friedman@topaz.ARPA (echo "Hello") (04/16/85)
I heared that the StarCard CP/M card that can be bought with
Wordstar is really a PCPI 6mhz card. If this is true,
does any one know if it comes with the CP/M utilities and
manuals?.
I saw a place advertising it for ~$150....
-Gadi
friedman@Ru-Topaz.Arpa
topaz!friedmanma3751az@unm-cvax.UUCP (04/19/85)
> I heared that the StarCard CP/M card that can be bought with > Wordstar is really a PCPI 6mhz card. If this is true, > does any one know if it comes with the CP/M utilities and > manuals?. > > I saw a place advertising it for ~$150.... > *** MASSAGE THIS LINE WITH YOUR PLACE *** Yeah, the PCPI 'starcard' is one of the best CP/M cards available on the apple. I got it for ~ $185 and thought it was a steal. If you see it lower, GET IT! It comes with CP/M primer, Wordstar 3.3 + manual, CP/M system disk which includes drivers for 80 col cards or 70 col hi-res (goes slow, but works). The card itself is fast. It also comes with the starcard manual which explains all you need except for one of the drivers. ( I still can't figure out what RAMDISK.DVR is used for. Maybe for the 256K Add-on ramdisk you can install...) The WS manual is geared for using the PCPI card, too. You have your basic cp/m utilities: stat, submit, etc. & one called adosxfer which transfers files back and forth between dos 3.3 and cp/m. There is also a file called dosrdsk or something, which, when transferred to dos 3.3, can make the extra 64K on the starcard emulate a ramdisk. When you're using the card, you can change the apple memory into a printer buffer (35K or so!) I have used my card for about 3 weeks now (I only have 1 drive and am in pain...you really need 2 ++). I do recommend it to *anyone* with a //e who wants cp/m. I've used cp/m 3.0 before, but the novelty of cp/m on an apple makes me forget the problems of cp/m 2.2 . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan "leach" Chakerian CIS 74365,231 {convex,ucbvax,gatech,csu-cs,anl-mcs,lanl-a}!unmvax!unm-cvax!ma3751az
rbt@sftig.UUCP (R.Thomas) (04/19/85)
> I heard that the StarCard CP/M card that can be bought with > Wordstar is really a PCPI 6mhz card. If this is true, > does any one know if it comes with the CP/M utilities and > manuals?. > > I saw a place advertising it for ~$150.... > > -Gadi > friedman@Ru-Topaz.Arpa > topaz!friedman Yep! It is just that. The manuals that come with it are abominable. However, there is a 50 dollar 'developers manual' available from PCPI. I ordered one yesterday. I'll post more info after I have looked at the it. I'm told that the Applicard/Starcard will not run Microsoft basic (either Mbasic or Gbasic) but have heard rumors that PCPI will sell a patch to basic (one or the other or both??? Anybody know for sure?) that solves the problem. The Starcard comes with one 'flippy' disk with CPM and the basic cpm utilities on it (PIP, STAT, ED, etc. but not Basic). Rick Thomas {ihnp4, akgua, just about anywhere}!attunix!rbt PS -- I have also heard rumors that PCPI is 'going big blue' and is not interested in pushing their Apple products anymore. Could this explain the low price for the Starcard?