Captured messages:


#: 156513 S11/Tandy 600
    10-Sep-87  01:21:50
Sb: Getting 600 into 8 bit
Fm: Joe Holland 73720,1605
To: John Malooly 73270,2624

   Here is how I get into 8 bit with the 600.

1. Go Terminal and change only the Parity from EVEN to ZERO.  As soon as you
hit ENTER after this choice, your Compuserve settings will change, so that now
most letters will be preceded by one or more of these symbols ~~~ ( produced by
CTRL+= while off line ,in Edit.) This will still be legible, and CIS will still
respond to your keyboard.

2. Now press CTRL+C enough times to stop this abnormal display.

3. Press SHIFT + ESC, M, to get to your settings.

4. TAB 3 times to word length 7 and press SPACE to go to 8.

5. TAB once to go to Parity EVEN. Space twice to change EVEN to NONE.

6. Press ENTER to return to Telcom menu.

7. Press C to resume connection.

8. Make whatever choice needed to resume the flow after the CTRL C interupt. If
you used CTRL S to stop the flow, you may need to use CTRL Q to resume.

   CIS will now continue but will be legible and normal looking. If you now
sign off or continue, Compuserve, before continuing, will ask you if you wish
to keep these settings or have them apply only to this one time use of
Compuserve.

   You are now in 8 bit. This will enable you to read/download 8 bit material
in the library, although you will not be able to use it unless you have the
facilities. So far as I know, you cannot upload pre-prepared messages in 8 bit.

   If you leave your CIS Terminal at ZERO and your Modify settings at 8N, the
next time you log on to Compuserve, you will get something like:

Ho<taNa0e:   U<eraD:

It's the usual sign on, in disguise. This is because Compuserve always signs on
in 7E. But it will accept your responses in 8 bit, and as soon as it receives
your ID number it will switch to 8 bit. Then everything will be normal except a
line feed may lost at the instant of switchover, so the password request may
continue on the same line.

   You can write a script that starts in 7E and changes to 8N, by entering a
second line of Modify settings after your I.D number, these for 8N.

   To get out of 8 bit, reverse the process. Go terminal and change ZERO to
EVEN. Stop the symbols that follow as in steps 2 and 3 while you change Modify
to 7E.

   The technical reason that you see this garbage when your computer is at 8
and the host is at 7, is that your computer reads the first seven bits
correctly as either 0 or 1, as they are transmitted. Then it is still waiting
for bit number 8, while the host, having delivered 7, goes on to the next
character.  Your computer will then misread something as the bit number 8 it is
waiting for. If it sees something it interprets as 0, then the character is
unchanged. But if it adds a 1 to the 7 bits it already has, it changes the
symbol into one higher on the list by a count of 128. (Manual pages 257 - 264).

   The other way, when your computer is in 7 and the host is in 8, your
computer sometimes interprets the extra information that it is not set up to
receive as an extra character, which it reads as Decimal #126 on the list (page
260).