EI Z-NEWS 702 9 February 1987
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NUKEY. Z-Com author and Good-Neighbor Helper, Joe Wright, San Jose, CA,
produces NuKey, a greatly enhanced ZCPR3 keyboard redefiner package, Item 44
on our Price List. Loaded with LDR, like other segments, SYS.RCP, SYS.NDR,
RECORDER.IOP, etc., a total of six types, we have a valuable new tool to
automate our operations. Using I/O Package space of 1.5k-bytes, Z-Com, SB180,
and bootable-disk Kaypro and Morrow standard, NuKey doesn't use TPA space like
normal key redefiners do, permits CCP to be overwritten, and thus gains 2k-
bytes of TPA space. And NuKey has an extender key capability, i.e., a single
character is defined as an extender key, with any keypress following usable as
a "string" entry key. Therefore, entire keyboard may be used for stings and
commands you define. A redefined key can take on a length of up to 550
characters, or eleven keys of average 50 characters, 50 of average 11...
NuKey handles one, two, three, or more characters generated by function,
numeric pad, and editing keys; you can redefine them just like a single
character key. Mix the different types together, NuKey handles them all, up
to 15 characters each. Unique in the world of keyboard redefiners, we know of
no other key definition program that handles such function keys correctly.
At any time, a display of key values is available, keys can be redefined
and deleted, even from within an application or utility program, WordStar,
Vfiler, Term3, etc. New definitions are saved in a file which you name when
returning to ZCPR3/Z-System command line. nukey s fn.iop<cr> puts definitions
into file "fn.iop". ldr fn.iop<cr> puts IOP into memory.
Definition files are created, as many as you need, for each of your major
operations. As you move from directory to directory with CD, Change
Directory, utility, standard ST alias loads the appropriate NuKey IOP, and
optionally a new NDR segment and other commands to set-up directory environ-
ment. Of course, you can load NuKey IOP's from any command line, e.g., ldr
nukey.iop<cr> does it for default IOP.
We use back-apostrophe, "`", for our EXTend character, and backslash,
"\", for our DEFine key. Neither character is used by programs we use. (But
such is not necessarily true for you.) These two keys must be defined for
NuKey to perform its many tricks. Select any two from your CRT keyboard.
NuKey auto-installs and comes with a ZCPR3 structured 19k-byte online HLP
file. Works from command line, from within WordStar, Newword, and other
programs.
NuKey, priced $39.95 alone, bundled with similarly priced B/Printer and
I/O Recorder is effectively only $29.98, package total of $89.95. Item 45
trio saves $29.90 over getting each program singularly. More good news:
existing users of PKey can upgrade to NuKey for customary $20.00 plus shipping
and handling costs.
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From Our Mail Box. "Zinfandel and Zydeco tacos for breakfast! I've got the
Z-System in my blood too--but not that much," writes Ed Dowdell, Massapequa,
NY. Ed, we admit to having abnormal break-fast habits, but after working all
night there's nothing like a sit-down fancy, something different, shared with
someone. President of 1200-member Long Island Computer Association, Ed
describes his computing system, SDS SBC-100 and SB180 with Chinon drives, as
he renews his newsletter subscription and orders Z80 Turbo Modula-2. If
interested in joining LICA or in Ed's hardware, call 516/249-9308 between 7
and 10 PM Eastern time. Have a good year, Ed.
"I am impressed by Z-Catalog which is well written and attractive in its
emphasis to a non-hacker like myself...[it is] an eye-opener...and Z-System
User's Guide is a gem for power users," declares Paul Naitoh, San Diego, CA.
James Bottom, Salem, OR, writes, "I just finished reading the new catalog
cover to cover. I know of no other mail order piece I've done that with!
It's as much a tutorial as a sales piece, and I think that's what held my
interest. Congratulations."
Lester Welch, Hinsdale, IL, thought Turbo Modula-2 package had a bug in
it because it wouldn't correctly compile TICKTOCK.MOD as shown on page 455 of
User's Guide. Well, it turns out the program listing is in error (ole bug-in-
the-book syndrome). Corrected program (TickTock, basis for program multi-
tasking) is below and on Z-Nodes. Thanks go to .lh 6
Lester for pointing to something wrong--it's fixed now.
MODULE TickTock;
FROM SYSTEM IMPORT
ADR, NEWPROCESS, TRANSFER, ADDRESS, PROCESS, WORD; (* additional ADR *)
VAR
tickProcess, tockProcess, main: PROCESS;
tickWork, tockWork: ARRAY[0..99] OF WORD; (* pointers no longer used *)
PROCEDURE tick;
BEGIN
WRITELN('tick');
TRANSFER(tickProcess,tockProcess);
END tick; (* original program had a small error here, also *)
PROCEDURE tock;
BEGIN
WRITELN('tock');
TRANSFER(tockProcess,tickProcess);
END tock;
BEGIN
NEWPROCESS(tick,ADR(tickWork),SIZE(tickWork),tickProcess);
NEWPROCESS(tock,ADR(tockWork),SIZE(tockWork),tockProcess);
TRANSFER(main,tickProcess);
END TickTock.
"The last couple of years has been hard on many software companies. I
believe that this shakeout, though difficult, is good for the industry in the
long run. Our own strategy in this period has been: be cautious about trying
new advertising, and provide good service and new products for existing
customers. That is the strategy that we will continue to follow. We will
concentrate our efforts on developing new products and selling them to you,
our existing customers. I thank you for your support this year. I wish you
happy holidays." Sincerely, James River, Minneapolis, MN (Z-News 608-1). You
know, that's also our business policy...always has been. Customers, service,
quality.
Stan Bercovitch, North Fort Myers, FL, sends us his four perception
levels of computer people. "1) hacker, definition as given in Z-News 006-3.
2) Mayvin, now accepted in English, but really a Yiddish word derived from
Hebrew. The Hebrew word Mayvin means 'someone who understands.' Yiddish
expanded on that to include an expert, but even more than an expert, 'one who
knows and understands almost instinctively' (the word can also be used
sarcastically 'What makes you a mayvin?'). To me, the computer mayvin is the
one who loads a new piece of software and without benefit of documentation
knows instinctively what the program does and how to use it. 3) Chipper,
partial definition in Z-News 605-1, has enough interest and perseverance to
really try to learn a program, is willing to experiment [not fearing
mistakes], has the tenacity to interpret and translate documentation into
English, and [one] who attempts to make software and operating systems do all
the things they are supposed to do (or even things no one has thought of yet).
He does not have the talent or genius to be a hacker. And 4) average computer
user. This latter is the person who 'uses a computer' for speed and
convenience. He learns and gets help in learning the basics of one or two
programs and sees no need to go much farther than that. Some (make that many)
would like to know more (hence computer user groups) but need to be led, and
shown each step of anything new, one item at a time." That's it. And here we
see why we have such trouble dealing with each other--we are not the same, but
are from different levels of knowledge and understanding, even from different
levels of being. So be it! Communications--let's work on freely being able
to move from one level to another--that's what it's all about. So be it!
Z-User's Corner. John T. Brown's JB-VFCMD.LBR package (Z-News 608-1)
contains many useful automation examples applicable to your computer environ-
ment. Print-out the documentation, CMD, and VMN files. Spend about two hours
studying what John has done. Then think of ways they apply to your particular
situation. He takes time and writes explanations for his CMD and VMN files
and how they tie-in with custom aliases and ARUNZ. Let's go through one of
his more interesting nested command macros. On VFILER CMD menu we find
command F for Finding Files. VFILER CMD line is simple: "f!run findf". "run"
is ARUNZ renamed and "findf" is alias line in ALIAS.CMD script file. Line is
long:
findf cls;getvar fif file(s) to look for (e.g., *.doc):; <<
if xn find file(s) on specific drive;getvar gd which drive:; <<
resolve findf26 %gd:%fif;else;resolve findf26 %fif;fi;era ROOT:sh.var
"findf" is alias name in ALIAS.CMD and alias uses FINDF v2.6 utility, "cls"
clears display screen, "fif" is shell variable holding file mask you entered
to control search, and in same vein, "gd" for specific drive, if not all, to
search--both variables held in standard, auto-created ZCPR3 "sh.var" file in
ROOT: directory. "if" should be v1.3 or 1.4. "xn" is extended "input."
Dialog prompts:
FILE(S) TO LOOK FOR (E.G., *.DOC): you enter file mask
FIND FILE(S) ON SPECIFIC DRIVE (Y/N)? answer y or n
WHICH DRIVE: if y, state drive
ARUNZ, accessing ALIAS.CMD script, reduces disk space required to hold
aliases. John's CMD script contains 28 macros, used for task automation. Ten
aliases are in ALIAS.CMD and two VMENU VMNs are used, i.e., called. These
scripts provide much food for further thought to nourish our community.
Complete documentation associated with John's system, plus all public domain
files, are in JB-VFCMD.LBR on SUS #8 and on Z-Nodes.
If command line buffer overflows with too-lengthy alias script, three
things can be done. 1) shorten text prompts, 2) rename utility files to two-
letters, e.g., FINDF becomes FF, GETVAR goes to GV, etc., and 3) break alias
into parts by one alias calling another, e.g., "findf" above can have first
line as an alias calling next two lines as a nested alias. (A fourth option,
for chippers and hackers only, increases CLB to 250 characters by re-
generating ZCPR3 buffer allocation in your BIOS.)
Documentation and wonderful tutorial in VLIB.LBR (also on SUS #8 and on
Z-Nodes) shows how to create nested, recursive aliases using Jay Sage's
VALIAS.
Hot Tip for Users of Newword
----------------------------
Many state "Newword cannot output formatted text to a file,
like WordStar can." But NW can! Using the PRVIEW printer
driver, formatted text is sent to default file PREVIEW.NW.
Control codes are retained to control printer if file is later
printed. Correctly handles paging. Install NW for your prin-
ter but keep the PRVIEW driver, using NWPRMAKE.COM, as one of
the "printers" you use. Then when at "Opening Menu", enter P
followed by file name to "print", or ^R if file is the one you
were editing. Enter five (5) more <cr>'s at NW prompts to get
to "Name of printer?" prompt. NW shows available printer
drivers at bottom of screen. Now, type-in PRVIEW<cr> to send
file fully formatted to PREVIEW.NW file that is auto-created
by NW. After transfer, appropriately rename this file.
-----------------------------------
An aside. Using Z80 CRUNCH (GEL 2.3) takes 21 seconds to crunch a 195-
record file, 8080-coded FCRUNCH takes 32 seconds. Quickness may not be
entirely due to Z80 versus 8080 assembly language code--we don't know; none-
theless, Z80 version is over 30% faster.
In Santa Monica, CA, Bridger Mitchell, author of JetFind, spends time
developing fastest Sieve of Eratosthenes assembly language routine yet.
Called JetPrime, it finds prime numbers faster than anything we have yet seen.
On our Z80 Ampro, run time is 4.1 seconds. Best mark previously was 6.6
seconds from SIEVEZ80.COM. Find Z80 ZAS version of JetPrime source and COM
files in JPRIME.LBR on Z-Nodes everywhere (and on SUS #9).
Word Counting Utilities. WC is the utility distributed with The Word Plus
spelling check and correction program. ZWC is on disk #1 from ZSIG, NAOG's
public domain library (Z-News 701-1). And WCLCCC is on SUS #2 as WC.COM.
Benchmarking these three "word counting" programs on a short, 24k-bytes, 174-
record text file produced this result:
Program Time, seconds Word Count
WC, Oasis Systems 10.96 3,024
ZWC, ZSIG Disk #1 9.77 3,067
WCLCCC, C/80 C Program 18.01 3,060
Both WC and ZWC quickly count words in but a single file. WCLCCC does more,
but not as quickly. Here's a command line followed by the screen display:
The C/80 WCLCCC not only counts words, but also lines and characters, and
does it for filelists, using spaces as file name delimiters instead of commas,
and wild card (* and ?) file names. It puts resultant data in a neat sorted
table. It is also slow, but not that slow, C/80 being overall the fastest
high-level language we have tested.
Each program has a slightly different criteria for defining a "word."
That's why count ranged from 3,024 to 3,067. Our WCLCCC counts hyphenated
words appearing at end of lines as two words, i.e., newlines are word
demarcations, along with spaces and tabs. Measurements were made using
an electronic timer, all files called from Z-System command line. Text file
was on default directory, but word-count programs were in COMMAND.LBR called
as aliases from ALIAS.CMD with ARUNZ renamed to CMDRUN (technique of Z-
News 701-3). For test, we used one of our Ampro SCSI hard disk 4mHz Z80
machines.
Those using C/80 compiler from Software Toolworks, Z-News 605-1/306-1,
should look into video screen handling routines produced by Edward Schram,
Norfolk, VA. Library file CVIDLIB.LBR contains them all. On Z-Nodes and on
upcoming SUS #9. Hope someone does the same thing for Turbo Modula-2. And
who is first to write WC in Turbo Modula-2? (Steve Cohen, Glenn Brooke, are
you ready to go to work? If so, while at it, please add a 4th column,
Records, and include an internal exclude table to ignore binary files.)
SUS Report. We are overrunning ourselves with Software Update Service
diskettes. We promised an average of nine (9) per year. Well, in less than
five months we have had seven (7). (SUS #9 has already begun filling. New
submissions by Rick Charnes, Edward Schram, and Terry Smythe are welcomed and
worthwhile.) Here's what #8 looks like as we get ready to ship it to
subscribers.
Filename.Typ Size K RS Filename.Typ Size K RS Filename.Typ Size K RS
-------- --- ------ -- -------- --- ------ -- -------- --- ------ --
-SUS .008 0 R CRUNCH23.LBR 94 JB-VFCMD.LBR 34
M2SIEVE .LBR 18 TCVIEW .LBR 6 TLF2 .LBR 10
TLIB .LBR 14 VMENU25 .LBR 74
8 Files Using 250k, 8 Files on Disk and 136k Left
M2SIEVE files are Turbo Modula-2 Sieve of Eratosthenes source and executable
COM file we used for benchmarking, as reported in Z-News 607 and 608. TLIB is
greatly enhanced "type library files," with TLF2 a variation. CRUNCH23 is
latest released CRUNCH and UNCR from Steven Greenberg. VMENU25 is an official
update. TCVIEW, created by Jay Roumman, is new Z-System utility to show TCAP
data, either in memory (loaded as part of SYS.ENV) or from Z3T files. We
fully support this utility and thank Jay for thinking of and providing it.
Now, here's where we stand with Software Update Service diskette #9.
Filename.Typ Size K RS Filename.Typ Size K RS Filename.Typ Size K RS
-------- --- ------ -- -------- --- ------ -- -------- --- ------ --
-SUS .009 0 R CRC22 .LBR 16 CVIDLIB .LBR 30
HD-ARC2 .LBR 40 JETPRIME.COM 2 JETPRIME.Z80 4
PDGUID02.LBR 14 SHUTILS2.LBR 22 Z3VARS .LBR 18
10 Files Using 146k, 10 Files on Disk and 240k Left
If you cannot economically download files from Z-Nodes, SUS is your
bridge to software updates. SUS is Item 18b on Price List of Z-Catalog,
$85.00 per year, North American mailing (see Z-News 506-4 for bridge, 507-1
for table of services).
Software Beat. Newword, v2.18, the latest for Z80s, plus The Word Plus, is
available from Analytical Products, our bootable-disk Z-System supplier for
Heath/Zenith H/Z89/90 machines, even hard sector. Wordprocessor and spelling
check/correction combination is only $145.00. To place order, contact Peter
Shkabara, 213 Teri Sue Lane, Buellton, CA 93427, telephone 805/688-0826. He
takes checks, Visa/MC credit cards, and CODs.
Presently we use PropStar from Civil Computing Corp., 2111 Research
Drive, Suite #1, Livermore, CA 94550, 415/455-8086 (Z-News 304-2), for print-
ing proportionally spaced fonts and flush-left/right line margins, and numbers
in columns (see "Word Counting Utilities" paragraph above). Directly handles
all WordStar "dot" commands except headers, footers, and page numbering.
Version 2.0d is priced $79.95, upgrade from earlier versions is $30.00. Other
options soon become available for controlling modern precision printers and
typesetters. These include TypeFit and PrintStar (aka Headliner and other
names). Both produce good-looking text. More from us as software nears
completion, exits beta testing.
Managing many text files on big disk systems where you can't remember
where something is is make easy by text search software. Here's where
JetFind, written by Bridger Mitchell, can be a big help, in first finding what
you want and then, optionally, automatically placing it in a file, telling
where it came from. File is used to hold text later read-into wordprocessor
documents. JetFind locates text, 2 to 6 times faster than other string search
programs, in multiple filelists crossing directories. JetFind is available
from Echelon for Z80/HD64180 CP/M and Z-System machines for $39.95, plus $4.00
shipping and handling, continental USA and Canada.
In Other Words. USA collectively is personified by dear President Ronald
Reagan. But what is he, what are we? Do we see through surface, past skin,
to bone? Or are we a land of "surface" people! Global leaders we are, but
how long is it so? Where is discipline, our yoke for truth, at any price?
Truth IS! Only it washes. Try it and SEE.
There's no scarcity of the good things if we live in the present--waste
not mental energy. Past and future are pure abstraction, now is whole!
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Of Angels and Eagles. The junction, i.e., the tension-point of past mental
energy and future mental energy, is the present. One energy cannot exist
without the other two. Reality of the present comes from essence of both the
past and the future. Present is substance concrete, other two much more
abstract. Clearly we deal with gossamer principles, very light and quick--
ones governed by few laws--that are free! 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 702 is Copyright MCMLXXXVII Echelon, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Permission to reprint, wholly or partially, automatically granted if source
credit is given to Echelon.
