[Spoffo]

If you're of a certain age, you remember the days before everything was internet, and we all used Compuserve and other online information services via direct dial-up and a simple "communications" or "telecom" application. They were also called "terminal emulator" apps, because they emulated a connection via teletype. I'm talking about the kind of program that had the ability to dial up a server, run a simple log-in script and then gave you a basic text window in which you communicate with the information service. The one I always used was Hayes Smartcom, and the most widely used was probably Z-Term, but there were tons of them, all pretty much the same. They were usually given away free with modems

Here's my problem: I want to find one of these programs for OS X, and I can't. I've searched endlessly through Version Tracker, the Apple download library and lots of other sources to no avail. Running one of the old apps in Classic mode doesn't work, because they seem to require more direct control of the modem hardware.

Why would I want such an antique, you ask. I'm a pilot, and the official US Govt online aviation weather briefing service (DUAT) still supports a direct dial-up text interface. When I'm on the road and don't have good wireless internet in my room, this direct (i.e. NON internet) dial-up is the most convenient alternative. For that reason, I still travel with a beat-up old G3 PowerBook, just so I can boot it in OS 9 and run my old Smartcom. I would dearly love to upgrade to a modern laptop Mac, but I'd lose the ability to boot in OS 9.

Does anyone know of a basic text dial-up application for OS X? Barring that, has anyone worked out a script for doing this in Terminal?

[ghporter]

With an Intel-based laptop you could use Boot Camp to install Windows and then run any one of a number of well-behaved, DOS-based comm apps (which are probably what DUAT was built to expect anyway). Pro-Comm is still a decent app, even if it is clunky-character-based. For what you want, that's still a great option.

Just my 2¢ worth...

[mitchell_pgh]

xterm VT102 VT220 VT320 color terminal emulator Mac OS X

It lets you run it for free for 30 minutes in a "try before you buy" mode.

EDIT: I don't think this is what you are looking for...

[Spoffo]

Problem solved (sorta) It turns out there are lots of these out there for OS X, including good ol' Z Term. The difference is that today they are called only "Terminal Emulators." A search on "Dial up communications software" or something like that only produces things for handling dial-up internet. Also, because the only people who use these today are programmers and other under-the-hood types, they aren't nearly as user friendly in terms of configuring log-on scripts as in the old days. In fact, the Apple Terminal App is such a program, and could be used to do this if you manually enter the necessary codes to open the modem port, send the initialization string and dial commands (ugh).

However, I tried both Zterm for OS X and Mac Wise and they both work to access my weather service in manual mode. In fact the documentation with Z Term gives me hope that I can create an automated log-on whenever I have the time to spend an hour or so with a text editor.