02-27-2018, 08:17 AM
Depending upon your software, you may be able to see the menus without issue at the higher baud rates, but with file transfers, your software and/or computer may not be fast enough to sustain higher transfer rates.
I was working with a terminal program that at 38400 baud, no issue displaying the menus. However, with file transfers, I could not go above 4800 baud. After playing with the source code for weeks, it was just night I overcame the issue and was downloading at 38400 baud.
That software had several "gotchas". One, no RTS/CTS. Two, the status line with clock info on the bottom of the screen chewed up too many CPU cycles at the higher baud rates. Three, keyboard checks for Aborts took too many CPU cycles. And fourth, the "byte" counter/odometer showing how many bytes transferred was chewing up too much time when it rolled into displaying 5 and then 6 digits of file size.
All hurdles. I still do not have the RTS/CTS quite right, but I finally got the transfer speeds to download at those higher baud rates. Keep in mind years ago some of the older Terminal software may have been written to handle no more than 2400 or 9600 baud rates. Faster hardware just was not available. And, with Telnet capability and Telnet BBS's, there is a continuous buffer of data at the modem sitting to be processed and delivered as fast as possible.
Beery
I was working with a terminal program that at 38400 baud, no issue displaying the menus. However, with file transfers, I could not go above 4800 baud. After playing with the source code for weeks, it was just night I overcame the issue and was downloading at 38400 baud.
That software had several "gotchas". One, no RTS/CTS. Two, the status line with clock info on the bottom of the screen chewed up too many CPU cycles at the higher baud rates. Three, keyboard checks for Aborts took too many CPU cycles. And fourth, the "byte" counter/odometer showing how many bytes transferred was chewing up too much time when it rolled into displaying 5 and then 6 digits of file size.
All hurdles. I still do not have the RTS/CTS quite right, but I finally got the transfer speeds to download at those higher baud rates. Keep in mind years ago some of the older Terminal software may have been written to handle no more than 2400 or 9600 baud rates. Faster hardware just was not available. And, with Telnet capability and Telnet BBS's, there is a continuous buffer of data at the modem sitting to be processed and delivered as fast as possible.
Beery