[aprssig] DIGI_NED 0.3.8

[Henk de Groot]

Hello,

Here is an update to DIGI_NED, version 0.3.8. It took a while, my QRL
keeps me well occupied and I don't feel much like sitting behind the PC in
the evening most of the time, sorry. I know I still have some unanswerd
e-mails to attent to, so if you are waiting for an answer, be patient.
Anyway, putting out this version was high on my hobby-to-do list and its
done now...

The biggest change is the enhanced AGWPE interface. There went quite some
testing into this to keep the link going and recover if APWPE stops
sending data. The previous solution in 0.3.7. led on some systems in an
accumulation of connections in AGWPE. The new method keeps this to a
minimum.

The Cygwin version changed a little, now it starts COMMAND.COM/CMD.EXE as
shell when executing a command from a query. Cygwin normally starts
/bin/sh and it was a challange to make Cygwin use COMMAND.COM instead.

I posted the source and binaries to my own website:

http://www.homepages.hetnet.nl/~pe1dnn

The floppy configuration has not changed, this version brings nothing new
for DOS, so it doesn't make sense to update the floppy at this time.

There is an updated executable for DOS and a package with a compiled
Cygwin binary for use with AGWPE under Windows.

Here are the changes to DIGI_NED itself from the Changes.txt file:

Changes.txt

25-01-2006 version 0.3.8
- More AGWPE interface changes
   1) Disconnect was not clean enough, on some systems connections
      accumutated in AGWPE making the AGWPE machine crash under the
      big number of connections.
   2) There is now a probe packet every 30 seconds to see if the connection
      to AGWPE is alive in both directions, only after the probe packet is
      not answered by AGWPE DIGI_NED re-builds the connection.
   3) DIGI_NED now registers the callsign so when you look in AGWPE's About
      box and click "Programs" you will see DIGI_NED als callsign for the
      connection that DIGI_NED uses.
   Thanks to Tony Hunt (VK5AH) for reporting it and testing different
   solutions (since my system didn't have the accumuating connectons
   problem and therfore I could test it myself).
- The windows binary is now "stripped" (removed information that is only
   used for debugging), it made the binary a lot smaller...
- Keyboard input ALT+key works now for the Windows version (ESC followed
   by key also works under Windows, just like Linux).
- When starting a program from a query under windows (Cygwin) the external
   program will be run by COMMAND.COM or CMD.EXE (or whatever COMSPEC is
   set to) instead of /bin/sh. This way external commands behave like DOS
   or Windows and not like Unix/Linux anymore. The provided sample in
   Sample.zip now works, provided qbasic is also present on the system (I
   copied mine from an old DOS installation, it works find under XP but may
   have problems with long pathnames).
- Changed Makefile to use "gccmakedep" instead of "makedepend". The latter
   is no longer available on newer Linux systems. Thanks to Jeff Nast
   (KC0MKS) for reporting this. I hope gccmakedep is available on all
   the Linux systems, it is present on Cygwin.

APRS[tm] is a Trademark of Bob Bruninga,
his home page is at "http://web.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/aprs.html"

Kind regards,

Henk.