOS Kermit 
under license to the Kermit Project, and AT&T STARLAN, which also included 
a licensed copy of MS-DOS Kermit.

All this in a program that fit on a floppy disk, together with its documentation and supporting files (dialing scripts, keymaps, fonts for Hebrew and Cyrillic, utilities, packet drivers, and so on). For about 15 years, MS-DOS Kermit was mass-market software, found on practically every desktop PC on earth. New releases were big news in the trade press. The manual, Using MS-DOS Kermit, by Christine M. Gianone of the Kermit Project, is a masterpiece of user-friendly technical writing, and went through two best-selling editions, was also published in German and French, and was also the basis for a Japanese edition. MS-DOS Kermit was so popular in the USSR and Eastern Europe (because of its ability to do Cyrillic terminal emulation) that an International Kermit Conference in Moscow in 1989 was attended by representatives of 35 countries.

MS-DOS Kermit's popularity waned as DOS was phased out in favor of Window 95 and its successors, where MS-DOS Kermit could not be fully functional for the reasons described here. But to this day, MS-DOS Kermit remains one of Kermit's Greatest Hits.

Ressources

MS Kermit 3.14 - 693 Kb
MS Kermit 3.15 - 492 Kb
MS Kermit 3.16 - 160 Kb