PCHA5.RVW 930809
Comparison Review
Company and product:
Hilgraeve Inc.
111 Conant Ave., #A
Monroe, MI 48161
800-826-2760
313-243-0576
fax: 313-243-0645
BBS: 313-243-5915
HyperACCESS/5 3.0
Rating (1-4, 1 = poor, 4 = very good)
"Friendliness"
Installation 1
Ease of use 2
Help systems 2
Compatibility 3
Company
Stability 2
Support 2
Documentation 2
Hardware required 2
Performance 3
Availability 2
Local Support 1
General Description:
Feature rich communications and terminal emulation program, but definitely for
the advanced user.
Comparison of features and specifications
User Friendliness
Installation
I was surprised to find, given Hilgraeve's emphasis on virus detection, that
the disks, five 360Ks and three 720Ks, were shipped unprotected.
Installation, interestingly, is not covered in the manual. Amongst the ads for
Compuserve, Dow-Jones, NewsNet, OAG and other goodies, is a flyer labelled
"Quick Install Guide". The only information on the installation is that you
run the INSTALL program. (Installation apparently makes no attempt to add to
your "path": you are directed to change to the HyperACCESS directory before
running the program.) The manual does, however, list the files supplied, and
their functions, in Appendix J.
Installation, due to the fact that files are shipped compressed, is a fairly
lengthy process, taking 45 minutes on the old XT test machine. It is not very
dependable, either, missing some of the options that it specifically asked me
about during the process.
The only information about the disk space needed is a comment on the card that
you could install it to a 1.2 meg or larger floppy. The INSTALL program at one
point gives you the option of a "full" installation taking up 1.1 megs of
space, or a 400K minimal installation. Unlike some other programs which allow
this kind of customization, you are only offered these two options, with
nothing in between. In any case, it turns out to be nonsense. The program
will not install if there is less than 1.5 megs of disk space available. I
thought this might have been due to decompression needs, but, in fact, this is
the size needed for a full install. Therefore, you *cannot*, in contradiction
to both the documentation and the INSTALL program, install to a floppy disk. I
am not sure what the minimal installation might be after you have deleted
extraneous files, but I estimate it to be about 1 meg.
Ease of use
While beginners will find HyperACCESS reasonably easy to use, it is likely to
be the "Power User" who is really interested in this program. There are a
range of fascinating features, such as the ability to use the mouse to choose
options from the screen, even on strictly text based systems. Hilgraeve
obviously sees PROCOMM as the competition, and has followed, to a certain
extent, the "one key command" philosophy. Not entirely; many of the
HyperACCESS functions must be chosen from a menu. In certain cases, however,
HyperACCESS has chosen a better route. Many of the "one key" commands are more
intuitive (Alt-H for help, for instance) and the menu and screen layouts are
more comprehensible. Unfortunately, many of the screens and functions are much
less intuitive, and the program takes some getting used to.
Once you start getting into the settings for various functions, this is
definitely for experienced users only. One example: sending ASCII text. This
is a fairly normal function, in that many users will compose a message
"offline", and then send it to the BBS, email or text editing systems they are
using on the "host" computer. Many "host" systems will present a "prompt" at
the beginning of each line, and it is best to "wait" before sending the next
line. HyperACCESS/5 has a feature to do so, and it is unthreateningly called
"wait for this character after sending each line". However, the prompt
character to wait for must be entered as a hexadecimal representation. (An
"ASCII" character chart is provided. As usual, it covers not only the "proper"
7 bit ASCII characters but the 8 bit IBM PC graphics characters as well.)
The script language, HyperPilot, is extensive and seems to owe much to the C
language. The table of contents alone for the language reference chapter is
three and a half pages of very dense type. Chapter eleven, however, does give
a briefer overview of the more common commands. Once again, this is a compiled
script situation. Scripts that have not been pre-compiled with be so after the
first usage, if the proper files are all available.
Help systems
Alt-H is a "universal" help key, but this is another program where if you don't
know the answer already, you are going to have a hard time finding it in the
help system.
Compatibility
An interesting feature is the ability to "import" a Procomm dialling directory
file. The program is also available for OS/2 and, in fact, is shipped with
both versions on disk. VT terminal emulation is generally good. File transfer
protocols are generally good, although there is a problem with Kermit
uploading.
Company Stability
Hilgraeve, and HyperACCESS 5, has been around for a while. They have not
obtained a great "presence" in the communications software industry.
Company Support
The usual.
Documentation
The documentation consists of one manual, plus the easily overlooked "Quick
Install Guide" flyer. In general, the manual is clear and well laid out.
(Small boxed "marginal notes" are sprinkled throughout the manual, and are
generally very helpful hints and points.)
However, it is at this point that the package deserts the "Power User". While
the general information on how to use the program is all there, the details on
many of the more interesting points are lacking. Many times, in reading the
manual, I just got to the point where I felt the next few pages would give me
an explanation of a particularly intriguing aspect of HyperACCESS/5, only to
find that the next page was a new topic or chapter. The intermediate user will
be easily able to grasp and use the basic functions of the terminal program;
the advanced user is left wondering whether the experimentation necessary is
worth the effort to see if a specific advanced feature lives up to its billing.
System Requirements
Must install to a hard disk. May be able to run from HD floppies if copied
over.
Performance
HyperACCESS has a number of features not normally associated with terminal
emulation programs. As mentioned previously, some of these, such as the
ability to "choose" menu options, on "text only" systems, with a mouse, are
minor but handy.
HyperACCESS/5, like PROCOMM, has a "host" mode. The menus provided to the
caller are not as pretty as those of PROCOMM, but the functionality is all
there. Again, since it is "built-in", there is no need for programming on the
part of the HyperACCESS user. The security aspects are also much better on
HyperACCESS/5: there are multiple options which can be allowed or denied. One
proviso - the program ships with an "unlimit" password which, as it implies,
allows unlimited access. The "unlimit" password does not require a specific
"account" name. I would strongly recommend that all purchasers delete this
entry, even if they do not plan to use the "host" option.
The most bizarre of HyperACCESS's features is virus checking. This is intended
to catch viral programs, or infected files, as they are being downloaded. Note
that there are the same limitations with this virus checker as with any other:
compressed or archived files, or files otherwise manipulated for transmission,
may "hide" viral infections. (HyperACCESS/5 does implicitly recognize this:
another function is the ability to "unzip" ZIP format archives. This only
works with PKZIP 1.1 format archives.) The READ.ME documentation states that
HyperACCESS *is* able to find viral infections "inside" ZIP files, and I was
able to generate a virus detection alarm with some very common infections that
had been compressed with the PKZIP 1.1 format. The default, by the way, is
that virus checking is off. I strongly suspect that "uploading" is not
checked. (Hilgraeve used to "advertise" HyperACCESS/5 with a virus checking
"copy" program called HCOPY. This is apparently still available on the
Hilgraeve BBS, but I have not seen it on other boards.)
A chapter is devoted to the additional benefits of "HA5 to HA5" communications;
in other words, calling another HyperACCESS/5 equipped computer. This is
primarily concerned with promoting the proprietary HyperProtocol file transfer
protocol. Some mention is made of "time delayed" and "automatic" calls, but
this can also be done with "normal" systems and the script language.
Local Support
None provided.
Support Requirements
The intermediate user should be able to access the basic features of the
program. (Some problems with installation may inhibit initial use.) Even the
advanced user will need to devote several hours, and possibly days, to the
initial setup and learning more than the most modest features.
copyright Robert M. Slade, 1993 PCHA5.RVW 930809
======================
roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca
Ceterum censeo Wiley delendam esse
Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER)