Macintosh Communications 259
One disadvantage
of
the direct connect modem
is
that
many business telephone systems
do
not allow for extensions
with
modular
receptacles. Installing a modem in this situation
may require special wiring considerations.
As with all other
computer
functions, the
Mac
must be
told exactly what
to
do
to
establish communications
and
relay
data. This requires a program generally known as
an
emulator.
To emulate
is
to
mimic something in every way. A terminal
emulator
will cause the computer
to
act as if it were a computer
terminal.
The
program
which the
Mac
uses
to
link with other
information systems
is
called
MacTerminal™.
This software,
released by Apple in the
summer
of
1984, was designed
to
take
advantage
of
the Mac's visual interface ideology.
In
many cases, MacTerminal removes the need for the
operator
to
actually deal with the special instructions
to
the
modem. Instead, the
operator
simply sets the system parame-
ters from the various menu options. MacTerminal will inter-
pret the options
and
send the appropriate commands
to
the
modem.
The
program
will also see
that
the
data
gets
to
the
modem through the proper interface port.
OVERVIEW
In this
chapter
we
will discuss the equipment and software
needed
to
set up a communications link between the Mac and
various other information sources.
We
will begin with a discus-
sion
of
the hardware involved. There are several modems
which may be used with the Mac for communications.
We
will
explore the MacTerminal
program
and
see how
to
use the
menu options.
Then,
we
will continue with a discussion
of
communica-
tions with the various available
data
base services, followed by
an
example
of
modem communications with the IBM
PC
Xl®.
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