EI Z-NEWS 805 28 September 1987
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Of Significance. S-100 Journal plans a magazine column called Into the 80s
to cover the "Zilog and Zilog-like line of CPUs and compatible operating
systems." CPUs and OSs to be covered are Z80, Z180 (HD64180), Z280, Z8000,
CP/M v2.2, ZCPR, and Z-System. If you are interested in becoming a regular or
semi-regular columnist and have a background in Z-System, CP/M, and S-100,
call Jay Vilhena at 801/373-0696. Or send a brief description of your exper-
ience to him at S-100 Journal, P.O. Box 1914, Orem, UT 84057.
ZAS and ZLINK shine! Judging from your response assembler/linker is an
unqualified success. Combination is what it should be, do what it should do.
But, in our reporting of upgrade price we made an error. ZAS/ZLINK v3.0 disk
is $20 as reported but new 75-page manual is an additional $10. Now, we owe
Al Hawley and Dave McCord a round of thanks for job-well-done: Al for the pro-
gram enhancements and code, Dave for the manual re-write, and for keeping
track of reported bugs and how to reproduce them. In Programmer's Scrapbook
below, more on how to use ZAS's error reporting ability and automatic assem-
ble/edit cycles using your existing editor.
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Z-Node Activity. So much activity related to ZCPR33 and its new capabilities.
Be sure to get such new files as CD32, LX16, NZEX-C, DU313, GETVAR12,
LBREXT22, and Z33IF11. Thanks Bob Peddicord, Bruce Morgen, Jay Sage, Dreas
Nielsen for your continued interest in supporting Z-System. And we salute
Terry Hazen and his ACOPY14, DD14, and RENAMZ11 featuring file attribute
support.
Our comments in Z-News 802-2 re "//=$1" being required in scripts by
ZCPR33 instead of "$1=//" couldn't be ignored by Jay. See file on Z-Nodes.
He fixed the problem in Z33IF11. He recommends we forget the use of equal
sign and get into habit of using EQ instead. EQ form goes with other operat-
ors, NE, GT, etc. So we use "IF EQ $1 //" from here on. Thanks Jay for re-
acting--reaction wasn't called for but we all appreciate your concern for our
well being.
Likely the event of the fortnight is Richard Jacobson's upgrades to 72
megabytes hard disk storage for each of his two RASs, a total of 144 megabytes
for Z-Node #15. He started with but 900k-bytes! If interested in big sys-
tems, and up-to-date support, call Chicago, 312/649-1730 or 312/664-1730.
Programmer's Scrapbook -- using ZAS-ZLINK with your editor. ZAS and ZLINK use
Z-System Message Buffers to permit closed-loop assemble-edit cycles per Z-News
802-3, Items 2 & 3. File name being edited is stored as System File #4. If
errors occur during assembly, the line number of the first error is stored in
the ZCPR3 Message Buffer at base offset location 4 in Hex, error type at off-
set 7. User area and drive letter are at offsets 2 and 3. A specially de-
signed editor can use this information to advantage in an interactive loop.
(Let's get Paul Pomerleau to enhance LZED.) On either assemble or link error
ZCPR3 Program Error Flag shows a non-zero condition, useful for testing in
alias script with FCP's "if er" or "if ~er" to go from assembler and linker to
editor and back.
Here's a recursive ARUNZ alias quintet to get started with interactive
development using your present editor, LZED in our example. It's the best we
can do until we get a custom editor.
zz if z80=$.1;$d1$u1:;era $:1.bak;/zz2 $1;else;sak /p4 not z80 file;fi
ZZ suite, likely our longest "alias." Recursive feature of Jay Sage's ARUNZ
makes ZZ possible.
We won't give possible variations here--that you can do for your own
requirements. We normally use "zz" from a simple ZFILER script, the 2 number-
ed line: "2!/zz $p", but it can be used from the Z command line. We find
ARUNZ aliases work well from ZFILER (and VFILER) CMD scripts.
"While everyone else is pursuing multi-tasking and multi-user systems,
I'm going the other way towards one user with multiple systems."--Art
Carlson, Publisher, The Computer Journal. "Computers are so cheap...why
buy a printer buffer when you can get a complete system for $350...now
if I just had a master operating system which would manage multi-systems
instead of multi-tasking..." [Term3 under ZCPR3 is a candidate.]
From The Mail Box. "Are you going to support Z280 chip with ZAS, ZDM, and
DSD...and what is your policy regarding utilities updates?" writes, among
other things, David Johnson, Sunnyvale, CA. David, we support any CPU that
runs Z80 object code. The Z280 is so great an extension over the Z80 it will
be some time, months, before we announce these products with specific Z280
support. Utilities: we try to supply the latest versions of the utilities, as
Item #2 of the Price List. Because of so many utilities and so many changes
occurring to them so often, there are times we ship other than the latest.
Many versions we never release. We do our best to be current with each
utility but we know there are times when we are not--as is said so often,
"It's not a perfect world."
Ed Garcia of Los Angeles wonders why, in a technical newsletter, we have
"political editorials" under the Of Angels and Eagles section. Ed, our news-
letter has never been declared as technical, but one that addresses the whole
human being. Read Z-News 305-2 and 408-3, and our favorite, 304-4. Many
United States and world issues are important enough to discuss here and com-
puter users are at one cutting edge of mentality where most effective energy
can be tapped. We present our views hoping to stimulate thought, to offer
possibilities. Ed also thinks USA $209 billion 1986 foriegn debt (Z-News 803-
5), largest of any country, is meant as our balance of trade deficit. No,
it's debt; we owe it to foreign-country entities. Our national debt to our-
selves is over 2 trillion dollars. Second largest country, Brazil, owes $109
billion. Thanks, Ed, for your stimulating thoughts.
Software Update Service. SUS #12 fills...we use 8" SSSD diskette capacity of
241k-bytes as our common denominator for all SUS diskettes. Eight inch disk-
ettes are so expensive these days that we simply cannot afford to use two
diskettes for one SUS mailing. Also the logistics of two sets of masters are
prohibitively expensive, so...
CMD.LBR contains up-to-date ZFILER and ALIAS script files loaded with macros
and aliases we currently use around the office. It also contains ready-to-run
versions of Bruce Morgen's ZLDIR and C.B.Falconer's LT to work with TLF of Z-
News 803. (LT is patched to ignore all popular binary file types, so
"*.*<cr>" at GETVAR prompt usually selects only text files. LT lets you type
one file after another; entering "^x" within LT moves to next file in selected
list.) LX16 is latest version of library utility. STATPAT is Howard
Goldstein's patch to CP/M's STAT utility so it works with ZCPR v3.3 (see Z-
User's Corner below). And ZAPG is Echelon VP Dave McCord's ZCPR3 Application
Programmers Guide, ready to print out and answers your questions about how to
write programs to take advantage of Z-System features. See Z-News 803-2 for
more on contents of #12 diskette.
Z-User's Corner. Many an alias we have developed, some with great length.
Many have been over 136 characters. Few printers can handle lines so long.
Pray, how do we get a hard copy of them to study? Well, quickest and most
convenient way is to use PRINT with its "L" option. PRINT word (line) wraps
based on your Environment Descriptor. Four printer line widths are stored
there. CPSEL selects the one you wish active. When line goes beyond
printer's capability a new line is started automatically. Double left-
pointing arrows, "<<", are placed at line end to indicate a wrap has occurred.
Correct pagination occurs automatically no matter how many wraps occur. Best
of all, the L option numbers each line, so each alias multiple command-line is
numbered--the print-out, a wonder to behold. A line without a number is an
extension of the previous line, making it easy to distinguish dependent from
independent lines.
Okay, we confess we don't actually use QUIET S and QUIET R in our alias-
es. We use POKE FE28 1 and POKE FE28 0 to get the job done faster. The rea-
son we show QUIET being used is we don't know the base address of your envi-
ronment descriptor--most are at FE00, but not all. Use SHOW to find your
base, add 28 Hex offset to it, and then you can use memory-based POKE to turn
the quiet flag off and on quickly, more quickly than with disk-based QUIET.
(Surely Jay is working on an RCP command to poke the quiet flag location in
the SYS.ENV segment.) Our tests indicate a saving of 1.9 seconds using POKE
over QUIET, using our Ampro Bookshelf Z80 computer. Savings is a little
greater than using direct ECP access over path of Z-News 804-1, which reminds
us of a mistake there. Our two last command lines tested should read:
a15:cmdrun tpa and root:cmdrun tpa. (Remember, arunz.com is named
cmdrun.com.) In our tabulation we inadvertently omitted the "cmdrun" to
access TPA utility through ALIAS.CMD script--the times reported are correct.
If you own and use CP/M's STAT program to determine active user areas
(USR: command) or other things, you need to patch it to continue to use it
under ZCPR v3.3. Howard Goldstein has provided us a patch to fix STAT so the
USR:, DEV:, etc. attributes don't look like invalid directory entries to Z33.
The fix is in STATPAT.LBR on Z-Nodes and on SUS #12. We have assembled the
source into a HEX file ready to overlay your STAT.COM file. We use MLOAD to
do it (there are other ways). Here's command line to make patch work:
MLOAD STAT.COM,STATPAT
�Have STAT.COM and STATPAT.HEX in same directory as MLOAD.COM. If you haven't
used MLOAD before, review its built-in help by entering the command name,
i.e., the verb MLOAD, followed by carriage return, "MLOAD<cr>". Here we see
that STATPAT is a HEX file to overlay the binary COM file. The result is STAT
program changed to be compatible with the way the new 3.3 command processor
works.
Helpful conventions to remember: "LIST" sends text to printers; "TYPE"
and "VIEW" sends text to console screens.
Jay Sage passes along important alias suggestion. Instead of using "cmd
ROOT:lx cmd $*" in ALIAS.CMD to access "cmd" in COMMAND.LBR, place ": ROOT:lx
/ $0 $*" as last line in script file. Colon indicates the default alias line.
If "cmd" is not found, the default, ":" line, is passed as the command.
Remember, "$0" is the command's name. Using Bruce Morgen's LX v1.6 and its
ability to pass errors, using "/" option, to whatever error handler is instal-
led makes process perfect. The ALIAS.CMD has but one line to handle all files
in COMMAND.LBR. Now we can add files to COMMAND.LBR and they are automatical-
ly handled. Wonderful! When Jay pauses long enough from enhancing New-ZEX,
we will develop some ZEX scripts to go with all those aliases developed over
the years.
Hardware Beat. Texas Instruments, Dallas-based semiconductor giant, announces
sample shipments of 4-megabit DRAM chips expected first quarter of 1988.
Milestone puts TI in same league as Japanese Mitsuhishi and Matsushita as
leading others in dense memory chip production technology. And TI's use of
advanced stepped trenching technique for both transistor and capacitor, same
as used currently in their 1-megabit chips, speaks well for easily producting
16- and beyond densities. Many companies haven't yet mastered such trenching
technique. Such densities put memory in the non-scarce catogory. What will
our computers be like when 16-megabit chips cost $3 or less each.
National buys Fairchild, seed from which many semiconductor houses grew
from; Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) merge with Monolithic Memories (MMI).
Silicon Valley is dead--long live Silicon Valley!
Software Beat. WordStar v4.0 works fine with NuKey. You have both NuKey's
extensive key re-definition and WS's shorthand macros, all under Z-System.
WS's ^\ or <esc> functions clear screen after using NuKey's define and display
re-definition functions. Order your copy of WordStar from us at discount
price of $195, Item 68. Multi-colored documentation is something to behold.
Set of manuals, over 500 pages, makes easy the learning of ends and outs of
this high-feature word processor. Become a registered WS owner--order from
Echelon. NuKey is priced $39.95, Item 44, requires IOP segment be installed.
Z-News 702-1 discribes NuKey's many features.
We haven't tried to confirm this but we heard that the company that
produces MS-DOS WordPerfect word processor may be coming out with some CP/M
products. Could it be they are using the same logic that prompted MicroPro to
upgrade WordStar? Time tells...
In Other Words. The more you use a computer the more you want responsiveness.
An inexpensive hard disk is initially a seemingly significant improvement over
a double-sided 8 incher floppy, and especially over a similar 5.25 incher. As
you gain experience, you wish for instant response to your commands. We have
spoken of RAMdisk, a drive consisting of semiconductor memory instead of
magnetic, as being a wave of the future. File fragmentation problems with
hard disks make RAMdisk so attractive. Speed differences make so much dif-
ference with complex aliases and other situations requiring many disk accesses
�to get job done. Anything that slows us down, acts as barrier to or distracts
our thinking process is something we work to remove. Think SemiDisk DT42...
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Of Angels and Eagles. Our broadsides have leveled everything ugly in sight.
Let's look at the beauty remaining because, somewhere out there, life has
deeper meanings than what shows through the rat-race glitter. Welcome! Join
us and journey beyond time and space, to a realm of the real. We, at over
10,000 feet elevation in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, breathe in deep
breaths of clean air, and why shouldn't it be? It's the same air the angels
and eagles breathe.
"Everyone needs beauty as well as bread." "Coyotes...are beauti-
ful animals, and, although cursed by man, are beloved of God. Their
sole fault is that they are fond of mutton."--John Muir, Sierra Nevada
(Scottish-born) Naturalist, 1838-1914. "We be of one blood, thou and
I."--Mowgli, speaking to wolves, from Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling,
English author, 1865-1936.
We wake with little stirring, eyes still full of sleep, to hear the giant
b
lue jays proclaiming the glory of a new morning. Next the mountain chickadee
(jenny wrens don't come up this high) and nut hatches move around, making
little noise, in search of day's breakfast among the coniferous groves. Night
has been normal cool for Autumn, and the day looks to be Summer warm. On
rising, we feel the Sun low on the eastern horizon, much lower than it was in
June, telling of Winter to come.
From white fir to pine branch to trunk, checking under chips and layers
of tree bark, they hop searching for bits of food to fill tiny bodies through
even tinier beaks. Suddenly, a huge woodpecker shows on stage, colors
reflecting the Sun's spectrum. Fat, for he gets all he wants. No worm or
insect escapes such a long snout. Here is a "gentleman" who knows what he is
about. Confident, master of his environment, he goes about his business. Is
he master or simply a master's servant? Wait...are we awake or are we dream-
ing? A cup of coffee settles the issue--we started the pot still in-trance,
still mesmerized by all the winged, feathered activity--we are awake!
Seldom have we tried to write news in the morning but here we are doing
just that. And good news at that.
The good news is: we can see into the magic of creation if our egos stay
out of the way, if our senses are opened to streams of living data, data so
easily turned into wisdom. See you down the lines...
Echelon, Inc. 885 North San Antonio Road Los Altos, CA 94022 USA
Telephone: 415/948-3820 Telex: 4931646 Z-Node Central (RAS): 415/948-6656
Z-News 805 is Copyright MCMLXXXVII Echelon, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Permission to reprint, wholly or partially, automatically granted if source
credit is given to Echelon.
