cg@myrias.UUCP (Chris Gray) (09/04/86)
Greetings fellow CP/M'ers. I have over a Megabyte of new CP/M software that I would like to get out in the world as shareware. It was originally intended to be a commercial product, but I think the time has passed for that. What I want to know is how to go about doing it. Posting it to the net might raise just a few hackles, so I'm reluctant to do that. Also, spending a few hundred dollars to ship it to a BBS a thousand or so miles away doesn't sound attractive. (I'm physically in Edmonton, Alberta - home of West Edmonton Mall.) What I have to give away is a full programming language system. The language, called Draco (pronounced Drayko), has been in use for a couple of years now, so the compiler is fairly stable, as are the other utilities. The compiler compiles at about 1500 lines per minute (5 MHz 8085) directly to relocatable object files. The linker is similarly capable. Code produced is about on par with the best produced by any C or Pascal compiler I've heard of. As an example, the compiler itself is about 10000 lines. It compiles on a single 8" floppy in under 10 minutes, yielding about 40K of code. For small programs, under 100 lines, the time to load the compiler is easily the dominant factor. All of the tools are easy to use, and fit well into CP/M. Again, as an example, to build the compiler from scratch, I just type draco dr* link dr1 dr2 dr3 dr4 dr5 dr6 dr7 dr8 dr9 -sodraco (I built file patterns into the compiler, but not the linker - sigh.) The entire package includes fairly complete documentation on everything, a few thousand lines of sample sources (including a CRT-oriented adventure game system needing only a scenario), and several utilities. Major programs: draco.com - the compiler itself link.com - the linker drlib.com - the library builder ddis.com - the disassembler das.com - a simple, one-pass assembler xref.com - call cross referencer trrun.lib - 8080 version of run-time library (quite comprehensive) trcpm.lib - CP/M-80 interface stubs crt.lib - terminal independent CRT I/O library (facilities vary from simple cursor addressing up through on screen formatter, menu builder and forms input routines) config.com - program to configure .set programs to a given terminal config.dat - database of terminal definitions (from a termcap) ded.set - visual programming editor hedit.set - visual hex editor/viewer cmp.set - visual file comparer - several CRT oriented games. Some are trivial, but two are major entities in their own right. OK, so what should I do with this stuff? (Nasty comments can be directed to /dev/null.) I'm willing to package up one or two copies (takes 5 single sided single density disks) and send them to major sites (note that the stuff is SHAREWARE, not FREEWARE), but I do not want to get into distributing it myself - I figure I'm better off porting my compiler to the 68000 family. Chris Gray (...alberta!myrias!cg)