[nos-bbs] KAM hostmode (revamped) almost ready, plus AirMail stuff

[Maiko Langelaar (ve4klm)]

Finally !

I'm almost ready to release a BETA version of the KAM hostmode
driver. I've revamped some key aspects of the HFDD (HF Digital
Device) code which should make it alot more stable to use.

I've been able to connect to JNOS using Pactor from an Airmail
client and successfully forward (in both directions) text msgs
of moderate size using the standard BF setting in Airmail.

As a matter of fact this prototype is client and server. Bye
default, the KAM driver is in server mode, waiting for calls,
but you can do an 'mbox kick ...' and it will make an outgoing
call and do a forwarding run, if the server is not active.

The 'mbox kick ... ' part is still giving me a few problems that
I hope to fix soon. Other than that, I just need to tidy things
up a bit, write a KAM.CFG file for the initialization part (it's
currently hardcoded), and then do a bit more testing.

There are other things that I need to complete on it, but they
are picky things not really required for this BETA release to
work (ie, proper flow control for HUGE messages).

I've tried to make this plug and play as well. In other words,
you should be able to hook up the KAM to a serial port, and if
it's not in HOST mode when you turn it on, the driver will
initialize it automatically for you (experimental).

One last surprise. I was playing around with AirMail and sending
email via an HF gateway. If you compose a message to an *internet
email address* and post it via HF, then what happens is that JNOS
receives it as recipient set to NEXUS at NEXUS, with subject set to
the actual email address. Putting in code to properly send it to
the internet side should be trivial, and I would like to make
that as part of the next update.

That way, one can send email to the internet DIRECT from an Airmail
client connecting via PACTOR through any JNOS server configured to
deliver email to the rest of the world (sorry no B2F yet).

That's all for now.

Maiko Langelaar / VE4KLM

http://www.langelaar.net