The monthly news magazine of the Tampa Bay Kaypro User's
Group and the DataCOM Super Systems(tm)
=================================================================
News and reviews of programs, hardware, and peripherals for users
of microcomputers with CP/M, MP/M, MS-DOS, PC-DOS, or TurboDOS
operating systems.
=================================================================
The DataCOM Super Systems(tm) is a "state of the art" multi-user
remote database with 40mb of files online. An annual fee of
$35.00 is required for access, an application may be downloaded
by calling (813) 791-1454 at 300/1200/2400 baud or send a SASE
along with your request to:
TBKUG / DataCOM Super Systems(tm)
2643 Cedar View Court
Clearwater, FL 33519
-==( DISCLAIMER )==-
Articles and reviews of microcomputers, hardware, software, and
other peripherals reflect currently advertised prices as released
by the distributors and are included here for YOUR INFORMATION
ONLY. The TBKUG/DataCOM Super Systems(tm) is NOT being paid
to advertise these products and we cannot be held
accountable for the actual retail price and/or performance
of said products.
The DataCOM Super Systems(tm) is now true multi-user. I have
just finished installing the new user slave card and have taken
the Kaypro 10 offline that was on 791-1454. Both telephone lines
now come into the same multi-user TurboDOS remote system with
40mb of files online. This also means a common RBBS message file
so there won't be any "hunting" between the #1 & #2 systems to
see which RBBS had your reply message awaiting.
I have tried several times to come up with a workable auto logon
file for MEX users but have not as yet succeeded. The single-
user systems never had the problem of variable time delays during
file accesses, but the multi-user system does. If several users
are accessing files simultaneously then the system is slowed down
a bit which makes timing more critical for MEX sendout commands.
It is a simple enough task to make up a logon key with your first
name, last name, and user ID#, and then enter this info at the
first name prompt. From there it is only a couple more key
presses until you are in the RBBS or TurboDOS.
Auto logon files in the past created confusion when the user
called in and there was a message waiting. The logon files
always assumed you had no messages waiting and try to go straight
to the operating system. The entry module of the system will
auto-chain you to the RBBS module when there is a message
awaiting you and the logon files don't know how to handle this.
We have 33 separate file areas now open, including several new
areas like TURBOROM for Kaypro people with Advent's new super
ROM installed in their machines. Many different operating
systems are supported online; CP/M80, CP/M86, TurboDOS, MS-DOS,
PC-DOS, and CP/M 3.0 (plus). And many different programming
language areas like: Turbo Pascal, Mbasic, Cbasic, GWBASIC, Z80
Assembler, dBase, C, and others. Extensive areas full of MEX
overlays for both the pd version and MexPlus versions as well as
the older MDM740 modem programs. The IBM/DOS and NEWDOS areas
are expanding all the time and we always have the latest in DOS
utilities as well as CP/M80 goodies.
The CD (Change Directory) command is your guide to the goodies,
simply enter "CD <c/r>" for a listing of the available file
areas. For those of you who are used to the old system I have
left the SYSMAP, MAP, PWD, GOTO, and SECTION commands active,
they do exactly the same thing as the CD command. To see a more
thorough explanation of each file area, enter "CD ?".
To help you in locating online files, use the WHEREIS command.
This utility will search a diskfile of all the filenames
currently online and then will indicate which AREA has the target
file. The WHEREIS command is different from the old FILEFIND
command in that it will search for a string match rather then a
name-for-name type match. You input a 3 to 12 character search
string and any and all matches will display a corresponding file
section name where you will find the desired file(s).
-=={ Adding On A Hard Disk Drive }==-
(c) 1985 by Steve Sanders
Tired of hunting for floppy diskettes with the desired program
files? Annoyed by disk-full errors? Aggravated by slow access
times of floppy disks?
If the answer is "Yes" to any of these questions you might want
to consider upgrading your floppy-only box with a hard disk
drive. Hard disk drives (HDD) are rapidly becoming the industry
standard for personal computers as a storage medium and offer
lots of benefits to the users. Increased online storage capacity
and faster read/write times are the most desirable features of
the hard disk drive.
The following article is for the Z-80 CP/M computer owner as
those with IBM-PCs or compatibles have a very easy road to travel
by simply plugging in a controller and installing a hard drive
unit.
Upgrading a Z-80 computer equipped to run floppy drives for a
hard disk drive is not that difficult. There are three major
components that make up the hard disk drive sub-system and I will
break them down and expand on each in the following sections:
1. The Interface and Controller:
The SCSI (Small Computer Standard Interface) or SASI (Shugart
Associates Standard Interface) interface is the intermediate step
needed between the motherboard (CPU) and the hard disk
controller. The SASI interface was made standard by Shugart with
their ST-506 drives which most other manufacturers have since
copied or closely paralleled. It seems the SCSI interface is
taking over as the industry standard these days and is virtually
interchangeable with the Shugart SASI specifications. Most
floppy-only machines like Kaypro II or early Kaypro 4 models do
not have a SCSI/SASI interface because they were never designed
to handle data I/O to a hard disk unit.
Kaypro 2'84 and 4'84 owners have an interface on the motherboard
already, you guys should see the file called KPROHARD.DSK in the
KAYPRO files section of the remote system. It is very easy to
upgrade these machines to a Kaypro 10 with parts available from
your Kaypro dealer.
The TurboROM and Clock/Interface
Advent Products has a real-time clock/SASI interface that goes
along with its TurboROM which supports two hard disks and up to 4
floppies of any density up to 96 TPI. The real-time clock/SASI
interface is available for $99.95 and is a nice addition to
anyone's hardware and also allows for the addition of RAMDISKS as
well as hard drives. The TurboROM is reasonably priced at $79
and is available for any model Kaypro CP/M machine made. It
offers many enhancements above and beyond the simple SASI
interface and is well worth your time to check it out. The
TurboROM also has the necessary BIOS coding to allow you to
access additional drives and partition the hard disks to whatever
sector-size and total capacity size is required.
THE TURBOROM AND CLOCK/INTERFACE IS THE BEST WAY TO GO FOR OWNERS
OF KAYPRO MACHINES -- EVERYTHING NEEDED FOR AN INTERNAL UPGRADE
IS SUPPLIED.
Source: Advent Products Inc.
3154-F E. La Palma Ave
Anaheim, CA 92806
(714) 630-0446
Instant Z-80 SASI Interface
One of the easiest ways to upgrade a floppy-only Z-80 machine is
with the Adaptec adapter/controller system. The system is
a daughter board that fits under your Z-80 CPU chip connected to
a very fast ST-506 type hard disk controller. The Adaptec unit
will handle any two identical sized ST-506 interface 5-1/4" hard
disk drives in the 5 to 51mb size range. You get a menu-driven
installation and hard disk format program with the controller
that allows for easy formatting of whatever size drive you decide
to purchase.
This is a great way to go if you do not have a Kaypro computer
and can't use the Advent TurboROM or other peripherals and you do
NOT already have a SCSI/SASI interface on your motherboard.
Source: California Digital
17700 Figueroa Street
Carson, CA 90248
2. The Hard Disk Drive(s):
There are many different makes of 5-1/4" hard disk drives these
days and they are all very reasonably priced if you shop around a
bit and don't jump on the first one you find. The average hard
disk installed in PCs today is the half-height 20 megabyte drive
which has drastically lowered the price and increased the
availability of 1/2-height 10 megabyte drives. The average price
for a good 10mb drive is about $275 to $375 depending mostly on
the head access time. Today's standard hard disk has a seek
time of 50-85ms and the more expensive "fast" drives are usually
rated around 25-36ms. For most people's usage the head access
times are greatly over-rated, a good drive is the Shugart SA712
which is a 1/2-height 10mb drive that is selling for $259 and has
a seek time of about 65ms.
Some of the cheaper (and older) full-height drives like the
Tandon TM502 used in early model Kaypro 10s should be avoided.
These drives are very power-hungry, slow access times, physically
large, and in the case of the TM502, no plated media on the
disks. The new 1/2-height drives in contrast are smaller,
quieter, super-efficient (usually 12-20 watts max), and very
fast - plus have plated media. The plated media refers to the
coating of the actual disk platters, any drive that is moved
around should be plated for data integrity. Just be sure your
drive comes with plated media to be on the safe side.
I myself, have recently bought two of the Seagate ST225 half-
height low-power 20mb drives and installed them on the TurboDOS
remote system. Fantastic drives that use only 12 watts of power
each, make no noise at all, and don't generate large power bills
or heat-up the room. In fact, on Thanksgiving morning my
Cal DC power supply board that feeds the two drives died. The
only thing I had on hand was an old Astec 35-watt switcher supply
designed for an Osborne I. I decided to chance it and hooked it
up in the hard drive cabinet, flipped on the switch -- and it ran
both of the Seagate drives and a 12VDC muffin fan.
Source: California Digital
17700 Figueroa Street
Carson, CA 90248
3. Hard Disk Enclosure and Power Supply:
If the hard disk drive will not fit internally, then it must be
mounted in a cabinet with enough room for a power supply pcb,
a muffin fan, and the drive(s) themselves. I have found a
pseudo-IBM styled case that holds one full-height or two half-
height 5-1/4 inch drives, a semi-hefty 60-watt power supply, and
room for a standard size 4" muffin fan. The enclosure is $69.95
and the power supply for 1 or 2 low-power 1/2-height drives is
$40.00, or a heftier power supply for one large 40-96mb full-
height drive is $60.00. The fan can be purchased at a Radio-TV
supply house or even places like Radio Shack, just be sure you
get one with the right spacing between the mounting holes to fit
the cut-out supplied in the cabinet.
The supplier is: Computer Parts Galore
56 Harvester Ave
Batavia, NY 14020
(716) 343-6133
Tell them it was the cabinet and power supply in the Computer
Shopper advertisement.
Not everyone will want to mount the hard disk externally, say for
instance you have a dual-floppy machine, you can optionally
remove one of the floppy drives and install the hard disk in the
newly vacated hole. For those with a machine like the old Kaypro
II with two full-height floppy drives, you can remove both full-
ht drives and install two half-ht floppies and one or two 1/2-ht
hard drives all in the original cabinet. Just be aware of the
total power draw of all the drives and do not exceed the
capabilities of your power supply. You can upgrade your power
supply with a larger unit or be sure to use LOW-POWER drives and
you might be able to use the stock supply.
Final Notes:
(1) Do NOT overload your power supply!
(2) If you do not purchase a complete package like the TurboROM
and clock/interface you will need to re-code your computer's BIOS
to handle the additional drives - this requires the BIOS source
code (not everyone has theirs.)
(3) You need a hard disk format and verify utility program to
set-up your new drive(s) - this software is not supplied when you
buy a hard disk drive by itself. The formatting software is
controller-specific as it must be able to communicate with the
HDD controller being used.
(4) Compare the total cost of the upgrade against the purchase
of a machine already set-up for a hard disk drive - it may be
cheaper to sell what you have now and buy one ready-to-go.
(5) Shop around and compare prices - the prices for hard disk
drives is dropping daily and yesterday's "good deal" may not be
today's good buy.
(6) Do NOT get in over your head! If you don't feel comfortable
with hardware or BIOS coding, get someone else to do it for you,
that's what local user groups and dealers are for.
Now that you have gotten comfortable with your new hard disk
drive unit, you can start dreaming of the day when you connect up
your new Laser W.O.R.M. drive or optical CD-ROM disk drive.
--={ PD Software: FATCAT20 Review }=--
by Ed Johnson (Vancouver Island CPM Users Group)
One of the reasons I bought a Kaypro 10 several years back was to
have all of my programs easily accessible on the hard drive. At
most, I thought, I would need only about 30 disks to back up all
the files that I might have at any one time. Well, as every avid
computer fan knows, pretty soon those disks start to multiply
like rabbits in a carrot patch. And, sooner or later, you will
have to find a way to keep track of them all.
As custodian of our club's disks, as well as my own, I have over
200 double and single-sided disks with something like 9000
programs including library files in my carrot patch. The club
accounts for 110 disks and 3600 programs including library files
members.
Over the past year I have settled on two programs from the public
domain which have worked reasonably well: MCAT45 and DIRF36. The
MCAT system I use requires only three files, MCAT.COM, MAST.CAT,
and FIND.COM. With these files, I can catalog, update, and
locate a file or disk with a total disk space of about 55K for
2000 entries. MCAT does make a .BAK file every time
it is
accessed, so you must always have extra space on your disk to
allow for this if you do not have a hard drive.
MCAT allows you to enter disk after disk for cataloging, doing
its updating after each disk. The most annoying thing about this
program is its habit of refusing to read the 5th to 7th disk in a
cataloging session. When this happens, it claims not to have
found a disk name, one preceded with a "-", or simply gives a
BDOS error. In both cases, one has to exit the program and warm
boot the new disk before continuing.
If I had to catalogue the entire VICOG library of 110 disks at
one time, it would probably take a couple of hours. DIRF, by the
way, allows you to put one-line comments about each file in a
separate file, DIRFILES.DAT on each disk, but that is another
article.
The new kid on the block, FATCAT20, is different in many ways. A
menu-driven program, its best features are:
1. Changes can be made to the disk being cataloged without
exiting the program.
2. The master catalog list is sent to the printer or screen
or both in TWO columns, saving much paper.
3. 110 disks can be cataloged in 30 minutes or less.
4. A list of free space on each disk is produced in
numerical order.
5. Will list library members and user areas if asked to.
Its speed of cataloging is gained through the clever use of a
temporary file to hold the new data from each disk. After all
disks have been recorded, you choose the update option from the
menu and walk away. I also liked the way it listed the library
file members with the disk number and library name. This was a
lot better than LCAT, an MCAT-type program with the ability to
also list library members, and which frequently confused the disk
name with a library file member beginning with "-".
While this program was a real pleasure to use after MCAT, it was
not without its own set of problems. First and foremost, is that
it is not called FATCAT for nothing. Fat it is, as the
equivalent programs to MCAT gobbled up almost 212K! There are
about 14 files to this program! If I included library files, I
added two more files and 165K more space. To be fair, Steve
Cohen, the author, has noted this and has allowed for this in the
installation. The files can be spread out among your drives, and
no .BAK files are created. However, there is an upper limit to
the number of files you can accommodate according to your
machine's capacity, as noted in the author's very good
documentation.
Secondly, if you have singled sided and double sided diskettes in
your files, FATCAT will also have to be exited from and your disk
warm booted each time a different format is detected. MCAT also
had this failing. Fortunately this can be done without loosing
any information from previous disks in FATCAT's temporary storage
file, which is fortunate because.....
Thirdly, now that my master list contains 3600 entries, each time
that I choose to update the list from either one disk or several,
I had better be sure I have something else to do for an hour or
so! FATCAT is no longer fast, it is SLOW.
The screen listing or printout is indeed two columns, but the
listings are in horizontal order, rather than vertical. I found
it much harder to spot duplicate listings when I had to scan back
and forth across the columns to follow the alphabetical listing.
Its final drawback that I have found is a glaring programming
error which can be overcome by the aware operator. In asking
FATCAT to find a particular file, it stops after the first
occurrence and pretends that that is all there is in the entire
list. The solution, of course, is to always implant a wildcard,
even if just a lowly "?", in the search mask to prod FATCAT to
the end of the file.
So, weighing the pros and cons, where do I stand?
For the club, the common denominator has always been single-sided
disks to allow for usage by all of the formats in use. We have
all kinds of Kaypro formats to cater to, as well as Osborne and
Morrow. Including library files, FATCAT here would simply not
fit, it is too FAT. Also, if we did not include library files,
we would still have more than one disk just for this. Since we
are currently supplying the members with one program disk with
all the pertinent club information and its master catalogue on
one disk, we would then have to supply two, three, or maybe
more--something for the membership to consider as part of their
operating expenses.
Still I would prefer to use FATCAT on my own disk library
composed entirely of doubled sided diskettes where I have lots of
room on my winchester for its files, so that only the slow
updating is the price I have to pay. Since updating can be done
at any time, day or night, it becomes just a scheduling problem.
Hopefully Mr. Cohen will be encouraged, as he says, to rewrite
FATCAT in assembly language for a smaller program format. This
particular version, 2.0, has been written in Turbo Pascal. No
mention has been made of the source code being available for
future modifications.
Having a smaller, more compact program with the ability to
include one-line comments for each file included would be the
greatest gift to us overworked and under-nourished computer
librarians of the world! Thanks Steve!
{Editor's note: Steve Cohen has released FATCAT23 which corrects
some, but not all of the problems mentioned in Ed's article.}
-=={ 2400 BAUD SERVICE FOR GEnie[TM] }==-
General Electric Information Services Company announced that its
GEnie(tm) consumer information service for personal computer
users will be available at 2400 baud in 63 U.S. cities effective
December 1, 1985.
There is a $10/hour surcharge for 2400 baud access to GEnie,
resulting in a total cost of $15/hour for non-prime time access
and $45/hour for prime time access.
GEnie is currently available by a local telephone call in 450
cities across the United States at 300 or 1200 baud speeds at a
non-prime time rate of only $5 an hour -- up to 60 percent less
than some comparable alternative offerings available today.
The non-prime time rates for GEnie apply to use Monday through
Friday from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. local time, and all day on Saturday
and Sunday and national holidays.
Even with a $10/hour surcharge for the 2400 baud speed, GEnie is
still a better value than comparable 2400 baud services during
non-prime access.
The sign-up fee for GEnie is only $18.00, significantly less than
comparable services, and there are no monthly subscription
charges.
Currently available on GEnie are special interest groups for
users of the following micros: IBM PC, Apple Macintosh, Apple II,
Tandy, and Commodore. In addition, a special interest group has
been set up for game players.
In order to work with GEnie, all a user needs is a PC, an
asynchronous modem (either 300, 1200 or 2400 baud), one of the
many available communication software packages, and a telephone.
Personal computer users can sign up for GEnie from their own
keyboard by calling 1-800-638-8369. Be ready with your VISA,
MasterCard or checking account number and set your modem for half
duplex (300 or 1200 baud). Upon connection enter HHH then press
RETURN. At the U#= prompt enter 5JM11999,GEnie and press RETURN.
For additional information or assistance in signing up for GEnie,
please call 1-800-638-9636, ext. 21.
-=={ WHATSNEW in Public Domain }==-
by Steve
[CP/M 2.2]
ARTIE32.LBR Here is yet another graphics doodling program for
owners of video-able Kaypro computers. ARTIE uses block graphics
rather then individual pixels like DDRAW to draw on the screen.
It has a very nice user interface and lots of built-in help with
the press of ^Q. It is written in Turbo Pascal and does not like
to run under small-TPA ZCPR3 systems, my KP10 with a 50k TPA gets
the old "Program aborted - not enough memory" message under ZCPR3
but will run OK if booted from a sysgened floppy with 60k TPA.
The author, Peter Donnelly of Victoria, British Columbia, is
working to improve the program and this is the third revision
we've seen. Several demo .ART(ie) files are included in the
library and immediately show the power inside of ARTIE.
B29-V201.LBR B29 is a NEWSWEEP-type disk maintenance utility
written originally for Kaypros but now available with a general
installation program for other terminals. It was written on and
for a floppy-based Kaypro computer and doesn't seem to like the
hard disks on a Kaypro 10. It has the same features of NSWP
except for file squeezing, it does however have the ability to
unsqueeze files. The Kaypro-installed version displays the info
from the internal clock (84 models) on the 25th status line.
DZMNUFIX.LBR Finally a solution to the "raggedy" looking inverse
video menu of DAZLSTAR. This library contains a new DZMENU.OVR
and also an assembly language program that allows further custom-
patching of the menus. Dazlstar is a Wordstar work-a-like CP/M80
file disassembler utility featuring multiple display windows and
complete on-screen formatting capabilities.
CLNDR11B.LBR Kaypro 10 users with FASTBACK --> this is the best
directory sorting/packing utility around. It checks for zero
length files, re-used disk space, invalid user numbers, illegal
characters in filenames, and still sorts and packs the
directories for faster operation. This is a ZCPR3 utility that
was converted to the specific needs of the FASTBACK hard disk
backup program written by Phil Becker for Kaypro 10s. You do NOT
need to be running ZCPR3 to use CLNDR11B (cleandir).
Z3TURBKP.LBR ZCPR3 for the Kaypro 10 with an Advent TurboROM
installed. This library contains only the system-generating
files to work with your TURBxxxx.SYS file and TURBOGEN utility to
add ZCPR3's super CCP enhancement. You also need all the Z3
utility files, user guides, and help files for a full
installation of ZCPR3.
MAIL51.LBR Jim Gronek's dBaseII multiple mailing list manager
program. Extensive manipulation of database files, prints
mailing labels, looks-up names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.
Requires dBaseII for operation.
[MS/PC-DOS]
3DFLIGHT.EXE Here's another FLIGHT SIMULATOR clone for IBM-PC
and compatibles. DOS 2.0 and 128k required, self-documenting.
ARC440.EXE This is the latest in the ARChive utilities for DOS
users, it is similar to the CP/M library file concept but not
compatible. The archive utility will use one of three different
file compression alogrythms to achieve the maximum amount of
squeezing possible when a file is added to an .ARC(hive). Saves
you lots of disk space by placing related files under one logical
filename especially if your hard drive has 4k allocation blocks.
DOSAMATC.ARC A complete pop-up set of utilities featuring
multiple windows. Runs in the background like SIDEKICK, best to
have 256 or 512k or RAM for best results.
D.LBR Automatic screen blanking to prevent CRT burn-in and
password protection for your computer. You can install a
password that is required to be input before the computer will
allow user access.
POP-EPSN.LBR Pop-up printer configuration utility for Epson and
compatible printers. Another background memory utility.
QMDM113.LBR The latest version of the popular QMODEM modem
program for IBM-PC and compatibles. This is a very full-featured
program with extensive menus and supports standard file transfer
protocols of XMODEM.
PACMAN.LBR Yep, it's the game PACMAN for the IBM computer.
DSK-TOOL.LBR Here's a complete directory toolkit for DOS
machines, allows for altering the time/date of any file's
timestamp as well as a host of other features. Makes a menu-
driven system for running .BAS files, shows the dir of currently
logged area, allows for changing the logged du:, and many other
helpful utilities.
AUSQ11.COM An assembly language file un-squeezer, requires DOS
2.0 or better and at least 128k of RAM. Very fast compared to
the larger USQ.EXE programs written in 'C' and other languages.
-={ Finis }=-
Well, that's it for another month. Everybody get used to writing
1986 on your checks yet? Couple of passing thoughts: (1) Don't
put off buying a hard disk drive for to long, the glut of excess
drives is going to dry up and prices will go back up again soon.
(2) Commodore has already sold over 200,000 of the C-128
computers and is soon to be moving it into the discount store
market as well. Is this the future face of CP/M?
