NovaTerm 2.0 is a special terminal program used for connecting to NovaLink Professional‚Ñ¢ information servers and allows you to use our completely windowing Macintosh interface. Users can read electronic mail, participate in group discussions (message bases and real-time, multi-user conferences), upload and download files and use all the other features of NovaLink Professional completely by pointing and clicking. Please keep in mind that NovaLink completely supports VT-100 at all times, NovaTerm 2.0‚Ñ¢ is an additional capability rather than a restriction.
This chapter gives you an overview of NovaTerm 2.0, but the best way to get a feeling for what it is like is to call our central server, NovaCentral. NovaCentral acts as an information center for our products and is a central meeting place for all of our customers. This chapter illustrates NovaTerm 2.0 briefly, assists in installation and prepares you to call NovaCentral. If you have not yet downloaded NovaTerm from NovaCentral or another on-line service, we suggest you do so now. You will need both NovaTerm 2.0 and the Config file for NovaCentral to experience our Macintosh interface. The next chapter covers calling NovaCentral to check out NovaTerm 2.0.
A Quick Preview
When connected to a NovaLink 2.0 Information Server using NovaTerm 2.0 you will experience a complete graphic interface where you point and click to navigate around the system and take advantage of its features. Menus can be completely custom designed, using any popular Macintosh drawing or painting program, or our NovaMondrian menu creation program.
This is an example of how a message base, or public discussion area, will be seen by the user:
 
The folders represent source messages, each may have a number of responses to it. The number of responses is indicated by the number shown next to the name of the person who posted the question. Clicking on "New Only" will only display those messages that were posted since the last time you visited this message base. If you post a message at this level, it will become a source or topic message and will appear as a folder. If you open a folder and then post or respond to an existing message, it will be placed in the listing of responses:
 
Electronic mail with a Macintosh interface is also included:
 
Our electronic mail system includes all the expected features like group management, file attachment and return receipts. We also include our copy reciept feature and the easy ability to compose mail off-line for insertion as soon as you connect to the NovaLink Professional server. Mail, either on or off line, is accessed through the "Mail" pull-down menu:
 
NovaTerm supports a wide variety of modems, including high speed modems with complete flow control. It uses an exclusive protocol for message transmission and overhead communication, but switches to the proven zmodem protocol for fast reliable transfers and recovery capabilities.
NovaTerm can connect to any NovaLink Professional information server. The server can be constructed to have virtually any selection of menus and choices, each having unique graphics. These graphic databases are stored in a Config file which can be updated by the server whenever desired.
Installing NovaTerm 2.0
We have provided NovaTerm 2.0 with the config file for calling NovaCentral in a self-extracting archive. To extract it double click on the NovaTerm 2.0.sea file and direct it to where you want to store NovaTerm on your hard drive. After it has been extracted and installed properly it should look like this:
 
You will not have both the color and black and white configs as illustrated but the rest will be the same. Double click on the NovaCentral config icon which will open you into NovaTerm 2.0 the graphic file for NovaCentral. You will be greeted by the call window:
 
Your account information is accessed under file:
 
It is stored in the dialog box that comes up. Note that you can also adjust your modem speaker volume, specify the number of seconds NovaTerm waits before re-dialing a busy system or indicate whether you are using hardware handshake with a High Speed modem:
 
Note: If you already have a User ID and Password for NovaCentral,
enter them here.
Placing "New" in the User ID box will cause you to set up a new account when you call. This will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter on calling NovaCentral . Now we must set the modem speed to correspond with your modem:
 
If you have a 9600 baud modem, and a hardware handshaking cable, set the baud rate to 19200 as shown and check the "Hardware Handshaking" box under Account Info. Otherwise, select the number that corresponds to the speed of your modem.
You have now installed NovaTerm 2.0 properly and have set some important settings. Save all of this by selecting "Save" under "File":
 
You have finished setting and installing NovaTerm 2.0. Move on to the next chapter, Calling NovaCentral to use NovaTerm 2.0 on a modem for the first time.
