Kermit 95 and HyperTerminal

Kermit 95 and Windows® 95 HyperTerminal

HyperTerminal is the communications "applet" from Hilgraeve, Inc., included with Windows 95 to provide bare-bones dialout capabilities and to demonstrate the Windows 95 user interface. It achieves both objectives quite well, but those who need more than casual online access, or who would like to have a common communications method for both dialout and TELNET, will soon want to graduate to a more full-featured communications application.

The following comparison was conducted on an IBM PC 750-P90 with Windows 95 and a USR Sportster V.34 external modem connected to a 16550A buffered UART at 57600 bps with RTS/CTS flow control, over a 28800-bps V.34 connection. On the other end are US Robotics V.34 rack-mount modems connected to a Cisco ASM3 terminal server, and from there a TELNET connection over a local Ethernet to a Sun SparcServer 10.


                    Hyperterminal     Kermit 95 1.1

82K ripple test       16 sec            15 sec
Scrollback            500 lines max     As much as you want
Attributes preserved  No                Yes
Key mapping           None              More than you'll ever need
Selectable Colors     No                Fore and Background and more 
Emulations            ANSI              ANSI
                      TTY               TTY
                      Minitel           VT52
                      Viewdata          VT100
                      VT52              VT102
                      VT100             VT220
                                        VT320
BBS colors            Yes               Yes
BBS "ANSI art"        Yes (See note 3)  Yes
Selectable heights    No                Yes
132 columns           Yes (See note 1)  Yes (See note 1)
Reverse               Yes               Yes
Bold                  Yes               Yes
Underline             Yes               Yes (simulated with distinct colors)
Blink                 Yes               Yes (simulated with distinct colors)
VT box drawing        Yes (See note 3)  Yes
Double-width          Yes (buggy)       Yes (simulated)
Double-height         Yes (buggy)       Yes (simulated)
Arrow key modes       Yes               Yes
Numeric Keypad modes  Yes               Yes
Can send all Ctrls    No                Yes
Can send Break        No                Yes
Newline mode          Yes               Yes
Reports               Some              All
vttest                (See note 2)      Passes all tests
Esc seq debugging     No                Yes
Printing              No                Yes
Reset terminal        No                Yes
Scripting             No                Yes
Character sets        No (5)            Yes, more than 30 selectable
Compose key           No                Yes
Telnet capability     No                Yes
File transfers        XYZMODEM,Kermit,  Kermit,XYZMODEM,
                      Capture/Log/Paste Capture/Log/Paste/Transmit
Kermit Text file:      557 cps (4)      5573 cps
Kermit ZIP file:       453 cps (4)      3206 cps
Zmodem Text file:     5148 cps (4)      5461 cps
Zmodem ZIP file:      3241 cps (4)      3263 cps
Autodownload:         Zmodem only       Zmodem and Kermit
Batch uploads:        No                Yes (except XMODEM of course)
Recovery:             No (5)            Yes, Kermit and Zmodem
Redial                No (5)            Yes
Dial network modem:   No                Yes
Long file names:      Yes               Yes
Runs in Windows NT:   No                Yes

Note 1: There is a bug in Windows 95 that prevents use of colors and attributes in a wide console screen. Kermit 95 fully supports 80/132 column selection and automatic mode switching, but wide screens are shown in black and white to sidestep the Windows 95 bug. When the Windows 95 bug is fixed, Kermit 95 can be told to write full attributes into wide screens. In HyperTerminal, 132 column mode is simulated by horizontal scrolling.
Note 2: HyperTerminal fails about 25% of the tests when in VT100 mode using the default font. If you find the right font, it passes most of the tests, except that the double width / double height display is consistently fractured.
Note 3: In VT100 mode, HyperTerminal simply does not display any characters other than ASCII unless the default font is changed. In ANSI mode, HyperTerminal displays accented letters instead of ANSI graphic characters unless you change the font.
Note 4: HyperTerminal includes no protocol controls at all, including no text/binary mode selection, nor packet-length, window size, etc. Thus text files are transferred in binary mode. Only a minimalistic Kermit protocol implementation is available.
Note 5: These features added in "HyperTerminal Personal Edition", which is not distributed with Windows 95, but which is available from Hilgraeve. Recovery applies to ZMODEM only; redial is all-or-nothing (no controls); character-set capability is limited.

If there are any errors in this review, please notify us by email. Also please feel free to post your own review of Kermit 95 or comparisons of it with other products to comp.protocols.kermit.misc.

Kermit for Windows 95 / Columbia University / kermit@columbia.edu / 2 Dec 95