Creating a newsletter from a LBR file, or 1001 ways to beat a
computer with a wet noodle.
by Eric Palm
Here is my excursion into CP/M with the Atari ST and the
public domain file "CPMZ80.TOS". TOS is the Atari equivalent of a
CP/M COM file. COM files can't be loaded into the native Atari
system without the CPMZ80.TOS program running. It's a nifty
little emulator, running at a clocked 1 mhz, and taking up only
32K ram out of the computers memory. That's not much considering
I'm using a 2 megabyte system. The emulator gives you a full 64K
TPA. My only complaint is that you can't load Z-System. That's
for another column I may right in the future.
Well, back to the newsletter creation this column is all
about. Well my first task is to download from a CP/M BBS, such as
the editors Z-Node (#12). I then re-boot my computer and select
and configure a 360K ramdisk. I then double click onto my Z80CPM
emulator from the desktop (which is the GEM standard desktop). And
insert my utilities disc with my copy of NULU.COM, SCOPY.COM,
UNCR.COM, TOSCPM.COM, and CPMTOS.COM.
Step one from the CP/M perspective is to SCOPY file by file
the formentioned utility programs of my utility disc to the blank
disc. I then execute TOSCPM G:filename.lbr a:. It tells me to
insert the source and destination discs at the correct times and
now I have a CP/M disc with all the files I'll need for that
session.
This next part is common to all CP/M users who have any
experience using a modem (as most of you know), it can be a pain
to transfer at 1200 baud, so by all means upgrade to 2400 baud if
you haven't already. NULU is used to extract the *.TZT files from
the LBR file. The next steop is to UNCR each file using an
unambiguous filename. EX: UNCR *.?z? extracts 6 files from the
LBR.
Last and definitely not least is to transfer to a TOS/MSDOS
disk file by file the TXT files that were UNCR from the LBR file
using CPMTOS A:*.txt G:.
I exited the emulator with the CPM command EXIT and return
to GEM. I then load up a desktop publishing program called
CALAMUS and thereby go on to create the window for the columns and
import the text files. Doing any text manipulation that may need
to be done to spice up the document (nothing to effect the
original documents, just touching up a little.). Last step is to
Laser print the document to 14 single sided sheet of 8 1/2" x 11"
paper and send it to Lee for Photostating.
