EI Z-NEWS 807 18 January 1987
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Of Significance. We are just about fully moved into the Tahoe location. EI
and its office manager, Joseph, and family, are there but your newsletter
editor and his wife are not--hopefully by the end of March all us folks will
be there, and back on a smoothly running newsletter production schedule.
Notice our new address and phone numbers at end of newsletter. Stay with us!
The best is yet to come...
The first Z-System Festival was held in Hartford, Connecticut on 5
December 1987. Sponsored by Connecticut CP/M Users Group, Lee Bradley,
President, talks and workshops covered many aspects of Z-System operations;
Jay Sage was keynote speaker. Jim Thompson, and others, explained how and why
Z-System was so useful to them, over vanilla CP/M. (Best as we can tell, Z-
System buff, Rick Swenton, was prime force causing such a faire. Bravo!)
New products galore from Echelon channel: ZRDOS becomes ZSDOS (or
whatever we decide to call it), is enhanced with a heavy work-over of Herman
T. Brugge's P2DOS. Cameron Cotrill and Hal Bower do the work, hopefully with
significant input from Carson Wilson. Goal is to make all our DOSs from any
source compatible and user non-intimidating, run or at least handle
DateStamper and PUBlic. New, greatly enhanced version of Z-COM (Z-Com v2.0)
from Joe Wright, and Z33 on 3 (a name likely to change, auto-install ZCPR33
on CP/M Plus machines) and ZOS for HD64180 and Z280 machines from Bridger
Mitchell. Our assembler is being greatly enhanced beyond ZAS v3.05 and will
get a new name, something like EZASM--Al Hawley, author of ZAS v3.0 and beyond
and REVAS, does the work. We can expect a ZCPR v3.4 from Jay Sage with lots
of new features, Type 4 utilities and extended TCAP and more. And The New
Libraries from Ken Taschner (Z-News 708-5), plus a super toolbox for Turbo
Modula-2 from Steve Cohen--all products to stream from Echelon's Z-Team during
1988. Much to keep our eyes on to improve our computing environment. Stay
with us for excitement...
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From The Mail Box. Lots of mail has been received from hundreds of users of
Z-System...we have not been able to respond directly to much of it. As we
have said before: we read it all, and react as best we can. We listen to your
complaints and to your praise. We simply don't have enough hours in the day
to provide personal replies to the mail we receive each week.
Software Update Service. Wow! The files of SUS #13 at shipping time:
PACK is a fast file defragmenter from Frank Cringle, Scotland, (program
is ten times faster than RESTORE) with ability to put files where you want
them on the disk tracks. RCPMAKE is new Z-Node Central Sysop Ron Bardarson's
assembly language utility to automatically update INCLUDE files that have been
changed since last assembly. Similar to Unix MAKE utility. You hackers will
want this one.
SALIAS is Rob Friefeld's alias editor that does it all. We need no other
stand-alone-alias editing utility; it's what we had in mind for MKALIAS (Z-
News 204-1). Also from Rob, VCOMP, a ZCPR3 program that makes comparing dis-
similar files easy--a super enhancement of ZRDOS COMP. SNIGLETS is a funny,
�contains words that should be in the dictionary but aren't. And, T3S is Dave
McCord's Term3 communications utility for transmitting files to RAS message
handlers. Has able to delay after each line is sent, as needed by so many
remote access message editors. Jay Sage's XECHO is a disk-based enhanced
ECHO, a precursor to ECHO of ZCPR v3.3.
And last is best: Michal Carson has written a Z-Tool that effectively
supplements NULU; finally it's been done. VLU functions along the lines of
VFILER and ZFILER, all with a similar super-tool user interface. But, don't
get rid of your NULU just yet; you need it for deleting library files and re-
krunching.
Here's the way SUS #14 shapes up at press time:
Five programs (ACOPY, DD, ERAZ, RENAMZ, and UNERAZ--all written to
support big RAMdisk for Ampro Z80 computers, Z-News 806-2) from Terry Hazen
(nSYSTEMS, 21460 Bear Creek Road, Los Gatos, CA 95030) work with file name
attribute bits to ease life using RAMdisks and places where groups of files
can be tagged by using attribute. These programs add another dimension to
file and disk management on any Z80 computer running Z-System.
GEN180 converts Microsoft's M80 into an HD64180 assembler, thanks to
Herbert Oppman of Erlangen, West Germany.
DEV11A, ERASE51A, MOVE12B, RENAM33A, and ZLT10 are Bruce Morgen's
handy work, brings these utilities into the modern Z33 world.
We thank all who enhance tools and programs that take advantage of Z-
System features. Please continue sending in your offerings for our review and
possible inclusion on SUS diskettes.
Z-Node News. Ron Bardarson has taken over sysop duties of Z-Node Central.
RAS is in San Jose and permits easy PC Pursuit access. Ron comes to us with
much engineering experience and is watching the Zilog Z280 product with de-
light. Any questions along those lines usually receives an authoritative
answer. David McCord is still within short range to keep Ron out of RAS
troubles. Our thanks go out to Dave for long and tedious efforts as Z-Node
Central Sysop, all much appreciated. Messages for Dave should be left on Z-
Node Central, 408/432-0821.
Z-Node #65, Barron McIntire, Sysop, has a new number, 307/638-1917, in
Cheyenne, Wyoming. Call him and leave warm messages--he needs such things
this time of year.
New Z-Node #77 is run by James "Pat" Price in Austin, TX. Equipment is
Kaypro 10 and number is 512/444-8691.
Another new Z-Node, #78, is online. Gar Nelson, Sysop, runs an Ampro and
Northstar from Olympia, WA. Called Byte-It RAS, number is 206/943-4842, with
30 megabytes online.
We are working on a current active Z-Node list. Watch for it.
Z-User's Corner. Power (and wisdom) of original VFILER/VMENU user interface
has been fully established with distribution of library manager called VLU,
Video Library Utility. Operation is essentially intuitive for us who have
used ZFILER, VFILER, and VMENU for some length of time.
� Our "universal" typer, of file CMD.LBR, SUS #12, and Z-News 803-4,
permits, from V/ZFILER macro, the viewing of all types of files, uncompressed,
squeezed, and crunched, in and out of libraries. That interface is compared
to the "V" command from within VLU. Move pointer to file to be typed and
press V. That's it--very fast. But with a combination of ZLT (Bruce Morgen's
LT), TLF, and VTYPE in a multiple command line you automatically are able to
type out (view) files, in or out of libraries. The point we make is there are
many ways to get the job done using Z-System: command line entry, aliases,
menus, and screen-oriented user interfaces. The integrated utilities, e.g.,
VFILER, usually get the job done faster but a the price of inflexibility. Now
don't get us wrong; these super-utilities have been carefully designed to do
what most of us want done; that's why they are so good--they meet the
majority-needs. But what's so great about Z-System, we still have the small
tools, Unix operating system philosophy tools, to stitch together to do things
that maybe the super-tool cannot do.
For us learning users, there's a new Good-Neighbor Helper available: Paul
Hermon, 1804 E. 31st Street, Minneapolis, MN 55407, 612/724-1837. Paul is an
expert on Kaypro and Sanyo machines. Give him a call if you need help. (A
new list of G-N Helpers is being drafted and soon should be off the pr
Hardware/Software Beat. Bridger Mitchell, Echelon Vice President and ZOS
developer, offers a software product to permit easy access to PC-DOS files.
Called DosDisk, reads, writes, renames, creates, deletes, MS-DOS files, and
even runs CP/M programs stored on a PC disk. PC-DOS files, i.e., all text
files, are directly handled by CP/M-compatible programs without having to copy
from DOS disk to CP/M disk. Price is $25.00 plus $3.00 shipping and handling,
for preconfigured versions: Kaypro w/TurboROM, Ampro Little Broad, Commodore
C-128, SB180/SB180FX, Oneac ON!, Morrow MD3/11. Order direct from Bridger,
410 23rd Street, Santa Monica, CA 90402.
We use a new 2400-bps modem, EMEX 2400, available from North American
One-eighty Group, NAOG, the HD64180/Z180 people, P.O. Box 2781, Warminster, PA
18974, 215/443-9031. Main features are price ($225.00) and compatibility with
Hayes AT standard and with Bell and CCITT foreign standards. We'll give you
our recommendations when we have sufficient experience with EMEX to justify
our position.
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Of Angels and Eagles.
Peace begins when expectation ends.
A person must have the right to choose, even to choose wrong, if choosing
right is ever to be learned.
Enjoy present pleasures in such ways as not to injure future ones.
If you cannot find happiness along the way, you will not find it at the
end of the road. Most of us spend a lot of time dreaming of the future,
never realizing a little arrives each day.
Every action of our lives touches some chord that will vibrate in
eternity.
Don't be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can't cross
a chasm in two small jumps. Move out of life's safe and shallow places
and venture forth into the deeps.
Sometimes the needs of a few outweigh the needs of the many.
Betty and Frank's Tahoe Farmhouse: where food for thought is cultivated.
See you down the lines...
Echelon, Inc. P.O. Box 705001-800 South Lake Tahoe, CA 95705 USA
�Telephone: 916/577-1105 Telex: 4931646 Z-Node Central (RAS): 408/432-0821
Z-News 807 is Copyright MCMLXXXVIII Echelon, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Permission to reprint, wholly or partially, automatically granted if source
credit is given to Echelon.
