LATCOM 1.0.5  PATHWORKS Communication Port Redirector
Copyright (C) 1991-1992 by Digital Equipment Corporation
Unsupported Utility

Description

LATCOM is an unsupported device driver that provides comm port
redirection over LAT services at both the DOS and BIOS level.  It may be
used with DOS and Windows terminal emulators and communications programs
that access comm ports through INT 14h (such as KERMIT, SmarTerm420 or
Dynacomm).  It can also be used to create connections to printer services
available on a terminal server, but not PC LAT printer services.

Questions and comments can be posted in the DECPCI forum.  Since this is
an unsupported utility don't even think of calling the CSC.

Requirements

LATCOM requires the following component versions (or better) to work:

    LATCOM.SYS  1.0.5
    LAT         4.1.17y
    USE         5.0.01

It should work with PATHWORKS 4.0 as well as 4.1, providing the above
components are used.  If you experience problems, be sure to check the
versions first.

LATCOM Setup Notes

1. Copy LATCOM.SYS to the \DECNET directory on the client

2. Install LATCOM.SYS in CONFIG.SYS by adding the following line 
    
   device=\DECNET\LATCOM.SYS

3. You'll need LAT 4.1.14j or better to fix a problem in the SendBlock
   request.  If you have an older version; use the LAT 4.1.17y that was
   included in this kit.

4. Make sure you have application SCBs defined for each comm port you plan
   to redirect by issuing the following command:

   LATCP DEFINE SCB 4

5. Reboot

6. Load LAT.  LATCOM remains idle until LAT is loaded.  It will support
   LAT in EMS or conventional memory; your preference.  Note that from
   withing Windows, LAT in conventional memory is much faster.

7. Use USE 5.0.01 or better.  This should be included in the archive
   containing LATCOM.  Comm services can be used just like any other
   network service.  For example:

        USE COM1: DIAL_OUT *
        USE COM*:/D
        USE COM?: LN03RSERV FOOPASS

COMTST Demo

Included with this archive is COMTST.C and COMTST.EXE.  This is a simple
little program that demonstrates the DOS redirection capabilities of
LATCOM.  It is a braindead terminal emulator that uses normal DOS I/O
to read from the console and write to the comm port.  The ultimate in
simplicity.

Because ports are redirected at the DOS level, it is possible to print
directly to LAT services from DOS:

        USE COM1: LATPRINTER
        COPY C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT COM1
        USE COM1: /d
        
Note that you should disconnect as soon as you are done printing so you
don't tie up the terminal server port.

Missing Features, Bugs and Futures

There is currently no auto-reconnect of disconnected LAT services; you
must always use USE to manage comm redirections (or an application linked
with USELIB).

Some Windows applications may have problems detecting new comm
redirections if you've created them in a DOS session.  I am investigating
this problem, but right now you must create the redirections prior to
starting Windows for them to be accesible to the applications.

Given enough incentive (yeah, those who know me know what that means) I
would like to add a local> prompt to LATCOM so that services that are
disconnect drop back to a prompt so you can redirect them again.  This is
a bit of work, but would eliminate the dependency on USE.
