@@@STARTPACK(ecu;Extended Call Utility)
<P>
ECU (Extended Call Utility) is a research and engineering communications
program originally written for users of SCO UNIX V.3.2/386 and XENIX V
on 80286 and 80386 systems.  Support for other systems has been added
and further porting is possible with "minor" effort to other systems
based on or similar to UNIX System V.  This preliminary document
describes ECU functionality and implementation from a technical point of
view and provides at least rudimentary documentation for its features
and commands.
<P>
ECU provides the classic terminal communications facility of passing
keyboard data to a serial line (or a telnet TCP/IP connection if
configured) and incoming data to the computer video display.  In
addition, a dialing directory, a function key mapping feature, and
session logging are available.
<P>
A very flexible procedure (script) language is also incorporated to
automate many communications tasks.  In addition to augmenting
interactive tasks, by using shell scripts and ECU procedures, ECU can
perform batch-style communications sessions in an entirely "unattended"
fashion.  Because of limitations of my nroff program, the procedure
language is described in a separate document.
<P>
ECU presents to the host a flexible "ANSI" terminal type, accepting any
valid video control sequences from MS-DOS or SCO documentation as of
late 1990.  It also fares well, though imperfectly, with Sun and VT-100
in-band video control sequences.  You may disable the ANSI filter if you
wish.  Standards are great: everybody should have one, especially if
<P>
they call it "ANSI." For more information, refer to the section below
titled "ANSI Filter."
<P>
The program supports almost any local terminal (console) which can be
described in a termcap database entry.  A robust terminfo or termcap
description is required for your local console to use ANSI emulation.
For more information, refer to "Supported Terminals."
<P>
ECU supports numerous file transfer protocols: as of this writing,
XMODEM, XMODEM/CRC, XMODEM-1K, YMODEM/CRC Batch, ZMODEM/CRC-16,
ZMODEM/CRC-32, and Kermit are supported.  For more information, refer to
the sections describing the individual interactive and procedure file
transfer commands.
<P>
@@@UW2DIST(http://skunkware.dev/skunkware/uw7/net/ecu/)
@@@OSR5DIST(http://skunkware.dev/skunkware/osr5/net/ecu/)
@@@SOURCE(ftp://ftp.sco.com/skunkware/src/net/)

@@@ENDPACK

