Of Significance. Steve Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar column, in January 1987 BYTE
magazine, provides details of Turbo Modula-2 and Graphix Toolbox for GT180.
Now SB180 owners have easy path to high-resolution graphics beyond color IBM
EGA, Commodore Amiga, and Atari 520ST, and monochrome Apple Macintosh. Our
cup fills, runs over! See November and December 1986 BYTE. Order your GT180
color graphics co-board, from Micromint Inc., 4 Park Street, Vernon, CT 06066,
800/635-3355, 203/871-6170, Telex: 643331. While at it, you may wish to
upgrade to new SB180FX, single-board computer enhancement of original SB180.
You owe it to yourself. Christmas is coming...
M.A.N. Systems, 323 N. 3rd, Medford, OK 73759, telephone 405/395-3849 (Z-
News 505-5, 507-4), the folks with TR-XL180, HD64180 add-on for TRS-80 Model 4
machines, now has add-on, with 256k-byte RAM disk, for Ampro Z80 computers.
And the real good news: M.A.N./Ampro combination permits using Micromint GT180
color graphics board with Graphix Toolbox software. (M.A.N. has adopted, as
we hope others will, the SB180 expansion bus.) Who said CP/M-compatible 8-bit
computing is dead-end street?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From Our Mail Box. Many have asked us to recommend sources of CP/M software,
i.e., where to buy. Three major companies come to mind:
The Software Toolworks Spite Software Central Computer Products
9713 Santa Monica Blvd. #204 4875 S.W. 19th Drive 330 Central Avenue
Beverly Hills, CA 90210 Portland, OR 97201 Fillmore, CA 93015
800/223-8665 800/237-9111 800/624-5628
Write or call for their catalogs. You may be surprised by quantity of
software packages available for CP/M-compatible computers.
Lloyd Hogan, South Hadley, MA, writes that "our concept of 'money' and
'life' is a little jaundiced," Z-News 305-5 and 508-5. Lloyd, please give us
benefit of your thinking on where, how, and why we are off-base, wrong.
Some of you write expressing opinion that we should give more ink to
describing value of Z-Index. Well, we announced and discussed Z-Index in 506-
2 and clarified our offering in 507-5. Thirty-five pages reference over 1700
topics, contain cross-references, permit easy access to subjects covered in
Issues 001 through 508 of Z-News. Planned periodic updates should keep Z-
Index reasonably current. Buy it! Z-Index is $8.95, Item 89 on Echelon Price
List; Z-News is $24.00 per year, Item 83. We need your subscription!
Stan Bercovitch, North Fort Myers, FL, writes and wishes LX, LGET, NULU,
and VFILER had uncrunch capability. He goes on to wonder if COM, i.e.,
binary, files are worth either squeezing or crunching. Well, we feel because
of the nature of COM files not much is gained by compressing. But there is
nothing wrong with compressing them, we just don't save much disk space by
doing so. In fact, depending on program content, there are times we lose
space. Thus LX does not have ability to run squeezed COM files from
libraries. LGET can unsqueeze on extraction. Notice benchmarks in Z-News
508-4 showing results from compressing "binary" files--not much gained.
Hopefully, as stated in Z-News 602-2, "We must get to putting UNCR into NULU,
VTYPE, and VFILER." As a seeming afterthought, Stan declares himself to be a
"chipper," which he defines as one who makes a program patch now-and-then, and
not a "hacker." Z-News 006-3 has our definition of hacker: "an intensely
caring human being who loves to design, write and modify computer programs."
"Echelon has helped make the business of business a lot more fun these
days and we want you to know it." Thanks Virgil Cooper, Carpinteria, CA, for
kind words. When we are learning we are having fun. Virgil is about to
purchase "a 180 computer" but can't decide between SB180 and DT42. What a
decision to have to make! (We could not be without both.)
"I am happy to renew [my subscription to] the newsletter...keep up the
good work! I learn much from your model menus displaying the use of various
utilities. Can you feature your Archive Copy utility in some future issue [of
Z-News]?" asks Larry Owens, Amherst, MA. Larry, your request is a command...
Z-User's Corner. Archive Copy, AC.COM Version 4.4 on SUS #6, is mature,
fast, versatile, general purpose file copy and archiving program. Written by
ZRDOS author, Dennis Wright, AC has many useful features to automate our day-
to-day computer operations, either from menu command lines or in aliases.
Z-News 509-1 shows help screen available from within AC, command: ac
//<cr>. Though shown for v4.3, it still applies since no changes have
occurred going to v4.4. AC has eight trailing command line options (A, B, E,
G, N, O, Q, and R) changing program's default copy characteristics. Several
options may be used simultaneously. Also, AC permits declaring a new file
name on copying. Dual syntax permits copying CP/M, DEC "to/from" style, and
Microsoft MS-DOS "from/to" style.
Using "E" option turns AC into a "move" utility. Copying a file from one
directory to another leaves original or source file in place; moving erases
original leaving only destination file, the copy, in place. Using "to/from"
syntax, command: ac a0:=fn.ft /e<cr> copies file fn.ft to drive drive A, user
0 from current (default) directory, then erases fn.ft from current directory.
Or, simultaneously changing file name while moving: ac a0:newf=fn.ft /e<cr>
where "newf" is new name of fn.ft. A common command: ac a12:=*.*<cr> copies
to, e.g., a12: directory all files from current directory.
Control-C terminates process immediately, if multi-file copy, after file
presently being copied has completed.
Before going into archiving usage of AC, we review backup requirements of
floppy and hard disks. First, for floppy-based systems. After years of
experience, we conclude every disk should have a duplicate, i.e., an exact
copy of itself. We call this copy a "backup." For extremely critical data
two, or even three, backup copies are recommended. If data is lost from
"working" disk, backup disk data can be used to recover to near-current,
depending on status of copies versus working disk.
Acknowledging as valid above computer backup philosophy, a simple alias,
we call it BAK, ac backup:=*.* /b copies all changed and un-archived. i.e.,
new, files to disk drive called "backup" from current drive. An exact copy is
made, using "B" option, source directory by source directory to destination
directory by destination directory. Floppy backup drive user area 0 is named
"backup." Or you could use your drive/user area designation instead of named
directory. We assume two or more physical drives in your system. (See Z-News
301-2 for discussion of number of drives in system.) Every time a session is
complete, with backup diskette in "backup" drive, enter bak<cr> and AC
automatically copies all changed files to backup diskette. Our normal
procedure is to have two diskettes in one storage, protective envelop. Both
come out and are placed into their respective drives when we wish to work on
one. Backing-up becomes second nature to our operations. You only have to
lose, e.g., 8 hours of work and it too becomes second nature to your
operations.
Hard disk systems are not much different operationally from floppy-based
systems, except there is less changing-out of diskettes. Only the "backup"
diskette is changed-out to provide orderly duplication, as needed, to protect
your current work. Pairing of diskettes do not apply. But a new strategy,
using an intermediary backup disk separate from archive library diskettes,
comes into play to minimize data lost if an electrical power-outage or drive
read/write head crush should occur. We constantly backup working files to
this scratch diskette, from any directory. At day's end, we backup to our
archive diskettes which are arranged by hard-disk directory.
DISCAT is used to catalog all files. Our diskette labeling system uses
drive/user area as disk name followed by sequential numbering as disk type.
Examples: A6.007 is archive diskette for drive A, user 6, seventh diskette of
our physical library; D9.044, directory D9: on 44th diskette. Of course, many
files in this library are not online (we have over 100 megabytes on floppies),
thus we need DISCAT to determine quickly diskette number where file of
interest is found. You can use directory names, up to 8 characters for disk
name, instead of letter and number--it is up to you. You choose! We have 128
directories on our main Z-System computer in four partitions, only 28 of them
have names. So we use letter/number to catalog them.
By the way, scratch diskette, since it is in constant use, is of highest
quality we can buy. It's our first line of defense against lost data, either
from hard or RAM disk. Our archive diskettes are usually run-of-the-mill.
Again, we keep in backup drive a scratch diskette to constantly backup
newly created text, as we generate it. We save to this disk every 5 minutes
or so, to be on safe side. (One reason Oneac Systems's ON! computer was
created by Nick DeWolf was to protect lines deep absolutely against data loss
under any condition, period--and that it does! See Z-News 408-1 or write to
them for literature: ON! Systems, 27944 N. Bradley Road, Libertyville, IL
60048, telephone 312/680-4680.)
More philosophy...each directory of a hard disk system requires one or
more associated backup diskettes (we don't particularly like tape backup
machines because of their serial nature, thus their slowness). Depending on
storage capacity of your floppy drive (removable media storage), one, two, or
three diskettes may be needed. On one of our Ampro Z-System 20-megabyte HD
machines, we use 782k-byte 96tpi floppies. We use same on our 10-megabyte
SB180 computer. We (try to) keep storage space used on each directory below
floppy capacity, thus one diskette is needed per directory.
Here, for hard disk systems, and for big RAM disks, our backup alias
copies only changed and non-archived files in current directory; ac
backup:=*.* /a does the job, for both hard and RAM disks. On our SemiDisk
DT42 with 2.7-megabyte Kodak floppy, we use but three diskettes to archive
backup entire 8 megabytes of RAM main storage. Remember, once first-time
backup is completed, only newly created and changed files get copied during
subsequent backup operations. Backup is fast and simple because AC, ZCPR3,
and ZRDOS work together. When we upgrade RAM to 32 megabytes, takes 12 Kodak
floppies for complete backup--not an unreasonably large number.
A menu command line that loads your wordprocessor, Newword in our case
here, with file pointed to under VMENU or VFILER is:
1 nw $pf;ac BACKUP:=*.* /a
The leading "1" is key character you gently strike to activate command; its
choice, letter or number from 36 available, A through Z, 0 through 9, in ASCII
set, is part of your menu design. (Use appropriate parameter for file name,
$pf for VMENU, %f for VFILER.) After finishing edit/print session, AC is
loaded, then copies to backup disk drive all new and changed files from
current-directory, automatically. You don't think about it, it just happens.
Variations possible allow fine, custom control of your particular
computing environment. Using "B" option, instead of "A" above, all
directories of disk are copied. Adding "Q" option causes AC to prompt you if
copy is desired or not, (y/n). If your disk system is stable, i.e., reliable,
you may wish to add "N" option to cut copy-time in half, by eliminating "CRC"
verification, popular and positive data-checking technique used to make sure
one file is identical to another.
Of course, different BAK scripts may be used in different directory
areas. Use Dennis Wright's DFA, Display File Attributes, utility to display
status of files in directory, archived or not. SFA, PROT, and PROTECT
complement file attribute management. Also VFILER, v4.0 and later, contains
group archive of files. Again, our cup runneth over! Study AC's built-in
help menu and HLP file. Then optimize commands for your computing situations.
Z-User's Corner, Continued. We have discussed protecting data by copying it
to removable "backup" media. What about copying often-used utility programs
to RAM for quickening execution? Richard Conn's MCOPY, upgraded by many
(Terry Carroll, Michael Bate, Steven Cohen, Jay Sage, etc.) to Version 4.5A/B,
on SUS #7, with its "N" opinion is ideal here. If file already exist on RAM
disk, copy does not occur. (Many of us have battery protected RAM that
retains storage even when power is off.) For example: you use one directory
for system utilities and another for application programs that benefit from
being in RAM, like your disk-based wordprocessor (WordStar, Newword, etc.),
MCOPY can be used to load, from disk to RAM, these files at computer cold boot
time.
Into your startup alias, the one that loads system segments and puts your
system in desired form, add, e.g., below line at place after initialization
has occurred (you could make it an alias to use external from and nested in
your startup):
mcopy RAM:=ROOT:*.com,BASE:nw.* /n
Use of "/" is optional here, though we always do (use it) to be consistent
with Z-System utilities that require it before options. RAM is name given RAM
drive, usually the M: directory (for memory) of less than 512k-byte RAM disks.
ROOT is conventional name given directory where utilities are stored. BASE is
used for application programs. Use Richard Conn's named-directory editor
MKDIR to do this. For more on MKDIR, see Z-News 307-2, then read pages 3-12
through 3-16 of Z-System User's Guide. Use file list (see Z-News 601-2 for
definition) to copy exactly files wanted. MCOPY has sufficient built-in help
to use without further documentation. Entering mcopy //<cr> produces:
MCOPY, Version 4.5
Syntax:
MCOPY du/dir:=[du/dir:]filename.typ,... o...
Options:
E -- No Existence Test
I -- Inspect Files
M -- Multiple Copy
N -- No Replace
Q -- Toggle Quiet
V -- No Verify
"du/dir" indicates DU, drive/user area, or DIR, named directory mnemonic, form
permitted. "[du/dir:]" indicates either form is optional, as needed to get to
files of interest from current, default directory. "filename.typ,... " means
file list permitted.
Combination of AC and MCOPY permits automatically handling files in just
about any file move or copy situation. Write us showing how you use these two
programs. Thanks.
Z-Node Activity. David Van Horn, erstwhile Z-Node Sysop, Honolulu, HI, moves
to Costa Mesa, CA. David already has new Z-Node #66 up and running, 714/850-
6784. Has 40-megabytes storage shared between two (dual-processor) Ampro Z80
Little Boards, one for RAS and one for his local use. Welcome him stateside,
call his board. He is a little lonely. Node in Hawaii will be back up soon
with new sysop. Details to you as we get them.
Notifications. We have completely vacated "101 First Street" facility.
Please address all your written correspondence to our "885 N. San Antonio
Road" consolidated facility. Thank you.
Our European d
istributor is Wild West, Le Pavillon de Belle Etoile, 84760
St. Martin de la Brasque, France. Contact Robert Kuhmann, Sysop Z-Node #26,
for more information in French and other European languages. Wild West has Z-
Com, auto-install Z-System, configured for Amstrad's CPC 464, 664, and 6128
machines. (These 8-bit Z80 computers can run our Borland's Turbo Modula-2, as
can Commodore 128s and Apple IIs running CP/M Z80 cards!)
And those in United Kingdom wishing to trade directly with our British
dealer and OEM may contact Bob Squirrell or Gary Maguire, Dean Microsystems
(Z-News 503-2), 7 Horseshoe Park, Pangbourne, Berkshire, RG8 7JW, England,
Telephone 073567 5155, Telex 846396.
Lunch Break. Down the grapevines we hear of John Adams's HD64180 computer
that runs Z80 and PC DOS software. Description appears in Vol.3/No.1, of
Computer Smyth magazine. Our curiosity peaks! If for no other reason, risk a
subscription just for this single article. Magazine is only $15.00 per year
(four issues), $28.00 for two years. Order magazine by calling 603/924-9464.
Or write P.O. Box 176, Peterborough, NH 03458.
Ted Silveira, columnist and contributing editor for Profiles magazine and
Computer Currents newspaper, locates CP/M-compatible desktop publishing
package produced in England. Called TypeFit, we look into it. TypeFit
handles Varityper typewriter and Compugraphics and Allied Linotype (formally
Mergenthaler) phototypesetters. Ted, along with many of us, wishes for a
PostScript driver to put CP/M into desktop publishing market. PostScript is
the laser printer and typesetting language from Adobe Systems, Inc., Palo
Alto, CA, used by Aldus (PageMaker), Ventura (Publisher), Packard-Bell
(Professional Publisher), and Apple (LaserWriter). You may wish to write for
more information: Wordsmiths Typsetting, 19 West End, Somerset BA16 0LQ,
England. You'll get more from us, as we get it.
Analytical Products, the Heath/Zenith experts with the Z-System bootable
disk, presently carries Newword wordprocessor, and soon new Newword under
MicroPro International label. We hear MicroPro is increasing suggested retail
price to $249.00, from $125.00 under Newstar Software (Z-News 402-3, 403-2,
and 604-5). Perhaps higher price reflects enhancements presently not known to
us. Anyway, Peter Shkabara, founder of AP, welcomes your business. And AP
discounts from retail! Receive their catalog by calling or writing AP's new
location: 213 Teri Sue Lane, Buellton, CA 93427 (near Santa Barbara); voice
telephone number is 805/688-0826.
In language capability, Turbo Modula-2 is midway between Ada and Pascal.
It's best high-level language, in our opinion, yet devised for small computers
(see Z-News 604 for details, or file MODULA2.RAS found on Z-Nodes and up-
coming SUS #7). Turbo Modula-2 provides a far more efficient production-code
development environment than does Turbo Pascal, or any other high-level
language we know of, mainly because of Borland's two-way interactive editor
and compiler, and because of "modular" character of Modula-2. Runs on Z80-
and CP/M-compatible computers. Priced presently at only $69.95, comes with
huge, 552-page, bound instruction book, published jointly by Micromint and
Echelon. Item 30 on Echelon's latest Price List. Because of heft of
instruction and reference book, we charge $6.00 shipping and handling for
continental USA; elsewhere, actual postal charges plus $2.00 handling.
Shipping date stands at 5 December 1986. Order now, upgrade from your Pascal
v2.0 or v3.0. You will not be sorry...lunch is over.
====================================================================
Of Angels and Eagles. Turkeytime...we give thanks for blessings of physical,
mental, and emotional health, for being able to sleep, for power of curiosity,
of progressive levels of fulfillment and continuous periodic joy, for
friendship, for loving and being loved...
This is our STORY, this is our Song...
Give pleasure just by BEING. Never let yesterday use up today.
Remember yesterday, dream about tomorrow, but LIVE today.
"For everything there IS a time and a season."
NOW is only a moment in Eternity's flow,
but it's the ONLY one we ever own.
This is our SONG!
Now, off to tune our lute, serenade Magdalena, sip Zinfandel...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): 415/489-9005
Z-News 605 is Copyright MCMLXXXVI Echelon, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Permission to reprint, wholly or partially, automatically granted if source
credit is given to Echelon.
ghts Reserved.
Permission to reprint, wholly or partially, automatically gra
