Kermit books and manuals were published in English and several other
languages between 1987 and 1997. This page features
the final editions of each of the English-language books, which,
although out of print, are sometimes available from Amazon, Alibris,
Bookfinder, EBay, and other outlets.
Using C-Kermit
Frank da Cruz and Christine M. Gianone,
Using C-Kermit, Second Edition, Digital Press /
Butterworth-Heinemann, Woburn, MA, 1997, 622 pages, ISBN 1-55558-164-1:
Still recommended for serious users of C-Kermit
(for Unix and VMS) and of Kermit 95 (for Microsoft
Windows) (casual users can find online
tutorials HERE
and HERE, and K95 users can find the manual for
its Windows-specific features HERE). The book
explains all the basics of Kermit's operation and command language,
including the syntax of the block
structured scripting language that was
introduced with C-Kermit 6.0 and is the form still used today. It's full of
tables (notably of 8-bit Roman, Cyrillic, and Hebrew character sets),
tutorials (notably serial data communications), and all sorts of reference
material, plus an extensive index. In its present form, C-Kermit supports
serial-port and modem connections as well as Internet Telnet and FTP
protocols (both secure and non-secure), plus SSH connections. It is the
only full-function Kermit program still in development, and is mainly used
on UNIX (which these days is mostly Linux and its derivatives) but
originally it was portable to about eight different operating systems,
including VMS, AOS/VS, VOS, OS-9, Plan 9, etc.
Also published in German.
The second edition is current for C-Kermit 6.0;
the new features of C-Kermit 7.0 are described in
the C-Kermit 7.0 Update Notes;
the new features of C-Kermit 8.0 are described in
the C-Kermit 8.0 Update Notes;
new features of C-Kermit 9.0 are described in
the C-Kermit 9.0 Update Notes.
This book is now available online as a PDF file,
CLICK HERE to see it.
The First Edition (1992) of Using C-Kermit is also available in
Google Books.
The Kermit File Transfer Protocol
Kermit:
A File Transfer Protocol, Frank da Cruz, Digital Press (1987).
The original Kermit book, 1987, in print for 15 years - includes Kermit
protocol specification complete with C-language source code, as well as a
minimal implementation in BASIC for bootstrapping a real Kermit program onto
a PC through its serial port (from the days when PCs were still delivered
with ROM BASIC). Foreword
by Donald Knuth;
illustrated by George Ulrich.
The book actually appeared in 1986 but had a copyright date in the future
to make it appear more modern.
MS-DOS Kermit was, by far, our most popular
Kermit software from 1981 until the late 1990s when Windows 95 and its
successors eclipsed DOS. An amazingly feature-full yet compact program
written by the Kermit Project at Columbia University and further developed
by professor Joe Doupnik at Utah State University. It runs on all versions
of DOS, including on many of the non-IBM compatibles from DOS's early days
(DEC Rainbow, Heath/Zenith 100, Victor 9000, NEC APC, etc) and includes
a script programming language and its own built-in TCP/IP stack. Using
MS-DOS Kermit, written by Kermit Project business manager Christine
Gianone, saw two editions. The second edition, shown here, documents MS-DOS
Kermit 3.14. The book was a best-seller and received excellent reviews. It
was also published in French and German, plus
a Japanese volume about the NEC pc9801 version of MS-DOS Kermit. The
book includes the software itself on a 3.5-inch diskette.
The Kermit 95 manual was published in 1995 along with
Kermit 95 itself,
and packaged in a big box with the software diskettes and a copy of
Using C-Kermit, first edition, total weight several pounds. The
cover of the Kermit 95 book is, well, horrible. Our sketch for a design was
given to a designer who evidently favored Hot Wheels and Dungeons and
Dragons. We were thinking more VW Beetle or Mini Cooper, exploring a
friendlier landscape, not the Mountains of Doom (after the first release
of K95, the manual was
online only). Authors rarely get approval
of book covers, and worse, even of the titles. The title of the first
Kermit book should have been The Kermit File Transfer Protocol but
the designer changed it for, well, design reasons. By the way, the cover of
that book shows
an IBM
PC/AT on the left, connected to a DEC VAX, which is accessed by
a DEC
Rainbow, DEC's answer to the IBM PC.
The English-language Kermit books (except the K95 one) were published by
Digital Press, the publishing house
of Digital
Equipment Corporation (DEC). After DEC disappeared, the Digital Press
imprint passed to Butterworth-Heinemann and from there to Reed-Elsevier, or
simply Elsevier. The production quality is high, with thorough peer review,
copy editing, and professional design. Translations were published in
Germany and France, licensed from Digital Press to Verlag Heinz Heise and
Heinz Schiefer & cie. The English versions were typeset by
the authors using
the Scribe
documentation preparation system, a remarkable improvement over its
successors (as Mark
Crispin might have said), and input using
the EMACS text editor (both
before and after it became GNU EMACS) on the DECSYSTEM-20 and later on
various Unix platforms.
Kermit Manuals / Columbia University /
kermit@columbia.edu /
2011-03-11 / Updated: Fri Aug 20 19:49:15 2021
